Many film historians see ‘Jaws’ as the first true summer blockbuster. Steve Kagan/Getty ImagesJared Bahir Browsh, University of Colorado Boulder “Da, duh.” Two simple notes – E and F – have become synonymous with tension, fear and sharks, representing the primal dread of being stalked by a predator. And they largely have “Jaws” to thank. Fifty years ago, Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster film – along with its spooky score composed by John Williams – convinced generations of swimmers to think twice before going in the water. As a scholar of media history and popular culture, I decided to take a deeper dive into the staying power of these two notes and learned about how they’re influenced by 19th-century classical music, Mickey Mouse and Alfred Hitchcock.
The first summer blockbuster
In 1964, fisherman Frank Mundus killed a 4,500-pound great white shark off Long Island. After hearing the story, freelance journalist Peter Benchley began pitching a novel based on three men’s attempt to capture a man-eating shark, basing the character of Quint off of Mundus. Doubleday commissioned Benchley to write the novel, and in 1973, Universal Studios producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown purchased the film rights to the novel before it was published. The 26-year-old Spielberg was signed on to be the director. Tapping into both mythical and real fears regarding great white sharks – including an infamous set of shark attacks along the Jersey Shore in 1916 – Benchley’s 1974 novel became a bestseller. The book was a key part of Universal’s marketing campaign, which began several months before the film’s release. Starting in the fall of 1974, Zanuck, Brown and Benchley appeared on a number of radio and television programs to simultaneously promote the release of the paperback edition of the novel and the upcoming film. The marketing also included a national television advertising campaign that featured emerging composer Williams’ two-note theme. The plan was for a summer release, which, at the time, was reserved for films with less than stellar reviews.TV ads promoting the film featured John Williams’ two-note theme. Films at the time typically were released market by market, preceded by local reviews. However, Universal’s decision to release the film in hundreds of theaters across the country on June 20, 1975, led to huge up-front profits, sparking a 14-week run as the No. 1 film in the U.S. Many consider “Jaws” the first true summer blockbuster. It catapulted Spielberg to fame and kicked off the director’s long collaboration with Williams, who would go on to earn the second-highest number of Academy Award nominations in history – 54 – behind only Walt Disney’s 59.
The film’s beating heart
Though it’s now considered one of the greatest scores in film history, when Williams proposed the two-note theme, Spielberg initially thought it was a joke. But Williams had been inspired by 19th and 20th century composers, including Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky and especially Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.” In the “Jaws” theme, you can hear echoes of the end of Dvorak’s symphony, as well as the sounds of another character-driven musical piece, Sergei Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf.” “Peter and the Wolf” and the score from “Jaws” are both prime examples of leitmotifs, or a musical piece that represents a place or character. The varying pace of the ostinato – a musical motif that repeats itself – elicits intensifying degrees of emotion and fear. This became more integral as Spielberg and the technical team struggled with the malfunctioning pneumatic sharks that they’d nicknamed “Bruce,” after Spielberg’s lawyer. As a result, the shark does not appear until the 81-minute mark of the 124-minute film. But its presence is felt through Williams’ theme, which some music scholars have theorized evoke the shark’s heartbeat.Mechanical issues with ‘Bruce,’ the mechanical shark, during filming forced Steven Spielberg to rely more on mood and atmosphere.Screen Archives/Moviepix via Getty Images
Sounds to manipulate emotions
Williams also has Disney to thank for revolutionizing character-driven music in film. The two don’t just share a brimming trophy case. They also understood how music can heighten emotion and magnify action for audiences. Although his career started in the silent film era, Disney became a titan of film, and later media, by leveraging sound to establish one of the greatest stars in media history, Mickey Mouse. When Disney saw “The Jazz Singer” in 1927, he knew that sound would be the future of film. On Nov. 18, 1928, “Steamboat Willie” premiered at Universal’s Colony Theater in New York City as Disney’s first animated film to incorporate synchronized sound. Unlike previous attempts to bring sound to film by having record players concurrently play or deploying live musicians to perform in the theater, Disney used technology that recorded sound directly on the film reel. It wasn’t the first animated film with synchronized sound, but it was a technical improvement to previous attempts at it, and “Steamboat Willie” became an international hit, launching Mickey’s – and Disney’s – career. The use of music or sound to match the rhythm of the characters on screen became known as “Mickey Mousing.” “King Kong” in 1933 would deftly deploy Mickey Mousing in a live action film, with music mimicking the giant gorilla’s movements. For example, in one scene, Kong carries away Ann Darrow, who’s played by actress Fay Wray. Composer Max Steiner uses lighter tones to convey Kong’s curiosity as he holds Ann, followed by ominous, faster, tones as Ann escapes and Kong chases after her. In doing so, Steiner encourages viewers to both fear and connect with the beast throughout the film, helping them suspend disbelief and enter a world of fantasy. Mickey Mousing declined in popularity after World War II. Many filmmakers saw it as juvenile and too simplistic for the evolving and advancing film industry.
When less is more
In spite of this criticism, the technique was still used to score some iconic scenes, like the playing of violins in the shower as Marion Crane is stabbed in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.” Spielberg idolized Hitchcock. A young Spielberg was even kicked off the Universal lot after sneaking on to watch the production of Hitchcock’s 1966 film “Torn Curtain.” Although Hitchcock and Spielberg never met, “Jaws” clearly exhibits the influence of Hitchcock, the “Master of Suspense.” And maybe that’s why Spielberg initially overcame his doubts about using something so simple to represent tension in the thriller.Steven Spielberg was just 26 years old when he signed on to direct ‘Jaws.’Universal/Getty Images The use of the two-note motif helped overcome the production issues Spielberg faced directing the first feature length movie to be filmed on the ocean. The malfunctioning animatronic shark forced Spielberg to leverage Williams’ minimalist theme to represent the shark’s ominous presence in spite of the limited appearances by the eponymous predatory star. As Williams continued his legendary career, he would deploy a similar sonic motif for certain “Star Wars” characters. Each time Darth Vader appeared, the “Imperial March” was played to set the tone for the leader of the dark side. As movie budgets creep closer to a half-billion dollars, the “Jaws” theme – and the way those two notes manipulate tension – is a reminder that in film, sometimes less can be more. Jared Bahir Browsh, Assistant Teaching Professor of Critical Sports Studies, University of Colorado Boulder This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Philly theaters unite to stage 3 plays by Pulitzer-winning playwright James Ijames
James Ijames, 2022 Pulitzer Prize winner for “Fat Ham,” is celebrated with a Citywide Pass in Philadelphia, offering access to three of his plays across different theaters. This initiative fosters collaboration among local theaters and showcases Ijames’ unique ability to create nuanced, character-driven narratives that explore complex queer and Black identities.
Most theater subscriptions offer a patron access to a single theater’s season. But Philadelphia’s new Citywide James Ijames Pass provides tickets to three James Ijames – pronounced EYE-ms, rhymes with “chimes” – plays at three theaters in Philadelphia. Subscribers will also get one mustard-colored beanie, one of Ijames’ signature accessories.
The full pass, which costs US$130, includes tickets for the Arden Theatre’s “Good Bones,” which premiered Jan. 22 and runs through March 22, the Wilma Theater’s “The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington,” which runs March 17 to April 5, and the Philadelphia Theatre Company’s “Wilderness Generation,” a world premiere that runs April 10 to May 3. There is also a two-show pass for $90 without “Good Bones.”
I’m a theater theorist, historian and practitioner who has written about Ijames’ work before and after his 2022 Pulitzer Prize. I believe this landmark collaboration between three important Philadelphia theaters is a fitting celebration of a multi-hyphenate theater artist who continues to champion his longtime artistic home.
Actor, playwright, director
Ijames, 46, was born in North Carolina and attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. He earned his Master of Fine Arts degree at Temple University and stayed in Philadelphia after graduating.
Notably, this playwright’s MFA is in the study of acting. Ijames is also a talented director, and he performed and directed at multiple theaters around Philadelphia before starting to work as a playwright. He was also a tenured professor of theater at Villanova University, where I had the privilege to work with him and watch his creative process before he moved to New York City in 2025 to run the playwriting concentration at Columbia University.
Ijames was already a local celebrity in Philly before winning the Pulitzer Prize for drama for “Fat Ham,” his Hamlet adaptation centered on a queer Black Hamlet named Juicy and the legacy of his father’s barbecue joint. The New York theater scene took notice of him when the National Black Theatre staged “Kill Move Paradise” in 2017. This haunting piece is set in limbo, where unarmed Black men who have been killed by police examine how they have come to this place and how society continues to enable this pattern.
Other Ijames plays include “White,” a satire of the art world that tells the story of a gay white male artist who hires a Black woman actor to pretend to have done his work to see if that makes a difference in how his art is viewed. “TJ Loves Sally 4Ever” sets Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings’ relationship on a college campus where “TJ” is a dean and Sally is a student. And “Reverie” is a chamber play, which is an intimate meditation with an earnest and somber tone. In it, the father of a recently deceased Black gay man comes to meet the man he believed was his son’s partner.
Most recently, in 2025, Ijames partnered with the Australian pop singer Sia on a musical called “Saturday Church.” It is a story about reconciling queer community and Christian faith, and relying on the support of family, both biological and chosen.The cast and crew of ‘Fat Ham’ during the opening night curtain call at the Roundabout American Airlines Theatre on Broadway on April 12, 2023. Bruce Glikas/WireImage via Getty Images
Charting new dramatic territory
Although his theatrical styles and genres vary, at his core, Ijames writes nuanced, character-driven works that revolve around interpersonal relationships. His plays are playgrounds for performers, particularly due to his ability to write complex queer Black characters.
Influential American playwright Suzan-Lori Parks notes in her 1994 essay “Elements of Style” that the conflict between Black people and white people is the default trope of how Black people have been represented onstage – by almost exclusively white playwrights – for most of U.S. theater history. Parks posits that a way to avoid this centering of white conflict in Black lives comes from new dramatic territory that depicts conflicts between Black people and anything else.
Ijames never sets his Black characters in opposition to white society alone. He also refuses to take up the tropes of LGBTQ identity as incompatible with religion, or the idea that characters can be only gay or straight. Instead, Ijames creates narratives with queer religious people and pansexual men whose identities are not sources of conflict.
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The citywide pass
The plays in the citywide pass offer an exciting cross section of what makes Ijames’s work so vibrant.
“Good Bones” is the story of a now-affluent Black woman, Aisha, who moves back to her blue-collar hometown. Aisha might be from this working-class neighborhood, but her elaborate renovations and white-collar sensibilities make her return seem more like gentrification than homecoming, at least as far as her local contractor can see.
“Miz Martha” follows the titular Martha Washington through a fever-dream-inspired trial in her final moments, as enslaved people care for her while knowing her death means their freedom.
And “Wilderness Generation” follows five cousins reunited in the U.S. South after many years apart, ready to talk about the secrets from their pasts.
With theater’s ever-changing and unstable financial landscape, I believe the Citywide James Ijames Pass is an exciting new subscriber model. The collaboration highlights Philadelphia’s theatrical talent and banks on local theaters working together to build audiences instead of treating each other as competition – a new development that could change how regional theater scenes operate.
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Jurassic Quest Brings Life-Size Dinosaurs to Phoenix in February 2026
Jurassic Quest is roaring back into Phoenix in February 2026 with towering life-size dinosaurs, interactive exhibits, and hands-on activities for kids and families at the Arizona State Fairgrounds.
Phoenix, AZ — Jurassic Quest, billed as North America’s largest traveling dinosaur experience, is set to return to Arizona with a limited engagement at the Arizona State Fairgrounds from February 6–8, 2026.
The family-friendly attraction features life-size animatronic dinosaurs, immersive walk-through exhibits, and hands-on activities designed to blend entertainment with education. Guests will encounter towering recreations of iconic species such as Tyrannosaurus rex and Spinosaurus, along with interactive fossil digs, dinosaur rides, inflatables, and meet-and-greet opportunities with baby dinosaurs.
Jurassic Quest has become a popular touring event across the United States, particularly among families with young children. The experience combines museum-style displays with high-energy attractions, allowing visitors to explore at their own pace. Most attendees spend one to two hours navigating the exhibit.
The event will take place at the Arizona State Fairgrounds, located at 1826 W. McDowell Road in Phoenix, with multiple daily sessions scheduled throughout the weekend.
Tickets and additional event details are available through the official Jurassic Quest website.
Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Halftime Show Fits the NFL’s Long Game to Win Latin America
The NFL aims to expand its reach into Latin America through strategic marketing and high-profile performers like Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl halftime show. While the choice has sparked controversy, particularly among conservatives, the league sees it as a business move to attract more fans, particularly in Mexico and Brazil.
Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl show is part of long play drawn up by NFL to score with Latin America
Donald Trump, it is fair to assume, will be switching channels during this year’s Super Bowl halftime show.
The U.S. president has already said that he won’t be attending Super Bowl LX in person, suggesting that the venue, Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, was “just too far away.” But the choice of celebrity entertainment planned for the main break – Puerto Rican reggaeton star Bad Bunny and recently announced pregame addition Green Day – didn’t appeal. “I’m anti-them. I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred. Terrible,” Trump told the New York Post.
National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell likely didn’t have the sensibilities of the U.S. president in mind when the choice of Bad Bunny was made.
But for the NFL hierarchy, this was likely a business decision, not a political one. The league has its eyes on expansion into Latin America; Bad Bunny, they hope, will be a ratings-winning means to an end. It has made such bets in the past. In 2020, Shakira and Jennifer Lopez were chosen to perform, with Bad Bunny making an appearance. The choice then, too, was seen as controversial.Shakira and Bad Bunny perform during the Pepsi Super Bowl LIV Halftime Show on Feb. 2, 2020, in Miami, Fla. Al Bello/Getty Images
Some, like the National Basketball Association, are at an advantage. The sport is played around the globe and has large support bases in Asia – notably in the Philippines and China – as well as in Europe, Australia and Canada.
The league has opted for a multiprong approach to attracting international fans, including lobbying to get flag football into the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Playing the field
When it comes to the traditional tackle game, the NFL has held global aspirations for over three-quarters of a century. Between 1950-1961, before they merged, the NFL and American Football League played seven games against teams in Canada’s CFL to strengthen the relationship between the two nations’ leagues.
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Developing a fan base south of the border has long been part of the plan.
The first international exhibition game between two NFL teams was supposed to take place in Mexico City in 1968. But Mexican protest over the economy and cost of staging the Olympics that year led the game, between the Detroit Lions and Philadelphia Eagles, to be canceled.
Instead, it was Montreal that staged the first international exhibition match the following year.
In 1986, the NFL added an annual international preseason game, the “American Bowl,” to reach international fans, including several games in Mexico City and one in Monterrey.
But the more concerted effort was to grow football in the potentially lucrative, and familiar, European market.
After several attempts by the NFL and other entities in the 1970s and ’80s to establish an international football league, the NFL-backed World League of Football launched in 1991. Featuring six teams from the United States, one from Canada and three from Europe, the spring league lost money but provided evidence that there was a market for American football in Europe, leading to the establishment of NFL Europe.
But NFL bosses have long had wider ambitions. The league staged 13 games in Tokyo, beginning in 1976, and planned exhibitions for 2007 and 2009 in China that were ultimately canceled. These attempts did not have the same success as in Europe.
Beyond exhibitions
The NFL’s outreach in Latin America has been decades in the making. After six exhibition matches in Mexico between 1978 and 2001, the NFL chose Mexico City as the venue of its first regular season game outside the United States.
In 2005, it pitted the Arizona Cardinals against the San Francisco 49ers at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. Marketed as “Fútbol Americano,” it drew the largest attendance in NFL history, with over 103,000 spectators.
The following year, Goodell was named commissioner and announced that the NFL would focus future international efforts on regular-season games.
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The U.K. was a safe bet due to the established stadium infrastructure and the country’s small but passionate fan base. The NFL International Series was played exclusively in London between 2007 and 2016.
But in 2016, the NFL finally returned to Mexico City, staging a regular-season game between the Oakland – now Las Vegas – Raiders and Houston Texans.
And after the completion of upgrades to Latin America’s largest stadium, Estadio Azteca, the NFL will return to Mexico City in 2026, along with games in Munich, Berlin and London. Future plans include expanding the series to include Sydney, Australia, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2026.
Although this represents a fraction of the overall sports fans in each nation, the raw numbers match the overall Latino fan base in the United States. In recent years the NFL has celebrated Latino Heritage Month through its Por La Cultura campaign, highlighting Latino players past and present.
Latin America also offers practical advantages. Mexico has long had access to NFL games as the southern neighbor to the United States, with the Dallas Cowboys among the most popular teams in Mexico.
For broadcasters, Central and South America offer less disruption in regards to time zones. Games in Europe start as early as 6:30 a.m. for West Coast fans, whereas Mexico City follows Central time, and Brasilia time is only one to two hours ahead of Eastern time.Bad Bunny poses with the Album of the Year, Best Música Urbana Album and Best Global Music Performance awards during the 68th Grammy Awards on Feb. 1, 2026, in Los Angeles. Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
For sure, the choice of Bad Bunny as the halftime pick is controversial, given the current political climate around immigration. The artist removed tour dates on the U.S. mainland in 2025 due to concerns about ICE targeting fans at his concerts, a concern reinforced by threats from the Department of Homeland Security that they would do just that at the Super Bowl.
But in sticking with Bad Bunny, the NFL is showing it is willing to face down a section of its traditional support and bet instead on Latin American fans not just tuning in for the halftime show but for the whole game – and falling in love with football, too.
