Jersey Shore Shark Attacks of 1916 - Cultural Impact

Cultural Impact

Cartoon commenting on a Victorian era bathing suit and its ability to frighten sharks

While sharks had been seen as harmless, the pendulum of public opinion quickly swung to the other extreme, and sharks quickly came to be viewed not only as eating machines, but also as fearless, ruthless killers.

After the first attack, newspaper cartoonists began using sharks as caricatures for political figures, German U-boats, Victorian morality and fashion, polio, and the deadly heat wave threatening the Northeast. Fernicola notes, "Since 1916 was among the years that Americans were trying to break away from the rigidity and conservatism of the Victorian period, one comic depicted a risqué polka-dot bathing suit and advertised it as the secret weapon to keep sharks away from our swimmers." Another cartoon depicted "an exasperated individual at the end of a dock that displays a DANGER: NO SWIMMING sign and mentions the three most emphasized 'danger' topics of the day: 'Infantile Paralysis (polio), Epidemic Heat Wave, and Sharks in the Ocean'." The cartoon is entitled "What's a Family Man to Do?" With America's growing distrust of Germany in 1916, cartoonists depicted U-boats with the mouth and fins of a shark assaulting Uncle Sam while he wades in the water.

In 1974, writer Peter Benchley published Jaws, a novel about a rogue great white shark that terrorizes the fictional coastal community of Amity Island. Chief of police Martin Brody, biologist Matt Hooper, and fisherman Quint hunt the shark after it kills four people. The novel was adapted as the film Jaws by Steven Spielberg in 1975. Spielberg's film makes reference to the attacks: Brody (Roy Scheider) and Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) urge Amity's Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) to close the beaches on the Fourth of July after the deaths of two swimmers and a fisherman. Hooper explains to the mayor, "Look, the situation is that apparently a great white shark has staked a claim in the waters off Amity Island. And he's going to continue to feed here as long as there is food in the water." Brody adds, "And there's no limit to what he's gonna do! I mean we've already had three incidents, two people killed inside of a week. And it's gonna happen again, it happened before! The Jersey beach! ... 1916! Five people chewed up on the surf!" Richard Ellis, Richard Fernicola, and Michael Capuzzo suggest that the 1916 Jersey Shore attacks, Coppleson's rogue shark theory, and the exploits of New York fisherman Frank Mundus inspired Benchley. The attacks are also briefly referred to in Benchley's novel White Shark (1994).

The 1916 attacks are the subject of three studies: Richard G. Fernicola's In Search of the "Jersey Man-Eater" (1987) and Twelve Days of Terror (2001) and Michael Capuzzo's Close to Shore (2001). Capuzzo offers an in-depth dramatization of the incident, and Fernicola examines the scientific, medical, and social aspects of the attacks. Fernicola's research is the basis of an episode of the History Channel's documentary series In Search of History titled "Shark Attack 1916" (2001) and the Discovery Channel's docudrama 12 Days of Terror (2004). Fernicola also wrote and directed a 90-minute documentary called Tracking the Jersey Man-Eater. It was produced by the George Marine Library in 1991; however, it was never widely released.

In 2008, Shore Thing, a short fictional film inspired by the attacks, directed by Lovari and James Hill was released and appeared in several U.S. film festivals. In December 2009, it received an award for Best Suspense Short at the NY International Independent Film & Video Festival.

In 2009, Discovery Channel's Shark Week had a two-hour documentary about all the attacks and the days after, titled Blood in the Water. The attacks at Matawan are the subject of the National Geographic Channel documentary Attacks of the Mystery Shark (2002), which examines the possibility that a bull shark was responsible for killing Stanley Fisher and Lester Stillwell.

In 2011, Smithsonian Channel's The Real Story: Jaws examines the series of events in detail and explores the varying perspectives.

Experimental progressive post-metal band Giant Squid based their 2005 album "Monster in the Creek" on the attacks and the cover art featured a photo of the Matawan creek.