"You've got City Hands, Mr. Hooper. You've been counting money all your life."
- Quint
Would you agree that the measure of a man is best had through the feel of his hands?
Chances are good you do not. Hands are out of fashion. Social justice and environmental stewardship are in. These issues shouldn't be mutually exclusive; in fact, I believe they are mutually supporting. But if you ask around, um, No, Hands are not a big deal these days. Donald Trump's small hands don't even make the news. They are irrelevant. Fox News and MSNBC would even agree on this point.
Hands have been on shaky ground for at least two or three millennia, and in the last three hundred years suffered a catastrophic decline in reputation. As soon as the architect stopped building with his own hands, but found other people to do it for him, the value of hands began its inexorable decline in favor of words and other symbols, and with them, the fine art of theory, and with it, bullshit.
(You're wondering if I'm being serious or joking. Good. I have you right where I want you -- in an uncomfortable spot feeling uncertain whether you should be enjoying this or not, be thoughtful about it or flippant, and how on earth to respond or not. Your instinct is to stop reading, and go find something easier to engage with, such as a self-confirming post on FaceBook, or a pandering Netflix comedy. My essays are distillations of our engagement with real life -- they are both a bitch to find a footing in. You have to work at it, and the reward is uncertain. The question you're not asking yourself is why this is a problem. In either my writing or life itself. Now answer that question: I fear being thought a fool by _____, even though nobody is looking. So when you stop worrying about judgment, you can begin to enjoy my writing as superimposed fragments of serious thought, frivolous humor, and the absence of an authorial parent telling you how to enjoy it. Now, get on with the question of teeth versus hands in the movie Jaws).
Jaws is not a movie about Hands so much as Teeth. Wondrously Large and Super-Bitey Teeth. Of course by Hollywood Rules, the movie has a happy ending. The Shark doesn't win, People win. And of course they use their hands to win. They have to do things to kill the shark, and hands are (almost) always involved in people doing things. This is all quite obvious.
But what kind of hands will win the day against the Shark? Jaws plays with this question in a light-hearted but powerful manner.
Blue-collar Quint crushes a beer can -- Quint has all of his fishing tools at hand on his boat.
White-collar Hooper crushes a Styrofoam cup -- Hooper loads up the boat with his scientific equipment.
Brody looks on -- He doesn't bring much, except a change of underpants and his policeman's service pistol.
The shark crushes surfboards, boats, people, etc. -- The shark has all of its tools in its mouth.
What? you ask yourself, and consider switching the channel to Real Housewives of Televisionland. This list makes my brain hurt. It is supposed to. Get used to it. Just remember it for the moment.
First consider what hands can do.
Hands are strong -- they can crush a beer can, and turn the lid off a jar. They can throw a ball accurately at 100 mph, break the nose on another man's face, and hold onto a rope around a wild bull for 8 seconds. Hands pull the rest of the body up a cliff face, and hold a rope for another.
Hands have fine motor control -- they can braid hair and screw in a light bulb. They can thread a needle and handle tools to saw and drill. They can open a car door and make teeny-tiny watch parts with teeny-tiny screwdrivers. They can tickle, they can touch.
Every mammal has a brain, some bigger than ours. But whales have fins, elephants have trunks, bears have paws, sloths have claws (and, yes, sharks have teeth -- see where I'm going?). But none have hands the way we do. They define our relationship with the world. Hands make Humanity. OK, and our brains. Together. With language. It's a menage-a-trois of capability. Other primates have equal hands, but not the same brains or languages.
Back to Jaws: it's three sets of hands against one set of teeth.
Our three heroes: each of them wields tools for a living -- (the ultimate product of hands is technology: Tools!)
Blue-collar Quint crushes a beer can -- Quint has all of his fishing tools at hand on his boat.
White-collar Hooper crushes a Styrofoam cup -- Hooper loads up the boat with his scientific equipment.
Brody looks on -- He doesn't bring much, except a change of underpants and his policeman's service pistol.
The shark crushes surfboards, boats, people, etc. -- The shark has all of its tools in its mouth.
Neither the extensive fishing tackle nor the extensive scientific equipment defeats the Teeth. But Brody sees his shot, and, from a sinking boat, and under tremendous pressure, takes it and makes it.
The point of this essay? You ask for a point? You ALREADY HAVE IT. You should be making it on your own.
I like to think that Brody has spent years at a firing range learning how to shoot accurately; he takes his job seriously, and policing skills include handgun control -- fine motor control in his hands and the ability to place a shot under stress.
The lesson of Jaws, which every astute viewer must conclude leaving the theater, is that Hands Win -- not in direct competition, but through their deep capacity, not just to make, but to master complex skills.
Used un-intelligently, hands will always lose against teeth (everyone we see being eaten by the shark slaps ineffectively at the shark's nose or something). These are lessons for our children: you see that victim slapping helplessly at that shark's nose? That person never spent time learning a specific skill, mastering something, whether it's fishing, oceanography, or simple marksmanship.
These are important life lessons, available even in mostly-mindless summer blockbuster Hollywood movies.
And yes, I'm writing a book about the human hand, a celebration of the its amazing versatility, and an invitation to learn and master a skill that requires fine hand work as a way to find a durable happiness in life. And also winning when pitted against super-bitey sharks.
Recent Comments