Something In The Water? Why we love shark films

Spielberg is not the only person concerned about Hollywood’s portrayal of sharks and the impact it continues to have.

US Marine biologist Andriana Fragola dedicates herself to educating people about sharks, often sharing videos of her diving with them.

She says they are “misunderstood predators” that have been harmed by movies and the media.

Andriana tells me that she has just watched Netflix’s new shark film, Under Paris, and was not impressed.

“Their whole thing was it’s about conservation, about studying them, but then the sharks are still eating people.

“So it’s giving a little bit more of a rounded education and a little bit more depth to the story, it’s not just people swimming at the beach and getting attacked and eaten. But the bottom line and what people can draw from the movie is that sharks are still really dangerous to people and they’re just gonna continuously hunt and eat people.

“If that was true, we would be reduced as a human species. Everyone who goes to the beach, they would be threatened.”

The director and co-writer of Under Paris, Xavier Gens, says he is also an environmentalist.

He told The Hollywood Reporter that, external while the danger in Jaws is the shark, he wanted to “highlight the perils of human greed” in his movie.

Andriana says the perception of sharks causes a real issue for conservation.

“It’s a huge problem because people don’t want to protect something that they’re scared of.

“The perception from people is that they’re dangerous to humans so we should eradicate them and that’s obviously a huge problem for conservation and getting people to want to empathize or sympathize with sharks and wanting to actually protect them.

“It’s unfortunate because 100 million sharks are killed every year, and globally sharks kill fewer than 10 people every year.

“We’re really focused on the sharks being the monsters and them being out to get us, in reality it’s the opposite.”

It is unlikely that Hollywood will stop making shark films, or we will stop watching them.

But the figures show that far from being the serial killers of the sea, sharks are actually much more likely to be the victims of humans.