Larry Vaughn’s description of the graffitied billboard (‘a deliberate mutilation of a public service message’) is – on the surface – a typical example of the mayor’s propensity to speak in the jargon of the bureaucrat. It’s an idiolect that uses vocabulary for the purposes of obfuscation, turning ‘a shark attack’ into ‘a boating accident’, hiding the truth behind big words and burying meaning in serpentine sentence constructions. It comes to the fore later in the mayor’s brief interview with the TV reporter on the Fourth of July, and is also evident in that other public service message, the No Swimming sign that we see being erected on the windswept beach in the wake of the town hall meeting. With its connotations of cutting and tearing, the word ‘mutilation’ stands out, however, as a rather unfortunate choice of word, the kind of verbal misstep that politicians are wont to make. It could be read as a Freudian slip, prompted by the scene depicted on the billboard, which itself is a parody of the movie’s opening scene of cutting and tearing. It could also be read as an indication that Larry Vaughn’s carefully constructed pronouncements are beginning to crack under pressure. Indeed, in his very next sentence, he abandons any pretence of linguistic control and expresses himself in more direct and emotional language (‘I want those little paint-happy bastards caught and hung up by their Buster Browns.’) The reference to a brand of kids’ shoes suggests the mayor is assuming the vandalism is the work of children. The euphemism – which seems to have been coined here – may seem a relatively innocent expression, but it belies the fact that Larry Vaughn is advocating emasculation as a punishment for the vandals. Hooper, like Vaughn, also abandons the idiolect of his public persona during the course of the scene, and ends up treating the mayor like a child, framing his argument as a third grade show and tell (‘All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks …. Now, why don’t you take a long close look at this sign.’). As the two men spar with words, the sign behind them – as big as a movie screen – transmits its unreconstituted public message that Amity has a shark problem.
