When I first saw Jaws in the 1980s, I was probably about 9 or 10 years old, and I was plum terrified. I was terrified of the shark, obviously, but even more terrified of the water鈥攖he idea that the monster could be right underneath you or your boat, but you couldn鈥檛 access him or see him, because the depth of the water was so great, it obscured the sight of him. That idea, of a monster who could be anywhere, but whom you couldn鈥檛 see until it was too late, scared the hell out of me. Now, rewatching that film in 2026 for the first time in decades, I realize that that dynamic鈥攚here something monstrous could be anywhere around you, and where you know that it is somewhere around you, but you can鈥檛 see it until it鈥檚 too late鈥攕till terrifies me.
It resonates with how I felt reading CNN鈥檚 coverage of the rape academy in April. 62 million visits in one month to a site that trained men to sedate and sexually assault their girlfriends or wives: the monsters are everywhere, swimming all around us, simply blurred, or running too silent and deep in their monstrosity for us to see or swim away from until it鈥檚 way, way too late.
But the allegorical resonance of Jaws with what it feels like to live in modern western patriarchy as a woman鈥攖he monster is everywhere, yet too hard to spot to be able to protect against effectively鈥攚asn鈥檛 the most powerful aspect of rewatching this film. Instead, it was how the film explores masculinity, and, in particular, the possibility of profound friendship and nonsexual intimacy among men. Now, to be fair, I saw Project Hail Mary (2026) right before rewatching Jaws, so I was primed to focus on exactly this dynamic. (If you haven鈥檛 seen PHM, go see it immediately. Stop reading this post, put your coffee down, blow off work, and go see it. It is very possibly the most beautiful film鈥攁nd I mean that both aesthetically and emotionally鈥攖hat I鈥檝e seen this decade.) But I think that the reason I felt called to watch Jaws after I saw Project Hail Mary was that the latter (perfect, splendid, beautiful) film triggered a vague, shimmering memory in me that Jaws was interested in exploring male friendship.
So, everyone knows the main storyline of Jaws. There鈥檚 a beachside town called Amity鈥攚hich, I hasten to note, the mayor reminds us early on means 鈥渇riendship,鈥� so there鈥檚 a pretty loud shout-out to the importance of friendship in the film right there. Amity has a new and severe shark problem: there鈥檚 a Great White Shark attacking and killing people. The new police chief, Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), is forced to close down the beaches, and he goes on a desperate shark hunt with a devoted oceanographer named Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and a manic fisherman named Quint (Robert Shaw). Most of the action of the film happens in Quint鈥檚 small boat鈥攖he Orca鈥攐ut on the open water, as the three men attempt to kill the beast below.
Looping back for a second to my claim that this film is centrally concerned with variants of American masculinity, it鈥檚 worth noting that we鈥檝e got three major archetypes of maleness on board this vessel: we鈥檝e got the super masculine, rugged ship鈥檚 captain; we鈥檝e got the nerdy, highly educated and (as we find out about Hooper) extremely wealthy and elite scientist; we鈥檝e got the cautious, rational, measured, but also brave and protective police chief. Three traditional forms of masculinity: ruggedness, learnedness, and protectiveness. These three types must learn to work together to defeat the much larger, much more powerful, much older, and infinitely more rapacious Bad Boy who surges underneath them, threatening鈥攍iterally鈥攖o consume them. By itself, that would be a somewhat high-concept horror allegory for the 1970s.
But that鈥檚 not all.
Early on in these three men鈥檚 interactions, they are competitive with each other, critical, sparring. But over the course of the voyage, they forge a fascinating intimacy; the film, really, is a bromance, at its beating heart. The three-way bromance starts with Quint and Hooper鈥攚ho have the most animus against each other, because of their perception of educational and class differences between them鈥攚ho are sitting at a table in the boat鈥檚 cabin, and they start comparing scars and injuries that they鈥檝e incurred, primarily from hunting sharks. Hooper has a massive scar on his calf; so does Quint. They go back and forth, comparing; each one鈥檚 body echoes the other鈥檚, until they鈥檙e both smiling and lauging and鈥攊mportantly鈥攃uddled up intimately together on the bench. Their bodies wind up all but actually intertwined in this scene. And no one minds, no one flinches. It doesn鈥檛 read as an especially queer moment, either: just a moment of unthinking physical intimacy between men, the kind of intimacy that little boys engage in all the time, flopping into a pile underneath a jungle gym, or tackling each other playfully in the back of a school bus. This scene forces Quint to recognize that nerdy, bespectacled, wealthy Hooper might have more in common with him than he was ready to admit; it forces Hooper to recognize the same in reverse.
Later, on the same bench in the cabin, Hooper and Quint start singing together. They appear to know the same words to the same songs, and they sound oddly good singing together. After a while, even staunch, stoic Brody joins in, and the three men sit at a table, singing their hearts out and drumming out beats on the table with their hands. It is鈥攁nd here comes a word I almost never have occasion to use about a horror movie鈥攁dorable. Not nearly as adorable as Project Hail Mary, but there really is a similar vibe of initial skepticism being replaced by trust and closeness. So, yeah, Jaws is a bromance.
Nested into the bromance of Jaws is a very subtle and interesting secondary dynamic, which is that Quint wants to catch the whale himself, unaided by another boat, or by the Coast Guard; in fact, in one scene, when Brody tries to call the Coast Guard for back-up, Quint impetuously destroys the phone鈥攊nterestingly, he uses a baseball bat, a symbol of classic American boyhood and acceptable forms of male-male competitiveness. But Quint鈥檚 maverick ways, his desire to be the man who bests the beast is ultimately going to kill him. However many times he鈥攖he man with the harpoon gun鈥攍ands a harpoon in Jaws鈥� flanks, Jaws comes back, unfazed. Quint is insane, manic, megalomaniacal, and in the end, he winds up getting bitten in half brutally and dragged into the abyss by Jaws.
As many critics have noted, Quint is a modern-day figuration of Herman Meville鈥檚 Captain Ahab, from Moby Dick, chasing his own great, white sea creature, though this time it鈥檚 a fish and not great white whale. Like Ahab, Quint is ultimately killed by his obsession, by his manic need to be the one to kill the beast. He鈥檚 killed by his megalomania, by his maverick disposition. Ultimately, this kind of man, the manic captain archetype, is not saved by his bromantic allegiances with other men, because, in the end, his obsession to dominate and win and defeat the beast is all that he cares about. Indeed, in Jaws, Quint doesn鈥檛 just destroy the phone; he also destroys the boat engine, by knowingly pushing her too hard, too many times. No matter how Hooper and Brody try to rein him in, Quint can鈥檛 hold back his bursting need to prove his capacity to dominate the beast below.
So the film kills him.
Like I said: there鈥檚 a serious allegory going on in this film about versions of real, embodied, human masculinity, in relation to a lurking, monstrous, all-consuming version of masculinity that lies beneath. And in the end, the film decides that the Quintean model of masculinity isn鈥檛 the right one to defeat this beast. He鈥檚 too alpha. He鈥檚 too self-interested. He鈥檚 too hungry for power. He鈥檚 too domineering. He鈥檚 too bloodthirsty. He is too similar, in a word, to the beast itself to be able to defeat it.
But the film does offer up a vision of masculinity that can defeat the churning beast below. Late in the film, Hooper decides to lower himself into the water in a shark cage, so he can dose the shark with a drug that will sedate and maybe even kill him. While down there, Jaws destroys the cage, and Hooper barely escapes with his life, swimming in his SCUBA gear down to a hiding place at the bottom where Jaws can鈥檛 see him or reach him. Brody is horrified when the cage comes up to see that it鈥檚 broken open; he assumes the worst about his new, nerdy friend. Scheider plays the scene subtly, and very well: he doesn鈥檛 talk about Cooper鈥檚 presumed demise, but you see Brody鈥檚 jaw lock, and you know that now, for him, getting the beast is partially about getting justice for his friend.
Brody, alone on the sinking boat, eventually kills Jaws by throwing a tank of compressed air into his mouth and shooting a gun at it so that the tank explodes, exploding Jaws with it. I love this choice, for two reasons. First, because the compressed air tank had been something Hooper had brought along, so Brody鈥檚 choice suggests he has internalized or taken on boardsome of Hooper鈥檚 more nerdy, scientific maleness. He can鈥檛 kill Jaws with a gun, any more than Quint had been able to kill him with harpoons; he needs to combine his skill (shooting) with Hooper鈥檚 skill (science and planning). Second, I love the air-tank slaying of the beast, because Brody realized that you can only kill the beast from the inside. You have to get inside the monstrosity, really deep inside it, in order to exploit its vulnerabilities and take it down.
To me, this offers rather a fascinating resonance with the kind of reporting that CNN has been doing about the rape academy website: you have to get in there to begin to dismantle the horrific monsters that lurk everywhere, just below what people鈥攁nd mainly women鈥攃an actually see and defend against. You can鈥檛 hit it from the outside; you have to blow that shit up from the inside.
Better still, if you do manage to blow the fucking beast up from the inside, it creates not only safety for the women and children 鈥渂ack on shore,鈥� but also a space for men鈥攊n this case, the rationalist, protective police chief and the elite nerd scientist鈥攖o forge new, stabler, and healthier alliances. Alliances in which they can take pleasure and pride. In fact, the last scene of Jaws shows Brody and Hooper paddling back to shore together, suspended on a blank that connects two floating barrels together. Brody asks if they鈥檒l be able to swim back on it all the way, and Hooper instructs him to keep kicking. Neither is going to make it on his own; they have to be in close physical proximity, supporting each other and working together, in order to make it back to land, to a hero鈥檚 welcome. And, even more interesting, this final shot of them from behind, kicking to get back to shore, is mirthful, light, and happy. They crack jokes, and you can hear the smiles on their faces. Not only have they slaughtered the beast from the inside, they have come back to Amity, truly, as friends.
This is essay is adapted from a piece that originally published on .
Eleanor Johnson is professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University. Her books include Scream with Me: Horror Films and the Rise of American Feminism (1968鈥�1980); Waste and the Wasters: Poetry and Ecosystemic Thought in Medieval England; Staging Contemplation: Participatory Theology in Middle English Prose, Verse, and Drama; and Practicing Literary Theory in the Middle Ages: Ethics and the Mixed Form in Chaucer, Gower, Usk, and Hoccleve.