Warning: Spoilers ahead.
You may have heard about Blake Lively's new movie, The Shallows, in which she faces off with a shark in waters off the coast of Mexico. This film's release also happens to align with Discovery Channel's highly celebrated Shark Week. Even if you partake in neither event, when you see the word "shark," you likely wonder: Would I know what to do in a shark attack?
Earlier today, the New York Post published a quiz that can help you answer that very question. The questionnaire is aptly titled, "How likely are you to get caught in a shark attack?" But instead of taking it for myself, I took this quiz as Lively's Shallows character, Nancy.
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Why? Well, Lively survives her shark encounter in The Shallows. (You probably could have guessed that.) I find that kind of outlandish. Girlfriend was stranded on a rock with a shark circling her and no obvious way out. Her only friend was a seagull, which, contrary to their depiction in The Little Mermaid, are not exactly a helpful bird. Let's go to the tape. (To save you from scrolling through too much, I omitted the part where the quiz asks you to identify your race, gender, and if you are young or old. I answered as young white female.)
I gave Lively's character the benefit of the doubt. She's a surfer and can probably tell you a thing or two about these ocean monsters.
We never learn exactly where Lively is in Mexico, but for the sake of our argument, let's assume she's on the Gulf Coast
As we've discussed, she's alone. And as the title of the film insists, the water is shallow.
She speaks briefly to men on the beach, but for the shark confrontation, she's fairly quiet.
She's wearing a necklace and earrings, so I went with "necklace" as the best answer. (She uses this necklace to sew up her wound. Gross, you guys!)
Orange bikini.
And she was surfing in the mid-afternoon.
To her credit, Lively did try to swim to safety on a float. But that float ended up being a dead whale. Mondays, am I right?
She initially tried swimming away, but eventually freaked out. Also, what's this thing about hoping the shark realizes you're human? Are sharks so discerning they don't really like the taste of people? If they are that particular, maybe we should explore why this shark went after her? Perhaps, it hated how Gossip Girl ended.
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This is probably something her surfer character would have known to do.
And there we have it. According to the quiz, Nancy would have been screwed. Our lives are a lie.