More random musings but I’m starting to think the whole “fiction affects reality” is one big con game to prevent people from looking deeper and seeing/solving the real systemic and institutional issues.
Like for example the whole Jaws Effect myth where a 40+ year old movie is blamed for the death of millions of sharks a year. Spoken of so matter of factly and with the implication that before Jaws people had no thoughts or fear of sharks before then, and as if sharks weren’t hunted by the millions before Jaws was even a glimmer of an idea in the author’s head(let alone greenlit to become a movie)
People who so confidently cite “The Jaws Effect” as proof that “fiction impacts reality” never seem to ever be aware of real life events that inspired Jaws and some of it’s characters
https://www.history.com/news/the-real-life-jaws-that-terrorized-the-jersey-shore (most cited inspiration)
https://historydaily.org/black-december-sharks-attacks-bomb-ocean(I suspect these attacks might also have been an influence on the story)
They’re not aware of various books, news stories, and documentaries that all paint sharks as vicious predators(the term shark infested waters was around long before Jaws came around)
https://www.amazon.com/Shark-Attack-Victor-Coppleson/dp/0207153507 (first published in 1958, a supposedly scientific book that popularized the rogue shark myth central to Jaws, and convinced people to change the term of shark accident to shark attack)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXBWW7ecdzw&t=181s The shark menace
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/150-years/sd-me-150-years-june-15-htmlstory.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLd359WJZQ4 Tv spot for the non-fiction documentary Blue Water, White Death9also titled Man-eater)
Even moving away from from non-fiction creating a aura of fear and suspscion around sharks there were killer shark featured in movies before Jaws
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzxeYrmyr7k 1950 movie called Killer Shark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyDGRZE6Jp0 1965 James Ball scene feature a shark pool
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pEvib3iJWw (movie has multiple titles of Shark!, Caine, and Man-eater) released 1969 and a piece of gruesome trivia a stuntman was killed by a shark during the making of this movie.
So yeah people did not have a very good opinion of sharks before Jaws was created. The real kicker is that none of those things I listed are why sharks are hunted as much as they are. Nope that’s all down to good old human greed and capitalism.
Shark and ray fishing is a multi-billion dollar industry https://fishgame.com/2021/09/shark-ray-meat-a-2-6-billion-trade/
https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/46967/100-million-dead-sharks-its-not-all-about-shark-fin-soup/ The most commonly cited reason for shark fishing in shark fin soup, but shark meat in general is sold and eaten. Cartliage from sharks is used in various supplement, and squalane(made from oil in the shark liver is used in cosmetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squalane) Shark meat has even been found in pet food https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/endangered-shark-meat-might-be-hiding-in-your-pets-food-180979682/
Blaming Jaws for the death of millions of sharks every year is just a lazy way to avoid taking a long hard look at their own action/purchases and never need to question if they might possibly be fueling the demand for dead sharks.
But do the people who quote the Jaws effect as their proof and justification of “fiction effects reality” know or care about any of that. No of course not. Do they care probably not. Because at the end of the day “Fiction impacts Reality” is the same as the claim of “pro-life” from republicans. It’s a piece of leverage that they use to justify being able to tell you what to do. It’s a club to beat you over the head with. Because antis are really just the conservatives of fandom, everything they say and do is about them having power and no accountability.