Jaws first appears as a force of nature: over two meters tall, mute, with steel teeth capable of biting through chains. He is, in appearance, the perfect villain-body —defined solely and entirely by his monstrous physique—, the brute that Sheldon's somatotype theory would use as its emblem. And yet the James Bond saga does something unexpected with him that dismantles the myth: it humanizes him.
// The theoryThe body as the whole character
Sheldon held that an imposing physique comes with an aggressive temperament: the body predicts behavior. Action fiction applies that logic daily with henchmen —the gigantic, mute, interchangeable minions whose only trait is size—. Jaws is born as one of them: he has no psychology, no motive, no voice; he is his body. The first time he appears, the script doesn't ask us to understand him, only to fear him, exactly as Sheldon would ask us to fear the mesomorph for his silhouette.
But then something the theory never accounts for happens. Jaws falls in love, shows tenderness, is betrayed by the villain he serves and decides to switch sides —he ends up helping Bond—. The giant-monster turns out to have a person inside: capable of affection, of loyalty, of moral choice. His body dictated nothing; it had only fooled us, trained as we are to read evil in size.
Fast thinking and its error
Jaws perfectly illustrates what psychology calls fast thinking: the instant, automatic judgment that decides in milliseconds whether something is a threat. That system is quick but crude, and it lets itself be led by shortcuts like "big equals dangerous." Sheldon's theory was nothing more than that fast thinking dressed up as science: it elevated an automatic prejudice into a law. The Bond saga, by humanizing Jaws, forces the viewer to shift into slow thinking —to look beyond the silhouette and discover the person—. And there the "criminal body" evaporates: it was never a fact, only a badly calibrated reflex.
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// The subjectWhat lay behind the teeth
Jaws's twist works because it reveals that his monstrousness was a projection of ours, not a content of his. When the film gives him an inner life —a love, a humiliation, a decision—, the very body we took for sinister becomes endearing, almost comic. His physique didn't change by a single centimeter; what changed was what we knew about him. It's Sheldon's lesson in reverse: the temperament didn't come with the body; we had attributed it to him because of his shape, and simply getting to know him was enough for the label to fall away.
Jaws
// The crackNeither a monster because of his body, nor a body without consequences
The crack with Jaws is twofold and subtle. One: staying with the first impression —the interchangeable monster— is to fall right into Sheldon's error, mistaking the silhouette for the character. The other: pretending his physique doesn't matter would be naive —Jaws is dangerous when he wants to be, his real strength enables real harm, and as a henchman he did terrible things that his later redemption doesn't erase—. The precise reading: the body enables certain kinds of violence (it matters), but it does not determine whether they are carried out or against whom (it doesn't rule). Jaws could be weapon or ally with the same physique; it was his will that decided, not his teeth. And his stint as a henchman is not exonerated by his final turn.
That a character conceived as pure body-threat ended up being the most beloved of his saga is, in itself, the best argument against the theory: if physique dictated moral destiny, Jaws would never have had a second act.
Giving every body its second act
Jaws teaches a practical virtue: suspending the instant judgment long enough to get to know the person behind the body. In fiction it's a charming twist; in real life it's justice. The giant henchman we dismiss as a brute, the burly defendant a jury takes for guilty at a glance, the huge kid his school treats as a threat: all of them deserve the "second act" Jaws was given —the chance for their acts, and not their silhouette, to say who they are—. Fast thinking made us fear him; only slow thinking let us see him.
Jaws smiles with his steel teeth and, the second time, he no longer frightens: he moves us. In that change —which touched not his body, only our gaze— lies the whole refutation of somatotype theory, told as an action comedy.
Three key takeaways
- Jaws is born as the brute-monster defined solely by his physique (Sheldon's emblem), but the saga humanizes him and moves him over to the good guys: the "criminal body" that wasn't one.
- His monstrousness was a projection of ours, not a content of his: fast thinking ("big = dangerous") elevated into a law. Getting to know him —slow thinking— evaporates the label.
- The body enables violence (it matters) but doesn't dictate it (it doesn't rule): same physique, weapon or ally depending on his will. The lesson is to give every body its "second act": judge acts, not silhouettes.
Sources · further reading
- Sheldon, W. H. (1949). Varieties of Delinquent Youth. Harper & Brothers.
- Kahneman, D. (2011). Pensar rápido, pensar despacio. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
- Todorov, A. (2017). Face Value: The Irresistible Influence of First Impressions. Princeton University Press.
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
¿Quién es Jaws?
Jaws («Mandíbulas») es un villano de La espía que me amó, analizado en KRIMINIS con la lente de la criminología. Enormous, mute, terrifying: he seemed living proof that physique dictates evil.
¿Por qué Jaws (Mandíbulas) se convierte en villano?
Jaws and Sheldon's theory: the interchangeable brute, defined solely by his size and his steel teeth… until the saga itself humanizes him and moves him over to the good guys. The "criminal body" that wasn't one.
¿Qué teoría criminológica explica a Jaws?
El caso de Jaws se analiza desde la Teoría de los somatotipos. Somatotype theory claimed that an imposing body predisposes one to crime. Jaws, the steel-toothed giant of the James Bond films, starts out as the brute-monster defined solely by his physique, but the saga ends up humanizing him and moving him over to the good guys. His arc is a refutation in pop-culture terms: the "criminal body" turns out not to be one.
