From Heather Havrilesky in Salon.com:

Sharks are exciting and full of promise, but that only goes part of the way toward explaining why Shark Week always brings joy to the hearts of so many. Yes, sharks are fascinating to watch, cartoonish and beautiful, graceful and horrifying, magnificent and intimidating and nonchalant. Either because we don't have to elbow past them in the grocery store or because we try very hard not to think of them during the other 51 weeks of the year, sharks seem exotic, and fixating on them feels almost self-indulgent.

Shark Week, then, is more than just a week to look at sharks. Maybe it started as such 21 years ago, when the Discovery Channel, like the awkward kid who brings his dad's python to school for a momentary glimpse of popularity, first shouted "Hey everybody! Look over here! Sharks!" But since then, Shark Week has evolved into a high concept, divorced from its original intention. Shark Week doesn't just mean, "Let's look at scary, fascinating sharks together! Let's watch them circle menacingly and chomp on bloody fish! Let's hear about the most gruesome shark attacks and worry about the next time we dip a toe in the water!"

No, Shark Week also urges us to celebrate something arbitrary, something divorced from tradition or religion or national significance. The spirit of Shark Week reminds us that we get to choose what matters to us, and we can make today Taco Day or make this Nap Week, or expand Nap Week into the Year of Avoiding Real Work. We can celebrate frogs or expensive shoes or good friends or cheap beer or big hair by giving each its very own holiday, and if we choose to sit on the couch and eat snacks and watch sharks on TV for a full week, that's a perfectly legitimate choice, too.

The founders of Shark Week recognize how empty and directionless our lives can be. They know how we drift along, searching for some worthwhile distraction. They know how we're aching for something to rally us forward, like Miley Cyrus fans who need a cheery beacon through the bewildering hinterlands of puberty. And unlike campaign coverage, Emmy nominations, Olympic trials or the Tour de France, Shark Week doesn't require cogitation or analysis. We're tired of thinking. We don't want to worry about the impending recession. We don't care about Angelina Jolie's twins ... or her two brand-new babies, for that matter. We just want to watch sharks, damn it!

Happy Shark Week, America!

bethany hamilton rules!


- bill 7-27-2008 9:04 pm [add a comment]