In defense of Mayor Vaughn

The real villain of “Jaws” is not driven by greed or avarice, but weakness and stupidity.

This year is the 50th anniversary of Jaws, and naturally, encomiums are being issued. I recently watched a rather official one, a documentary titled Jaws @ 50, featuring the usual suspects and some new ones, from Steven Spielberg to Jordan Peele.

All the usual themes were covered: The difficulty of the production, the stylistic brilliance of rarely showing the shark, the effectiveness of John Williams’ theme, etc. However, there were also various attempts at social relevance, including lamentations over the demonization of sharks and, particularly, the film’s seemingly timeless teachings on the subjects of greed and political corruption.

This final theme centers around the movie’s real villain. After all, the shark that is eating its way through Amity Island’s population is simply doing what a shark does. The film’s heavy is, in fact, the island’s Mayor Larry Vaughn, who relentlessly lies and conceals the danger posed by the looming predator until, ultimately, one too many people have been killed.

Played by the oleaginous actor Murray Hamilton, who not coincidentally bears some resemblance to Richard Nixon, Vaughn is an easy character to hate. He bullies the righteous police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) into ignoring Brody’s best instincts; belittles marine biologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss)’s warnings, even though Hooper is clearly smarter than him; and even encourages people to go swimming in waters that he must, on some level, know are shark-infested.

All the talking heads in Jaws @ 50 assert that Vaughn does all of these horrible things for money. He fears that the threat of a shark will keep the tourists and their wallets away, and is perfectly willing to sacrifice human lives to keep the dollars coming in.

It is safe to say that this has always been the view of Vaughn’s character among most fans and critics. To them, he personifies the crimes and corruptions of the Nixon years, from Vietnam to Watergate. While the shark is a dangerous animal, Vaughn is the real monster.

This is edifying for people who take a dim view of politics and business, but it is, one regrets to say, quite wrong. Even if the filmmakers did not intend it, Vaughn is not so much a villain as a weak and stupid man trapped in an impossible situation. Because he is weak and stupid, he does the wrong thing, and people die.

For example, most viewers of the film rarely sit down and think about the fact that, to a great extent, Vaughn is right.

As Vaughn puts it, “Amity is a summer town. We need summer dollars.” Anyone who has spent time in resort areas like Martha’s Vineyard (where Jaws was filmed) or Nantucket knows that this is an understatement. The “islanders” and “year-rounders” who reside in these places are often not the wealthy elite who visit for a few months each summer. They are, in general, working-class individuals who perpetually live on the edge of poverty. Their primary source of income, aside from a small fishing industry, is tourism. If a tourist season goes awry, they are left financially devastated. As the shark-hunter Quint (Robert Shaw) says in his famous introductory speech, they’ll “be on welfare all winter.”

The film itself acknowledges this in the town meeting scene in which the community discusses closing the beaches. Throughout the scene, it’s evident that the community as a whole agrees with Vaughn. They don’t want the beaches closed or the tourist season ruined, even if a massive, man-eating animal is out there stalking women and children. Vaughn, unlike Brody or Hooper, embodies the authentic voice of the community, as he was elected to do.

In other words, Vaughn’s actions are not driven by a threat to his stock portfolio or personal income, but rather by the existential threat facing his town. His crimes are not motivated by greed, but by misguided altruism.

Vaughn’s transformation into a villain is undeniable, but it is not due to avarice. Instead, it stems from his inherent weakness and stupidity.

Because he is weak and stupid, he decides to take the easy way out: Rather than acknowledge that the shark is a genuine threat, accept that the economic damage must be weathered, and cough up the money to pay Quint to kill the animal, he decides to pretend that the shark does not exist at all. He thinks that, if he acts as if the shark isn’t out there, then the shark isn’t out there, and everything will be fine.

Of course, denial doesn’t work, because it never does, and people die as a result.

What is striking about the film, and usually overlooked by fans and critics, is that Vaughn himself ultimately accepts this.

In the film’s most understated yet powerful dramatic scene, Brody confronts Vaughn at the local hospital after his son narrowly escapes being killed by the shark. Finally, Brody convinces Vaughn to sign off on the shark hunt.

The extraordinary thing about this scene, and the crown jewel of Hamilton’s performance, is that Vaughn is now a broken man. He slouches, stammers, and mumbles out a few last desperate attempts to defend his actions. At least, he gasps, his motives were good. But it’s clear that he knows it’s all over: the summer season, his political career, perhaps even the town itself. And he knows there’s nothing he can do about it. All he can do in the end is rasp out, “My kids were on that beach too.”

It is a devastating scene because it presents us with the image of a man who has hit rock bottom. Vaughn has built his entire world upon the denial of the horrors of life and now can no longer deny them. He has done the best he could, or at least what he thought was the best he could, and it has come crashing down around him. It was all his fault, and he knows it.

Such occurrences are not uncommon, and the sight of them is far more unsettling than most of us would like to acknowledge. We all engage in denial to some extent, and to see the potential consequences is too overwhelming for many of us to accept. So, we choose to see Vaughn as the venal politician or greedy CEO we all detest.

The truth, however, is that we are looking at someone very like ourselves. The uncomfortable reality is that most of us, faced with such a situation, would choose to be Vaughn rather than Brody. We would either try to manage the threat or simply pretend it isn’t there. Not out of greed or avarice, but because it is easier. To be a Brody is, after all, far more difficult than it is to be a Vaughn.

The ultimate message of Jaws—and it is a good one—is that, in the end, it is better to take the difficult route. Brody, after all, emerges from the film bruised and battered, but still intact. Vaughn, on the other hand, is shattered for life. The point is well taken: Heroes are not born out of physical strength or even moral integrity, but of the simple refusal to look away.