Jaws (fandom)

Fandom
Name:	Jaws
Abbreviation(s):
Creator:	Peter Benchley (novel); Steven Spielberg, Jeannot Szwarc, Joe Alves, Joseph Sargent (directors)
Date(s):	1974 (novel); 1975, 1978, 1983, 1987 (films)
Medium:	novel, film series
Country of Origin:	United States
External Links:	Jaws (franchise) at Wikipedia
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Jaws is a 1974 novel about a killer shark, adapted into an enormously popular 1975 film. The film spawned three sequels: Jaws 2 (1978), Jaws 3-D (1983), and Jaws: The Revenge (1987). The first two films star Roy Scheider as Police Chief Martin Brody, and the third and fourth films focus on Brody's adult children and his widow Ellen after his death, respectively. The final film ignores the events of the third film. Not counting for inflation, Jaws was the first film to break the $100 million barrier at the box office. Combined with Star Wars: A New Hope two years later, Jaws changed movie history by inventing a whole new genre, the Summer Blockbuster.

The first film is the most popular with critics and fans alike. Some fanworks incorporate elements from the novel, but the film's changes to the novel are usually preferred to the original version (particularly eliminating Hooper and Ellen's affair and sparing Hooper's life). The most common pairing is Brody/Hooper. One fan writes:

I’ve written gay Jaws fanfiction. That’s right. I believe Brody likes Hooper but then Quint comes along and Hooper goes head over heels for him and Brody gets a lil jealous. But that’s okay because the shark SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT, kills Quint because the shark is like me and totally ships Brody and Hooper. Hoody. Or Brooper. I ship it. Though I’m not opposed to them all being in a polyamorous, asexual relationship, though.

--Sammi Curran, I Wrote Gay Jaws Fanfiction When I Was Ten, 25 April 2017

Gen works, stories involving original characters, and crossovers are also popular.

Connections with Other Fandoms

Back to the Future

In Back to the Future Part II, there is an advertisement for "Jaws 19". For Back to the Future's thirtieth anniversary in 2015, Universal made a trailer for the fictional movie, which establishes the plots of Jaws 5 through Jaws 19. See Jaws 19 at Futurepedia.

Welcome to Night Vale

In Welcome to Night Vale, Cecil canonically writes Jaws slash fic, as established in "Old Oak Doors Part A" (15 June 2014).

Example fanworks inspired by this include:

• Jaws by Simply-Psycho (Jul 2014), fanart
• A Story That is Not About a Shark by GretaRama (Apr 2015)
• A Taste For Blood Unites The Hearts and Blood Is Sweet (But You're Sweeter) by icyowl97 (Jun 2014), featuring the Jaws/Bambi crack pairing

Example Fanworks

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

Links & Resources

• Jaws (Movies) and Jaws - Peter Benchley at Archive of Our Own
• Movies > Jaws at FanFiction.Net
• ohmyjaws, a LiveJournal community