John Moore

There are a few movies that have a big and lasting impact on you. For a 13-year-old kid from Ashdown, Arkansas, one of those for me was “Jaws.” It’s the story of a great white shark and the people it ate off the coast of New England.

But it wasn’t just kids from southwest Arkansas who went to see that movie. For that matter, it wasn’t just kids. Everyone in the world, just about, went to see “Jaws.”

It was 1975, and no one had seen anything like “Jaws” since possibly Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” 15 years prior.

The fear this movie created was very real. Suddenly, people who’d never given swimming in the ocean a second thought, now wouldn’t step foot in a kiddie pool.

“Jaws” was a phenomenon.

T-shirts, lunchboxes, board games, and other merchandise were everywhere. Comedians did “Jaws” jokes. There were novelty records about “Jaws” played on the radio.

The man who wrote the book “Jaws,” Peter Benchley, found himself going from relative obscurity to being front and center in pop culture.

So did the movie’s director. A guy named Steven Spielberg.

Jaws also made stars of its cast members, including Richard Dreyfuss, Roy Scheider, and Robert Shaw. Arguably, Shaw was already a star, but his role as Captain Quint, the guy hired to catch and eliminate the shark, didn’t hurt his salary demands for projects that came after “Jaws.”

The impact of this movie is hard to explain to someone who wasn’t here in 1975. If you were around in 1997 when the film “Titanic” came out, you have some idea. But “Jaws” was even bigger than “Titanic” as far as its cultural significance.

The movie spurred me to seek out and read the book, which was the basis for the film.

And the book was far more graphic than the movie. As often is the case, the book was also better than the movie. If my mom had known I was reading it, I likely wouldn’t have been allowed to read it.

If my teacher had known I’d pick “Jaws” for my oral book report, I’d probably have been told to pick something else.

I say that because about one-third of the way through my presentation, my teacher stopped me and told me that was enough. When I explained that I wasn’t finished, she assured me that I was.

I made an A. I’ll always believe that the A was her way of reminding herself that she should preview all seventh-grade boys chosen topics before allowing them to get up in front of a room full of kids. Especially if the room has a lot of girls.

The look on the girls’ faces is something I’ve only seen one other time. That was when Roseanne Barr sang the National Anthem at a baseball game.

“Jaws” didn’t just influence people and culture when it debuted; it influenced people and culture after.

Blockbuster summer movies didn’t exist before “Jaws.” Today, a movie is considered a failure of it doesn’t make millions. That’s changed the content of films from creative to cash-driven.

“Jaws” was one of the first films to be advertised and marketed heavily. Today, that’s a given.

Before “Jaws,” a film’s soundtrack might be popular, but the film’s accompaniment became its own entity. The two notes that signaled the shark was about to appear could be solved by almost anyone if they were playing, “Name That Tune.”

“Jaws” was based on a true story that happened on the Jersey Shore in 1916. A period of 59 years passed between then and the movie in 1975.

The year 2025 marks 50 years since the film’s theatrical debut.

Anyone who hasn’t seen “Jaws” should. Anyone who has deserves to view it again.

It’s a true American classic. And it’s a much better option than listening to Roseanne sing the National Anthem.