“Sharks aren’t the problem. Jaws is.”
Editor’s note: Today’s 50-year-old news clip his poor audio-quality, so we suggest that you turn up your volume all the way.
By August of 1975, the newly released Steven Spielberg film-classic, Jaws, was smashing box-office records and already having a major impact on American culture. It was driving many people’s fear of sharks through the roof… and also driving beach-community tourist bureaus nuts! They believed that irrational fears stoked by the movie were keeping visitors away from their beaches, and they were looking for ways to deal with the situation.
I covered one such community — Carolina Beach, North Carolina — for CBS News.
What gets me, while revisiting this report, is how the individuals we filmed and interviewed both look and sound like they could have been actual characters in the film.
