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Even if you’ve never seen the Steven Spielberg classic, Jaws, you’re probably familiar with John Williams’ brilliant, horrendous score.

The du-dum…du-dum….da-dum, da-dum da-dum (violins violins violins) has become the go-to sound of impending doom.

It’s stuck in your head now, isn’t it?

Since the pandemic took hold, a number of people have found new meaning in the film, not least of which The Guardian’s Daniel Harris, who wrote that he didn’t “understand the extent to which Jaws is not a film about a shark”, until watching it now, while we’re battling the coronavirus.

Here’s how he describes watching the film, and the first death in the narrative:

The stress is profound, and all we can do is hope for the impossible – that the threat either fades away or swerves off course – until it doesn’t. We see an end that is lonely, protracted and savage, but then see neither body nor grieving relatives, so do not really feel loss, the victim a statistic whose death does not speak to us. We feel relieved that we had no relationship with her and guilt at that relief, before life swiftly resumes.

Martin Brody, the police chief in the film, sees the corpse and worries that it will be the first of many. He relays his fears to Mayor Vaughn who responds with “crass condescension, prioritising profits over people – Independence Day is imminent – and glibness over substance”.

Sound familiar?

Anyway, the film continues, and the next victim is a small boy, inciting more sympathy. People are concerned, a town meeting is called, experts desperately try to get their views across, and this happens:

Quickly, those fearing something terrible happening are painted as unpatriotic stiffs, bringing science to a pride fight. As such, though there’s a clear way to avoid aggravation – staying away from the water – people choose not to, unwilling to compromise the freedom that helps them make sense of things.

Believing itself to have conquered the world, humanity is used to doing as it pleases, so when that turns out not to be the case it responds with confused belligerence, determined to show an oblivious opponent precisely who is boss. Jaws is not a film about a shark.

The handling of the shark in Jaws is, at this juncture, startlingly familiar to how many governments are handling COVID-19.

The Guardian isn’t alone in returning to Jaws during the pandemic. CNN makes a slightly more concrete comparison:

Today, too, we are on a mission to thwart an organism that can kills us. Our intrepid “shark hunters” are health care workers and scientists, as well as the responsible governors who have been warning about the gravity of the pandemic. These heroic characters want to reopen society in ways that will guarantee the safety of consumers and workers, while creating confidence for all Americans to reenter public spaces – even if some risks remain.

On the other hand, we are also hearing from our own Mayor Vaughn — President Donald Trump – who feels that it costs too much to keep people at home where they are safe.

More from The Los Angeles Times, using the film to highlight the “not so bad” attitude peddled by Trump, his cronies in the Republican party, and his followers:

45 years after the release of that quintessential American summer film, authorities in Washington and across the country are rushing to open beaches and businesses out of worries about the economy. And by conveying an implicit “not-so-bad” outlook, they may be ringing the dinner bell for the voracious novel coronavirus that continues to course through the country.

“We depend on the summer people here for our very lives,” Mayor Vaughn said in “Jaws.” “You are not going to have a summer unless you deal with this problem,” replied oceanographer Matt Hooper.

To give you an example of just how relevant this comparison is, take in the crowds at the Lake of the Ozarks on Memorial Day Weekend (May 23-24):

This was yesterday. In America. These are the people that are stopping our kids from going to school in the fall and having a childhood to remember this summer. And they are killing Americans. pic.twitter.com/PwAXzckAms

— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) May 24, 2020

That’s some fine physical distancing, right there.

Trump spent Memorial Day weekend playing golf, peddling conspiracy theories, and insulting Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on Twitter, as the US death toll from COVID-19 edges closer to 100 000.

This cartoon by Pat Bagley for THE WEEK pretty much sums it all up:

[sources:guardian&cnn&latimes&theweek]