As an avid fan of “creature-feature” horror movies, I was ecstatic when I first heard about last summer’s Deep Blue Sea. In the movie, a group of scientists genetically alter a group of Mako sharks in order to harvest brain proteins which will cure Alzheimer’s disease. When a tropical storm damages their isolated, floating ocean lab and surrounding shark enclosures, the scientists and crew are stalked by the escaped sharks. The story contains expected amounts of traps, escapes and grisly shark attacks, generally following a familiar formula established in countless other killer creature movies.
I’ve always enjoyed these types of movies for their camp and comic value, their special effects and the visceral thrills they provide. But something about Deep Blue Sea in particular struck me, and ultimately upset me. Having sought out and devoured creature-feature flicks for years, I’m familiar with every cliche the genre has to offer. Deep Blue Sea sticks with most of the genre’s plot and character standards (which I will briefly define later in my review,) but strays from them in a few notable spots. Specifically, I was surprised at how the film’s two black male characters, its two white women and major white male character operated within the story. In reviewing Deep Blue Sea, I will concentrate on the relationships between these characters and the rest of the cast, and on what these relationships may say regarding gender, race and class.
Creature-feature movies are a sub-genre of horror in which a monster (often an oversized or especially ferocious version of a familiar animal) systematically picks off and eats most of the cast. I will dub this plot structure as the “gang-pick off” system. Some relatively recent movies which incorporate the gang-pick off system include Leviathan, Virus, Anaconda, Deep Rising, the Jaws movies to some extent, and of course all four of the Alien movies. In all these movies, a group or gang of five to a dozen people of differing races, sexes and classes become trapped with a killer creature (a Soviet-spawned virus which mutates people into sea monsters, an alien virus that turns people into killer robots, a big snake, a giant sea monster, a giant shark, and a bunch of acid-blooded aliens respectively.)
In her description of the slasher sub-genre of horror, Carol J. Clover also illuminates the identical characteristics of creature horror films. Just as the tradition of slasher films involves “the free exchange of themes and motifs, the archetypal characters and situations, the accumulation of sequels, remakes, imitations (169),” so does the tradition of creature-features. While I have named only a few recent examples, the killer creature genre reaches back decades, to B-movies from the early 60's like The Killer Shrews, or even to Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963). Clover goes on to say that “there is in some sense no original, no real or right text, but only variants; a world in which, therefore, the meaning of the individual example lies outside itself (169).” This too is true of creature movies. The exact location, plot devices and type of monster are arbitrary, we pay to see interesting variations on a group of people running from a big, mean mouth full of teeth.
Since the time honored story structures of creature feature movies can no longer surprise us in and of themselves, the suspense of such films comes in guessing how they will adhere or depart from the formula. Past incarnations of the creature film assure the us, the audience, that almost everyone in the gang will die. Thus, the order and manner in which they die become the most suspenseful, important part of the film.
In the tradition of creature-horror, a white man, white woman or both almost always survive. Their survival is ensured by the self-sacrifice of another character, often a non-white male. In Leviathan, black actor Ernie Hudson’s character tackles the sea monster, allowing the white couple to escape. Yaphet Kotto dies distracting the alien to save a white woman in Alien. Charles S. Dutton death-wrassles another unstoppable alien in Alien 3 to save Sigourney Weaver, and a giant killer insect in Mimic to save Mira Sorvino and Jeremy Northam (their characters are married.) In Anaconda Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez defeat the giant snake together, but only so that Jennifer can reunite with her wimpy white boyfriend, Eric Stolz (in effect choosing white over black while affirming heterosexual romance over her platonic relationship with Ice Cube.) Black men are portrayed as heroes, but also as expendable and subordinate to their lighter-skinned companions. In these films it is a given that the lives of white men and women are worth more than that of black men, so it is usually the light skinned, straight couple that survives the final confrontation with the monster.
Having defined the conventions of creature-feature movies, I will return my focus to Deep Blue Sea. The film’s official website gives a glimpse into how the film makers planned to subvert the cliches I have mentioned:
In the classic horror movies of the past, part of the fun arises from the ‘who’s-going-to-get-it-next?’ effect. [Director Renny] Harlin and his producers embraced this concept when it came to casting the motion picture. Harlin offers, ‘We wanted to cast actors who were solid actors but not necessarily movie stars, as in the first Alien movie, where nobody could have expected that Sigourney Weaver was going to survive. We really wanted to twist the story and put the audience in a position where they have no idea who is who, or what going to happen to these people. We want them to get to know these people as real, true flesh-and-blood characters rather than movie stars.’
This quote from the film’s makers proves that they paid purposeful attention to the order in which their characters died, as well as to their appearance (gender and race) and overall identities (including social and economic status.) In my analysis of the film, I discovered two trends. First, black, working class men are established as the demographic that is worthy of surviving the creature attack. But in validating black, working class men, the film actually equates black with working class, and white with upper class. Second, the usual survivor, a white woman (and often her boyfriend/husband,) is not simply supplanted by or switched with the black man. Instead, she is demonized, humiliated and punished for her femininity and sexuality, and ultimately installed in a far more denigrating role than black men have ever occupied in creature feature movies.
In the film, Dr. Susan McAlester (played by white, British actress Saffron Burrows) develops a cure for Alzheimer’s disease using the chemicals in the brains of genetically altered, giant sharks. Burrows possesses fashion model looks, and seems the obvious candidate for a romantic subplot with Carter Blake (played by white actor Thomas Jane,) the shark wrangler with the cowboy attitude and boyish good looks. However, she turns down his friendly offer to share a beer, saying primly “it’s all work for me, Carter.” Susan’s sexual reluctance has been established, and the film goes on to characterize her as frigid, cold, and calculating. “Welcome to my parlor,” she says coldly when everyone enters her laboratory. Susan is a black widow, a spider woman, close to being villainized simply because she is an ambitious scientist and isn’t attracted to the leading man. When a character gets their arm bitten off, she is practically useless. “I’m not this kind of doctor,” she mumbles in a monotone, unable to display human emotion or help her companions.
By contrast, the film’s other white female character is at the other end of the stereotype spectrum. Janice (played by another white, magazine quality actress, Jacqueline Mackenzie,) starts out like Donna Reed, speaking in an artificially sweet tone and giving a quaint little tour of the ocean laboratory. She is able to comfort the arm-wound victim (her love interest) as Susan cannot, but when he dies she flips into hysterical weeping mode. “You stupid bitch!” she cries at Susan, setting up their oppositional relationship. Within the film, these two characters represent a dichotomy of femininity -- powerful, unfeeling bitch and over-emotional, weak victim.
Well-known black actor Samuel L. Jackson plays Russell Franklin, the president of the board of the pharmaceutical company that Susan’s Alzheimer’s drug will be sold to. He is a millionaire entrepreneur, and is mistrusted and disliked because of this. Cowboy shark wrangler Carter calls him a “rich suit” and asks him “you’re The Man, right?” “Yeah, I’m The Man,” replies Russell, effecting a racial and social role reversal.
Famous rapper LL Cool J plays Preach, the ocean base’s cook. When Russell compliments him on a tasty meal and calls him “brother,” Preach mentions Russell’s involvement in a mountain climbing accident years ago. “Like black men don’t got enough ways to get killed without climbing up some stupid ass mountain in the middle of God’s nowhere,” Preach says. “You got to leave that to the white folks, brother.” Preach separates himself from wealthy Russell, in effect denying Russell his blackness with the sarcastic “brother.” After the nearly anonymous arm-bite guy, Russell is the first member of the gang to get picked off by the sharks. As he gives an inspiring pep-talk to the group and asserts his authority as their leader, a shark jumps out of the water, drags him under the waves and bites him in half. Clearly, affluence is not something to aspire to in Deep Blue Sea, unless you want to be shark chow.
The next to go is Janice, who by this time is a total basket case. She falls off a ladder and into the water thanks to weak arm muscles, and splashes around screaming for Carter to save her. She is suddenly jerked under the water by a shark, and the rest of the gang momentarily mourns her loss. Then she rises up again, arms outstretched in a weirdly graceful pose like a synchronized swimmer. Her legs are wrapped in an equally posed way around the shark’s vertical snout, but its jaws are locked over her crotch. Janice screams and bleeds in gouts, but stays carefully positioned like a ballet dancer as the shark attacks her between the legs. Amazingly, the shot of her emerging from the water like this is shown
Susan is also degraded sexually. She gets trapped by a shark, and has to electrocute it with a nearby clump of wires. She strips to her underwear and stands on her wetsuit to insulate herself from the electrical charge. Shivering and pissed off, she cowers in her tiny white bra and panties as flailing shark, flames and sparks go everywhere. The scene may be an homage to Sigourney Weaver’s strip tease at the end of Alien, but in this case I was especially angered. Susan is forced to strip to survive, it’s as if the movie is punishing her for her earlier denial of Carter and gloating while she suffers, wet and miserable. The theme continues in the film’s poster art (which I have included as an appendix.) A bedraggled Susan wades helplessly with mouth hanging open, about to be gulped by a shark cleavage and all.
Scoggins is the next to die after Janice, leaving fearless leader Carter, soggy scientist Susan and Preach, the God fearing token black man. “Brothers never make it out of situations like this -- not ever!” laments Preach, just before the final confrontation with the last, biggest shark. But remember, Deep Blue Sea aims to subvert the familiar cliches of its genre. Preach does get nabbed by a shark, but stabs it in the eye with his oversized crucifix and escapes with only a tenderized leg.
It is Susan who ultimately sacrifices herself to save Carter, Preach and any other future victims of the 45 foot genius shark. Before it can escape the base and enter the open sea, she slices her hand and jumps in the water to lure it closer so Carter can shoot it. “She may be the smartest animal in the world, but she’s still just an animal,” mutters the still stone-faced scientist. “Come to mama.” The shark and its creator are both designated female, and connected to each other in a mother-daughter bond. Susan floats gracefully in the water, only her submerged arms and legs visible. The shark approaches her, regards her blankly for a long moment, and then gobbles her up in three very separate, bloody bites. The film pauses deliberately before picking off Susan, and the subsequent destruction of the shark is like an anticlimactic afterthought. When Preach fires the lethal explosive charge, he whispers “This is for Scoggins.” Scoggins?! Susan is the one who sacrificed her life to help kill the shark. Scoggins was comic relief, for pete’s sake. Yet Susan doesn’t even get a hero’s memorial, she’s nothing but fish food to the sharks and her companions. I felt cheated by Susan’s death, and saddened by how little the surviving characters cared about her.
The film’s surviving couple is a black man and a white man, both working class guys whose only loyalty or affection is to each other. As their rescuers appear on the horizon, Preach says “here comes the next shift.” “Let me tell ya man, I quit this job!” groans Carter. “Take me back to the ghetto. . .” we hear Preach say as the camera pulls back and an LL Cool J song begins to play. “Amen,” Carter agrees, including himself in Preach’s race and class distinctive statement. Preach allows Carter to echo his “ghetto” comment without argument, where before he denied Russell the chance to be a “brother” with him. So, by being a working class “fish keeper,” Carter is also an honorary non-white in accordance with the film’s own race/class equation.
Deep Blue Sea is almost socially responsible in the way that it lets LL Cool J’s character survive the movie. He may not be the gang’s official leader, but in the final scene Carter is subordinate to him, agreeing and echoing his statements instead of making his own. Of course, the blurring of race and social class, equating “real” blackness with lower economic status, is a totally inappropriate reinforcement of stereotypes. Deep Blue Sea does a very effective job of destroying the standard white supremacist, heteronormative message that its genre perpetuates. I just wish my beloved creature feature genre could do it without attacking women. I’m disappointed that this film demeans and exploits women and female sexuality, and constructs a racist image of class distinctions.
WORKS CITED
Deep Blue Sea Official Movie Web Site. http://www.wb-deepbluesea.com/
Clover, Carol J. “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film” as printed in Gender, Race and Class in Media. 1995.
If you enjoyed this review, please send comments to:Hannah Kuhlmann