SHARK WEEK, television’s longest running must-see summer TV event, returns to Discovery Channel in 2015 for its 28th year with another summer of shark-filled specials!
It’s the danger that fascinates. The horror of it. The prospect of being eaten alive. If the ocean, deep, impenetrable, hiding unknown threats in its depths, represents the human unconscious, as many psychoanalysts attest, with we humans pretty much afloat helplessly upon its surface, then the shark represents the great and terrible unknown, the unseen, silent threat that can strike at any moment, against which there can be no defense. There is something primal in our innate fear of the shark. When we see that triangular fin break the surface, it sends a shiver down our spine, as if someone is walking across the collective grave of the entire human race. Why is that? The phenomenon predates JAWS by several thousands of years? Why? We didn’t evolve in the water—or did we? Do we fear sharks for the same reason we instinctively fear snakes? Is it race memory?
Our rational minds know the truth. A person is far more likely to be killed by a TOASTER than a shark. Shark attacks are infinitesimally rare, despite what the media would have us believe. Yet we do not watch “Dolphin Week” or “Whale Week” every year, do we? It is the fear of sharks that attracts us to them.
source: www.discovery.com