In the Heart of the Sea is Ron Howard’s latest movie. Based on the book of the same name, it tells the story of the crew of the Nantucket whale ship Essex, which was smashed to bits by a pissed-off sperm whale in 1820. Thor lost a ton of weight just to accurately portray a shipwreck survivor in the film, which opens this Friday. In more recent Massachusetts history, Michael Bergin and his buddy Jay went out fishing this past September in Boston Harbor, where they caught an above-average sunfish that BLEW THEYAH FACKIN’ MINDS. At the time, they thought it might be A FACKIN’ SEA MONSTAH or some kind of BABY FACKIN’ WHALE. Honestly, that video was probably the highlight of my year.
This latest mash-up, from Tom Hyndman, asks the question: What if the crew of the Essex reacted like Mike and Jay? I bet this is actually closer to the way it really happened. There’s no chance a whole crew of grizzled New England fishermen got their boat smashed by a massive sperm whale without someone shouting OH MY FACKIN GAWD LOOKIT THE SIZE A THAT CAWKSUCKAH! IT’S FACKIN BIGGAH THAN MAHGRIT KELLY’S KNOCKAHS!
I don’t need to be a maritime historian to know this is true.