The 3 1/2 Gay Couples of "Jaws 2"

The summer of 1978: I was 17 years old, a new high school graduate working at the Carousel Snack Bar at the mall and getting ready for college.  I had just figured "it" out, but I hadn't yet met any gay people.  I went to a lot of movies: Big Wednesday, Corvette Summer, The Cheap Detective, Foul Play, The Revenge of the Pink Panther, Hooper, Animal House.  But I didn't see Jaws 2, in spite of its iconic tagline: "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water."

I figured it was just another 1970s disaster movie like The Towering Inferno, and probably infused with the heterosexual male gaze. Who wants to watch a bunch of bikini babes getting chomped?

Turns out that the original is a masterpiece of gay subtext, While tracking a rogue shark, Police Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) and impish grad student Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) sizzle with "will they or won't they?" erotic intensity. They don't actually kiss in the final scene, but close enough.

I recently watched the sequel to see if the homoeroticism continues.  Steven Spielberg chose not to direct, so Jeannot Szwarc stepped in.  He did mostly tv dramas and horror, like A Summer Without Boys (well, that sounds like horror to me).

 Hooper is absent, off doing research in Antartica (aw, does he send love letters back to Brody?), and Chief Brody is more heterosexual, actively involved with his wife.  But he has little to do besides yell "You kids get off the beach!"  The star is his teenage son, Mike (Mike Gruner), who goes sailing  in spite of the admonitions, and has to rescue his friends from getting chomped.

As several reviewers note, it's like the prototype of a 1980s teenkill, with ineffectual adults, horny teenagers off by themselves, and a psycho-slasher shark.

But let's take a closer look at those kids. 10 boys and 3 girls in four boats.  One boat contains a boy-girl pair, and another Mike's so-called "love interest" and his little brother.  The others are mixed among the boys without any male-female pairings.

Hardly a heterosexual outing.

And the boys (excluding Little Brother) are divided into bff dyads, guys who put their hands on each other a lot, grab each other a lot, and don't necessarily express any hetero-horniness.  They can easily be read as gay couples.

Couple #1: Juvenile delinquent in training Mike and wisecracking sidekick Andy (Gary Springer)

Couple #2: Nerds Timmy (G. Thomas Dunlap) and Doug (Keith Gordon)

Couple #3: Teen operator Eddie (Gary Dugan) and spoiled rich kid Polo (John Dukakis).

Only Eddie , who leaves his bff to go off with a girl , gets chomped .  I guess having a girlfriend is a major transgression in a homoerotic world

Couple 3.5: Although the Chief is more heterosexual this time around, he does take the time to put his hand on the shoulder of Larry (David Elliott).  Feeling lonely for Hooper, Chief?

There is surprisingly little beefcake ; this beach has no shirtless studs walking around . But no bikini babes either , which only adds to the homoerotic vibe.


See also: Jaws and Gay Romance