Representations of the shark are common in popular culture in the Western world, with a range of media generally portraying them of eating machines and threats. In some media, however, comedy is drawn from portrayals of sharks running counter to their popular image, with shark characters being portrayed as unexpectedly friendly or otherwise comical. The lists below give an approximate sample of the many forms of representation of the shark in popular culture.
Various James Bond films depict sharks as man-eating predators, e.g. Thunderball, Live and Let Die, The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only and Licence to Kill, used as violent forms of execution for traitors or alleged traitors to Bond's enemies. In the Austin Powers film series, which parodies many elements of the Bond films, the villain Dr. Evil is quite displeased when he is unable to acquire sharks with laser beams attached to their heads. His wish is granted in the third film.
A shark makes an appearance in Batman: The Movie, attacking Batman as he ascends up a helicopter ladder, and explodes after being sprayed with Bat-shark repellent.
Deep Blue, A female great white that is believed to be one of the largest of her species. Deep Blue went viral due to her media exposure from shark week, facebook and video footage of Ocean Ramsey swimming with her.
Hurricane Shark or Street Shark, nicknames for claims of a shark swimming in a flooded urban area, usually after a hurricane. Most such claims have been hoaxes; however, a 2022 video of a shark or other large fish swimming in Hurricane Ian's floodwaters in Fort Myers, Florida, proved to be authentic.[2][3]
Blåhaj, the name of a plush shark sold by IKEA, popularized by the LGBTQ+ (Primarily the Transgender) community.
Magazines and literature
Jaws by Peter Benchley (1975)Jaws, the book by Peter Benchley that the 1975 movie was based on. It tells a tale of a great white shark that terrorizes the small resort town of Amity Island, and three men who set out on a boat to track it down and kill it.
"Baby Shark", a children's song featuring a family of sharks. Popular as a campfire song, it has taken off since 2016, when Pinkfong, a South Korean education company, turned it into a viral video which spread through social media, online video, and radio.
In a 1977 episode of Happy Days, Fonzie famously jumps over a shark while water-skiing. This moment led to the creation of the phrase "jumping the shark," now used to describe the point when a TV show or franchise begins to decline in quality through absurd plot twists.
Video games & pinball machines
Sharks variously appear in video games, arcade games and pinball machines. In video games, they typically appear either as playable characters or threats to the player.[4] Sharks also make cameo appearances in some popular games and game series. The 1975 movie Jaws and its sequels inspired several licensed and unlicensed games.
Pinball machines
Sharks feature prominently in several pinball machines including:
Sea Hunt, a 1972 machine inspired by the 1960s television program, manufactured by Leisure & Allied[5]
Killer Shark by Sega is a 1972 electro-mechanical game where the player points and shoots a mock spear-gun at a projected shark that swims towards him. The game features on-screen in the movie Jaws.
Shark Jaws is a single-player arcade game by Atari, Inc. that was intended to capitalise on the popularity of the film Jaws without being licensed to use the name
Shark is a 1978 game for the Commodore PET in which the player controls a shark and must eat swimmers without being caught by a diver.[10]
Blue Shark is a 1978 arcade game by Midway in which the player shoots sea creatures, including a shark while a timer counts down.[11]
Terror at Selachii Bay is a one-player strategy game wherein the player provisions and skippers a boat hunting a shark using harpoons.[12]
Shark Attack is a 1981 arcade game in which the player controls a shark and must eat scuba divers.[13]
Alive Sharks is a 1990 shareware game for DOS in which the player controls a scuba diver who must collect sea creatures from the ocean floor while avoiding shark bites and jellyfish stings.[15] A sequel called VGA Sharks followed, and was updated between 1990 and 1994.[16]
In the 1998 arcade game The Ocean Hunter, one or two players must fight off sharks and other sea creatures while searching for seven sea monsters, including a megalodon.
3D Shark Hunting is a first-person perspective shark-hunting simulator released in 1999.[17]
21st century video games
Shark! Hunting the Great White is a 2001 first-person shark hunting simulator.[18]
Dreamworks' Shark Tale game was released by Activision in 2004 for several consoles. The player is Oscar the fish, but sharks feature prominently in the game.[19]
Jaws: Ultimate Predator, is a game for the Wii and Nintendo 3DS set 35 years after the events of the original 1975 movie.[20]
The Hungry Shark series of mobile games allows the player to swim, leap and feed as a variety of real and imaginary shark species
Derrick the Death Fin is a 2012 side-scrolling game in which the player controls a paper-craft shark.[21]
Depth is a sharks vs. humans underwater combat simulator where players can choose to be a human or one of several shark species.
Maneater, a video game for the Xbox one featuring a bull shark as the playable animal. While its species is a bull shark, the game features various evolutions and mutations for the shark.
Tiny is the name of a great white shark featured in Batman: Arkham City. Tiny was an attraction at Gotham Museum's "Terrors of the Deep" aquarium before the Penguin bought the building and turned it into his hideout.
Helfman, Gene; Burgess, George H. (2014). "Sharks in Stories, Media, and Literature". Sharks: The Animal Answer Guide. The Animal Answer Guides: Q&A for the Curious Naturalist. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 202–220. ISBN 9781421413099.
