Shark Education
I somehow ended up watching several shark movies, or portions of movies over the past week or so. I blame the Discovery Channel and their Shark Week programming. Even though not all of the movies I caught were on the Discovery Channel, it cannot be purely coincidence that during Shark Week there was a plethora of shark movies elsewhere on the tube. It was a literal shark infestation. Thank you Discovery Channel.

I learned several things from my Shark Week viewings. Incidentally, the most educational pieces of television viewing were not the educational programs on the Discovery Channel. I learned more from the movies. Which are totally, completely, one hundred percent accurate to real life. Naturally.

Here is what I learned:
1. All sharks have the same theme music.
Watching Jaws, Deep Blue Sea, and the TBS original movie Red Water proved this theory without a doubt. Prior to every shark attack in all of these movies, the music gets really soft. You hear the sloshing of the water. Then you hear very low, very quiet strings and piano. dun-Dun. dun-Dun. Slowly at first. Then increasing in volume, pace, and intensity until it erupts into shrieking violins, fervent bass strings, blaring french horns, and human screaming at the pinnacle of the shark attack. By understanding this phenomenon, we can learn to anticipate shark attacks while we are in shark infested water. Listen for the strings and piano. If you hear this, get out of the water. Immediately. When the horns blare, it's already too late.

2. Any type of mutant shark is angry and much smarter than your Average Joe Shark.
We've seen it several times in Jaws. The giant freak of nature shark is mad, and very smart in trapping and eating helpless humans. It also manages to come back from the dead, bigger and badder every time. In Deep Blue Sea, the science experiment sharks are humongous. And mad about it. And mad at the humans for making them so dang big and then stealing their shark brain juice. They turn out to be smarter than the humans, planning a very cunning attack and eating nearly everyone in the movie except LL Cool J and some other guy. The lesson here is to not create mutant sharks, and to run away from sharks that are already mutants. Mutated sharks are just not nice. On a grand scale.

3. Sharks can live in freshwater.
This was the super scary detail which was the focal point of the TBS original movie Red Water. Somehow a shark got into their bayou, and consequently wreaked much havoc. So, for all of you who grew up watching Jaws, calming your fears of sharks afterwards by telling yourself that sharks can't live in bathtubs or toilets, that is completely false. They can, and they probably do. Be very careful in your tub and on your toilet. You could already have a shark in there.

4. To kill a shark, you have to blow it up. Or drill it with a giant oil rig drill.
Since most of us don't have an oil rig drill handy, blowing up a shark is the better way to kill a shark. It must be a massive, water spraying, shark chunk flying explosion. Merely shooting a shark, or stabbing a shark, or any other attempts to kill a shark besides just blowing the thing to smithereens will not phase the shark at all, and will actually only make it madder. And possibly larger and smarter. So if you are needing to kill a shark that is attacking you, don't waste your time trying to kill it in other ways than blowing it sky-high out of the water and into little tiny sharklet pieces. Always swim with dynamite and other volatile explosives.

5. When sharks are around, don't fall into the water a lot.
In these movies, a lot of deaths could have been averted if people hadn't kept accidentally falling into the water. Sharks are attracted to blood, flailing, and splashing. All of these people who accidentally fall into the water inevitably cut themselves on the way in, therefore bleeding profusely. Then they flail about causing much splashing and motion. This will surely attract a shark, which will promptly eat you. If you must fall into the water on accident, don't do anything. Be very still and don't bleed. Hopefully someone will fish you out of the water, and then blow up the shark.

6. If you work near or around sharks, make sure none of your co-workers are evil.
In Jaws it was poachers and shark hunters. In Deep Blue Sea it is a greedy scientist who smokes around the shark and the equipment. In Red Water it is Coolio and a gang of mean divers looking for buried treasure. These evil people ruin the shark-free fun for all of the non-evil people. Sharks can apparently sense evil, and after they chomp on the evil people, non-evil people inevitably get chomped on, too. Beware of evil co-workers. They attract sharks.

7. Rap stars do not get eaten by sharks.
This theory is only accurate in two of the three movie examples, as Jaws films did not have any rap stars portraying shark bait. But in Deep Blue Sea, LL Cool J escapes many shark attacks and is one of only two survivors at the end of the film. In Red Water, Coolio gets blown up and/or shot, but not in or near a shark. So technically he escapes being eaten by a shark, even though he dies. Therefore I am led to believe that the best way to avoid being eaten by a shark is to become a rap star.

8. Sharks that seem to be asleep, aren't.
In Deep Blue Sea, the scientists put the giant mutant shark to sleep so they can jam a large needle into its brain and extract super duper shark brain juice. Inevitably the shark wakes up and promptly bites the arm off of the greedy cigarette smoking scientist guy. This type of behavior isn't evident in Red Water, but I believe it occured at some point in one of the Jaws movies. So be very careful if you come upon a sleeping shark. It is likely not really sleeping, and if you are within arms reach, it will have no problem reaching your arm right off of your body.

I hope you will find these shark facts as helpful as I have.

Thank you Discovery Channel, et all.

C.T.