The mayor gives an
interview for the TV, directing his gaze to the off-screen reporter, whilst in
the background Meadows vainly tries to prevent people from waving and mugging
into the camera lens. Vaughn’s statement is succinct and to the point (‘I’m
pleased and happy to repeat the news that we have caught and killed a large
predator that supposedly injured some bathers.’) The twin use of adjectives (pleased and happy) and verbs (caught and killed) employs the
politician’s favourite technique of repetition to make a point, giving the
sentence a persuasive rhythm. And yet the directness of the language in the
first half of the sentence is at odds with the equivocal phrasing of the final clause,
pointing up the absurdity of the mayor’s position. There is an infintesimal
pause before Vaughn pronounces the word predator,
as if he is self-censoring himself by avoiding the use of the word shark. The scene was clearly filmed on
one of the less sunny days and it’s a happy coincidence of poor continuity that
the greyish sky seems to be offering up yet another contradiction as Vaughn
insists that ‘it’s a beautiful day.’ Being a politician, the mayor ends the
interview with a soundbite (‘Amity, as you know, means friendship.’), which
includes a sly meta-reference to the fact that the man holding the microphone is
the creator of the fictional community. There are two real life communities
called Amity in the state of New York,
either of which may have provided Peter Benchley with inspiration. In his
novel, he makes no direct reference to the meaning of the name, but the irony
was no doubt intended.
