In Part One of our discussion of JAWS from the perspective of the screenplay and the development of its characters, we discussed both the external and internal arc of Chief Brody. But since JAWS has not one but three characters with external and internal arcs, it’s time to dive (see what I did there?) into to the second of the movie’s three central characters, Matt Hooper.
Recall from Part One that Hooper’s external conflict is his need to see a Great White shark up close. As we revisit that dinner scene where we learned that Chief Brody has a fear of drowning, what else do we learn in that scene from a character arc perspective? We discover Hooper’s backstory with sharks, for one thing. After Hooper presents the Chief and Ellen with two bottles of wine (“I didn’t know what you’d be… serving” he explains awkwardly) he sits down, makes himself at home, and begins to eat leftovers from an abandoned plate on the table. At this point, Ellen, desperately looking to break the tension, blurts out “My husband tells me you’re in sharks.” This line makes Hooper laugh, it makes Ellen laugh, and it gets Hooper to talk about why he loves sharks.
As he tells the story, when he was a little boy, he went fishing on his boat and accidentally hooked a baby thresher shark. It proceeded to destroy his boat – it ate the oar hooks, the seat cushions, turned an inboard into and outboard and scared him to death. But rather than traumatizing him forever, the experience fascinated him, and he’s spent his entire life since that day studying sharks.
The chance to see a Great White Shark up close and personal is the thing that has drawn him to Amity Island, he even goes so far as to turn down a coveted spot on a deep-sea research vessel (Hooper calls it a “floating asylum for shark addicts”) so that he can study Amity’s Great White in person. His external motivation is thereby established and even though the character straight up tells us what it is, out loud, it doesn’t feel boring or expository because of the quality of the dialogue (and of course the excellent performances by the three stars).
But what about Hooper’s internal conflict? As we discussed in Part One, the best movie characters always have both. In the case of Hooper and JAWS, it is his need to prove that he is not just some wealthy bespectacled research nerd but rather a serious shark scientist. There are several instances in the movie where people disrespect Hooper… they accuse him of being soft, or a city slicker, or an over-educated and inexperienced dweeb, and these slights further fuel his inner motivation.
When we first meet Hooper, he has arrived on the island to consult on Chief Brody’s shark problem. He docks his boat and starts to ask Chief Brody a question. Under pressure, and facing multiple problems at once, Brody dismisses the question and instead orders Hooper to help convince some local fishermen that they are overloading their boat. The fishermen don’t take Hooper seriously either, he doesn’t look much like a rough-and-tumble northeastern “lobstah” fisherman, and they basically tell him, almost literally, to jump in a lake.
When Hooper is finally able to get Chief Brody’s attention, Brody somewhat aggressively asks him “who are you?” Once Hooper introduces himself and tells Brody that he’s from the Oceanographic Institute, Brody’s demeanor changes immediately. You get the sense that this isn’t the first time Hooper has felt the need to name drop the Oceanographic Institute in order to be taken seriously.
But later, after conducting a thorough examination of the remains of the first victim, the girl from the beach, Hooper angrily dresses down both the Medical Examiner and Chief Brody. He tells them unequivocally that it was a shark attack that killed the girl. And since we in the audience already know it was a shark attack, we immediately understand that this guy has his stuff squared away.
Nevertheless, others will continue to doubt him throughout the rest of the film, adding more and more fuel to Hooper’s internal fire.
Recall the scene where Hooper and Chief Brody go out onto Hooper’s boat to look for the shark. Not only does Brody elaborate on his reasoning for coming to Amity Island (the low crime rate, one man can makes difference, etc.), in their back-and-forth banter we also learn about Hooper’s internal conflict. His boat has a lot of expensive equipment on board– sonar, a fish finder and an underwater camera system. Surprised, Brody asks Hooper who pays for all this stuff – the institute, the government? And that’s when we find out that Hooper pays for this stuff himself.
Hooper looks young, he’s wealthy from family money and he works for a fancy institute. Keep this in mind as we head to a crucial scene with Mayor Vaughn the next day.
Having proved definitely that the tiger shark caught by the fishermen who claimed the $3,000 bounty was not the shark that killed Chrissy or the little boy, and that it could not have been the shark which demolished Ben Gardner’s boat and (apparently) ate one of his eyes, Hooper and Brody must attempt to convince Mayor Vaughn (played by the terrific Murray Hamilton in a sport coat for the ages) that the shark is still out there.
Hooper gives the Mayor a wonderful layman’s explanation of sharks and their behavior, and then how does Vaughn react? He insults Hooper with one of the great “up yours” lines… “Love to prove that wouldn’t you? Get your name into the National Geographic.” Just completely guts him, cutting right to the quick of Hooper’s psychology. And all Hooper can do is laugh because he’s just so angry.
Do we feel his inner motivation beginning to boil over? Yes we do.
But things will get even worse when Hooper meets Quint as it will turn out that the two characters are polar opposites who mix like fire and gasoline.
The very first time the two men meet, Quint insults Hooper. Brody has come to Quint’s place of business, as it were, to hire him to kill the shark. Quint’s workman like fisherman’s shack showcases his shark hunting skills with shark jaws mounted on the walls and more jaws boiling away in a huge barrel of hot water. Hooper marvels at all of this and enthusiastically volunteers his services as an extra hand on the boat, rattling off his resume, including a stint crewing an America’s Cup trial. None of this impresses Quint, who grabs Hooper’s hands, feels them, and pronounces “you’ve got city hands Mr. Hooper, you been counting money all your life.” Hooper immediately gets defensive (maybe since some of it is true) and says he doesn’t need this “working class hero crap.”
It’s a good bet that everyone Hooper encounters probably comes in second on the intelligence scale, particularly when it comes to sharks. But you can see how his credentials work against him in these situations and how they contribute to his inner need to prove himself, particularly to guys like Quint and Vaughn who always seem to know exactly how to push his buttons.
But what does this need to one-up Hooper, to overcome his credentials with hard-won experience, say about Quint? That he’s stubborn? Insecure? Or that he’s so sure of himself that he can’t imagine a world where he might need someone’s help? Don’t worry, we’ll cover Quint in Part Three of this series.
Once on the boat, Hooper and Quint have another run-in where Quint dismisses Hooper’s intelligence and knowledge of the situation. Quint has set up a fishing line and has Chief Brody chumming the waters with a nasty concoction of blood and chopped fish. Quint gets a bite and the reel starts unspooling quickly as whatever has taken the bait races off with it. Quint thinks he’s hooked the shark, but Hooper isn’t so sure. He tells Quint to just let it go, arguing that it’s probably a game fish of some kind. But then the wire snaps and Quint just lays into Hooper - gaming fish? Bit right through this piano wire? “Don’t you tell me my business again.”
It apears that Quint is right and Hooper is wrong. And if Hooper is wrong, then we are left to wonder if he’s wasted his life in the lab when really should have just gone fishing?
Now, eventually, the situation on the boat turns very dire… in order to force the shark to the surface, they’ve hooked three flotation barrels into him, to no avail. The shark has severely damaged the boat, Quint has burned out the engines in an attempt to draw the shark back towards the shallow waters to drown him - things are so bad that Quint is finally forced to ask Hooper if any of the equipment he’s brought on board can help.
This is as close as Hooper will ever get to being accepted and respected by Quint, and Hooper gamely takes the win, transitioning straight into problem solving mode rather than lighting Quint up with a bunch of “I told you so’s.” At this point, finally, Hooper’s inner conflict is resolved, and in a few moments, he’ll be forced to resolve that external conflict of proving himself against a Great White Shark mano-a-mano.
Once the three men build a sturdy metal shark cage and lower it into the water with Hooper inside, a tasty chewy morsel inside a hard candy shell, he gets his first look at a Great White up close. As the shark makes its first pass by the cage, Hooper backs away and flattens himself against the bars, readying his dart gun as the shark disappears into the darkness. Well, the shark sneaks up and rams the cage from behind, knocking away the dart gun. The shark slams the cage repeatedly and eventually breaks it open. Hooper, now scared to death, does his best to fight off the shark with his diving knife. Eventually, as the shark gets tangled in the ropes holding the cage to the boat, Hooper is able to escape the cage and hide on the bottom of the ocean… his oxygen supply slowly depleting.
While his dramatic escape technically resolves his external conflict of wanting to confront a Great White Shark up close, it’s hardly a successful resolution from Hooper’s perspective, since he was not victorious against the animal. But he’s certainly acquired a deeper appreciation for the power of Great White Sharks as a result of this encounter.
And in the future that will make him a more experienced Scientist with a better resume’.
In Part Three, we’ll do a deep dive into the third member of Jaws’ three-man squad of protagonists… Quint.
If you enjoyed this essay and would like to support the work we do here at The Continental Congress, please consider signing up for a free subscription, upgrading to paid or taking a moment to share this essay with a pop culture nerd in your orbit… You might also head over to The Continental Congress Archives where we have more than 60 (!) other essays just like this one. You can also pre-order Michael Walsh’s upcoming collection of essays “Against the Corporate Media” to which George contributed an entry. Thank you, so much, for your time and your patronage!
"Hooper drives the boat."
One of the engaging aspects of the third act is how Quint slowly comes to appreciate Hooper.
I don't have a lot to offer, except that it's a real treat to get Ben's three-part character examination from a screenwriter's perspective. Jaws happens to be one of my favorite movies (definitely Top 10) and I appreciate that MFW has hooked you into his Substack for this guest series.
I will say that I thought the screenwriting, directing, and acting really improved on the characters from the novel, and Hopper especially. It's been a while since I read the book but I recall not liking Hooper very much (the affair didn't help). I like him much better in the movie and now I get him a little better, too. Thanks!