VOIR

When I look back on my life, I see it on the big screen.

A collection of memories as full of light and color as the sky.

I can remember the exact moment I fell in love with movies.

I went in knowing nothing and came out knowing

that if I could be in a movie theater, I didn't wanna be anywhere else.

I was ten years old that summer, with nothing ahead of me but a whole life.

On June 20th, one movie opened that changed everything,

and not just the future of Hollywood but the lives of an entire generation.

I know because I was there.

I came of age in a dark theater, staring up at that big screen,

watching the same movie over and over again.

It was not just a movie. It was the movie.

And that traps it in amber,

along with the best things I remember from that summer.

The year was 1975, and that movie was Jaws.

Oh God, help!

God! God, help!

It hurts! It hurts!

Oh my God! God, help me!

God, please, help!

After that, nothing would ever be the same.

Not summers, not movies, not beaches, and not me.

We grew up in Topanga Canyon, which, in the '70s, was a wilderness

of communes and health food stores between the beaches and the Valley.

We grew up like everyone grew up back then, fast and free.

Probably a little too free.

Childhood wasn't eternal or monitored like it is now.

Our movies, our clothes, our music

all told us that growing up was way better than being a kid.

My ten-year-old's reality was stolen kisses at hippie bonfires

on Topanga Beach.

We didn't have social media to reflect the fun we might be having.

No texting, no TikTok .

We didn't have much of anything except our imaginations

and, every so often, the night sky.

We'd stay up all night counting stars, imagining what our lives might become.

We told each other the dumbest shit, like how Donna Summer did real sex...

...while recording "Love to Love You Baby."

Or how Bubble Yum was literally filled with tiny spiders. Or that Mikey...

He won't eat it. He hates everything.

...had eaten Pop Rocks, chugged soda, and died

when his stomach exploded.

He likes it! Hey, Mikey!

There wasn't much we wouldn't believe.

It is as if God created the devil...

... and gave him... jaws.

Rated PG. May be too intense for younger children.

By June of 1975, you could not escape Jaws.

Universal made sure it was everywhere.

The Benchley paperback everyone was reading.

The trailer everyone feared. The poster everyone wanted.

The T-shirts everyone wore.

That massive, razor-toothed monster swam inches beneath the same American culture

that had just survived Charles Manson, the Vietnam War, and Watergate.

Everybody has a Jaws story.

Mostly you hear them from boys, who took ownership of that summer

as their fanboy-nation origin story.

But girls, we were there too.

Fuck yeah, we were there.

Between welfare and food stamps, our mom could barely afford admission,

let alone popcorn.

But we made a deal with her.

if she dropped us off in time for the first show,

she wouldn't have to pick us up until after the last.

What should I do while you're gone?

At the cost of one ticket each,

that was how my sister and I saw Jaws at least 40 times that summer.

I'll be back in two minutes.

But back then, to see a movie, you had to actually go to the movies.

And since there were no theaters in Topanga,

we had to drive 30 minutes to the San Fernando Valley.

For Canyon rats like us, that was like visiting a utopian America

only seen on television.

It was boys who looked like Greg Brady and girls who looked like Farrah.

You know, normal people.

And it was so hot you could barely breathe.

Movies can freeze time,

like vanilla ice cream melting down your wrist on hot summer afternoons can.

Like sleeping under the stars can.

Like first kisses can.

But you can't freeze time forever.

That summer, there was a new man in our mom's life,

teaching her how to flip houses, promising to get us off welfare,

and tame the Topanga out of us.

There were a lot of distractions that summer, and we needed them.

But Jaws was more than a distraction.

It gave us something to turn to instead of someone to run away from.

Jaws wasn't just a blockbuster or a pop culture phenomenon.

It was a time and a place, a feeling,

an atmosphere that can never be fully appreciated

by anyone who wasn't there.

Jaws transformed our lives in the ways we needed it to.

And from then on, we willed our childhood to be Jaws.

Amity Island became our island.

We reenacted Chrissie's death scene any time we were near the water.

A tree house in our backyard was our Orca .

The Jaws Log, the must-have handbook

for all self-respecting fans, was our bible.

We became self-taught experts on the Carcharodon carcharias.

We scoured the beaches for sharks' teeth.

We got our hands on Super 8 cameras so that we could make our own movies.

We fell in love with the movies that summer.

No matter where we were, what we did,

all we could think about was sitting in the dark,

elbow-to-elbow with our other family.

When do I become an islander?

Ellen, never.

And it didn't even have to be inside.

By taking advantage of the kids-hide-on-the-floor discount,

we could go to the Van Nuys Drive-In, and Mom could come with us.

Especially on those hot summer nights when all you wanna do is sit outside.

$3,000 buys an awful lot of roast.

As much as I loved Jaws then,