Shark Week was started by the Discovery Channel in 1988. It usually starts sometime in July, and features an entire week of shark-themed programming. It is a time of the year that, as the title of this post should make clear, I have some mixed feelings about.
The modern age of shark media started with Steven Spielberg's hit movie, Jaws, based on a book of the same name by Peter Benchley. While the movie and the marketing around it jumpstarted a new wave of fascination for sharks, the consensus today is that it did far more harm than good. People became more fearful of sharks, and shark hunting and culling increased after the film was released. Both Spielberg and Benchley regret directing/writing Jaws, and Benchley has spent the past few decades as an activist trying to undo the negative impression that Jaws perpetuated towards sharks, saying that if he'd written the book knowing what he knows now, he would've made the shark the victim of the story, with humanity being the enemy.
I've posted about humanity's treatment of sharks before. Humans kill over one hundred million sharks a year, and sharks normally never kill more than a few people a year. Mosquitoes, cows, dogs, lions, hippos, elephants, and snails kill more people a year than sharks do, and yet they're not nearly as sensationalized or demonized as sharks are. Most shark attacks also come from just three species (great white, bull, and tiger) out of the over 500 species of sharks discovered and named by scientists.
Shark Week built its legacy on what Jaws did, and although some of the shows put on during Shark Week are genuinely good content created by people who care about sharks, much of it is just sensationalist fear-mongering nonsense and mindless entertainment.
This year, the Discovery Channel premiered specials with names such as "Bull Shark Dinner Bell", "Chum Island: Catching A Killer", "What Shark Attacked?", "Thresher Shark: Stun To Kill", and "Secrets Of The Great White Kill". This sensationalism isn't new (one of the most important shark documentaries ever released was called "Blue Water, White Death"); it marks another year of the Discovery Channel airing specials with names and themes that portray sharks as cold-blooded killers that purposefully attack and eat humans.
This couldn't be further from the truth. Most shark attacks occur when sharks mistake humans for one of their other prey species, or when sharks are curious and bite us in an attempt to see what we are.
The Discovery Channel has also been known to air asinine documentaries about sharks with absurd themes, including one this year about supposed hyper-aggressive mutant sharks, shows where people try to find the extinct megalodon, one about combining shark traits to create a theoretical "frankenshark", and perhaps the worst of all, "Great White Sex Battle".
I understand that Shark Week needs to attract attention from normal people in order to gain the viewership it does, but at some point it just starts to lose its dignity, and we begin to lose sight of what's important: sharks.
Sharks are an essential part of the ocean's ecosystem. As a keystone species, when the sharks start to go, everything else does too. We need to do more to protect sharks and their habitats and make sure that they can thrive.
National Geographic's month-long "Sharkfest", which is usually also in July, is way less sensationalized and does a far better job of centering sharks and the scientists that study them. The Discovery Channel could learn from them to create a new kind of Shark Week that's more respectful towards sharks.
Despite all of my criticism, I do still enjoy Shark Week. The Discovery Channel has used it to support and encourage viewers to support shark conservation, and many of the documentaries are reasonably good and well-made and feature real shark scientists. I also enjoy the fanfare around Shark Week. Many places have shark drinks, desserts, and other things to celebrate the occasion, which, as a shark enjoyer, makes me very happy.
So while I do celebrate Shark Week and look forward to it coming every year, I wish that the portrayal of sharks was more balanced and accurate, and that we stopped portraying these wonderful creatures as cold-blooded killers.
Posted by selachophilip