Bruce The Shark

Bruce The Shark

It would be few contemporary parents who are not familiar with the animated children's film, "Finding Nemo." In the oceanic fantasy story, the young Nemo, a clown fish, is inadvertently captured in a fish collector's diving net and his father, Marlin, accompanied by an absent-minded Angel-fish friend named Dory, sets out on a quest to find his abducted son.

Bruce The Shark

At one point in their travels and trials, they are waylaid by a massive brute of a toothy Great White shark named Bruce and forcibly invited to a “get together.” Steered by the fins of the massive beast, they soon find themselves within the rusting hulk of a sunken submarine, in the midst of an old and forgotten anti-submarine minefield -- and in the company of Bruce’s acquaintances. A Hammerhead shark named “Anchor,” and a Mako shark named “Chum.”

Bruce the Great White shark, Marlin and Dory, from 'Finding Nemo.' Click to enlarge.What follows is a comical, if not frightening charade of a self-help meeting similar to an AA gathering, with the sharks, hoping to reform their reputations as killers, engaging in perfunctory oaths of, “I am a nice shark,” and, “Fish are not food, they are our friends.” Thus Marlin’s and Dory’s “invitation" as fish friends. The viewer is further persuaded of the pretense when Chum is asked where his fish “friend” is, only to quickly nip down the skeletal remains of an unfortunate fish caught in his snaggly toothed jaws.

Bruce, the Great White shark, with his pals Chum and Anchor, from 'Finding Nemo.' Click to enlarge.As the meeting commences and the two traveling companions acquiesce to the shark's efforts at "reform," Dory's nose accidentally gets bumped on the podium and starts to bleed. The insignificant trace of blood swirls into the water and curls around the nostrils of Bruce.

The Great White, immediately seized by the aroma, rapidly abandons all pretense of change and, surrendering to his true nature, instantly begins to pursue the two friends, shouting, "I’m gonna' have fish tonight!" What follows is a violent and fierce pursuit of Marlin and Dory by the incensed predator. Subsequently, a torpedo still positioned in the derelict sub's tube is knocked loose, slides out and into Bruce's massive jaws, and is tossed aside -- only to strike one of the mines, which sets off a cataclysmic chain reaction through the rest of the minefield. Marlin and Dory barely escape with their lives.

Bruce The Shark