A rumor floating around New Jersey for years has claimed that the deadly 1916 Jersey Shore shark attacks served as the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster horror flick “Jaws.” But is there any truth behind this statement?
Man-Eater mural in Matawan. Photo by Marc Kaliroff
If you have visited Matawan, you probably have noticed the area’s abundance of “Jaws” art. If you are a resident of the small town that neighbors Raritan Bay, you no doubt have been told dozens of times how Matawan “served as the inspiration for the iconic film” and is home to “one of the Garden State’s deadliest shark attacks.”
At face value, it would seem like “Jaws” being inspired by Matawan’s 1916 shark attacks makes too much sense. From store signs to graffiti, the titular great white shark has been plastered all over the place by local fans. But those who look deeper into this fact will only discover that they are treading in shallow waters.
Despite what you may have heard, New Jersey has no connection to the creation of “Jaws.” The idea that the Jersey Shore’s most notorious shark attack inspired the story of cinema’s most famous marine threat has no basis — in fact, there have only been direct sources that dispute the rumor since it first made waves.
Before it became a film, “Jaws” was a novel written by New Jersey resident, storyteller and ocean activist Peter Benchley. Benchley conjured up “Jaws” in his small Pennington office and later helped write the screenplay for the movie once producers at Universal Pictures reeled in the rights to adapt his best-selling book.
The making of ‘Jaws,’ Peter Benchley cameo courtesy of PeterBenchley.com
In the novel and film, there are several references to the Garden State as the story’s fictional location, Amity Island, is located on the coast of New York. Of the two, only the film namedrops the 1916 Matawan shark attacks.
As far as New Jersey connections to “Jaws” goes, the story of the state and the shark intertwining ends there. According to Benchley’s book “Shark Trouble,” published in 2002, his idea for “Jaws” came from two things: sharks and shark attacks in Massachusetts and New York.
Benchley may have been a resident of Princeton, but the writer spent a lot of his early life traveling to the aforementioned states. He was inspired to write “Jaws” because of shark stories he heard from lifeguards while vacationing in Nantucket. Meanwhile, at home, while commuting to work, Benchley kept newspaper clippings about New York shark sightings and captures in his wallet.
So where did the whole Jaws and New Jersey misconception come from?
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The idea spawned from an honest mistake made by a New York Times reporter who accidentally helped spread the rumor.
On Sept. 5, 2001, The New York Times published an article regarding shark attack scares where a group of scientists incorrectly told a reporter that Jaws was inspired by the 1916 Jersey Shore shark attacks. Three days later in the “Corrections” column, The New York Times noted under the New Jersey section that Benchley had informed the publication that this was simply not true and the 1916 Jersey Shore shark attacks had no connection whatsoever to “Jaws.”
Naturally, because of newspaper circulation and the placement of the “Corrections” column in The New York Times, it’s not surprising that this false fact would pick up traction before it could be corrected by the larger public’s eye.
So next time you hear someone say “Jaws” was inspired by New Jersey shark attacks, be sure to correct them and say that the beloved flick only helped inspire locals to make some fearsome art based on their hometown’s history.
Read the book Close to Shore: A True Story of Terror in an Age of Innocence by journalist Michael Capuzzo. He writes about all of the attacks that happen that summer since it was more than just the ones in the river. The first of which, if I recall, was at Beach Haven in LBI where I would swim every summer as a child.