Photo: Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock
He may have just been the fictional mayor of Amity Island inthe first twoJawsmovies, but his short-sighted resistance toward protecting people from the sharks keeps his legacy alive and well. Forty-four years afterJawsmade him no more than the fifth-most important character in one of the most popular movies of all time, Mayor Vaughn has been turned into a reliable meme for everything that is right and wrong with local elections.
Last year, a day before the midterm elections,Stranger ThingsstarDavid Harbourinvoked Vaughn’s track record on Instagramin urging his followersto turn out the polls.
He posted a meme with the text “the mayor from Jaws is still the mayor inJaws 2. Be sure to vote in your local elections.”
His caption: “CLOSE THE BEACHES, DAMMIT!!” — which is basically what Amity Police Chief Martin Brody tells Mayor Vaughn inJaws, to no avail (and an increasing body count).
Mayor Vaughn (center) inJaws 2.Universal Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection
And Goodell was riffing on the well-established meme of Mayor Vaughn’s incompetence. A parody account for Vaughn wasstarted on Twitterin 2014, and he was used as a gag in the 2016Ghostbustersre-make. (“Please don’t be like the mayor inJaws!”)
During the 2016 election, users adapted the punchline of a Vaughn comparison as they saw fit. Depending on the user, former Ohio Gov. John Kasich was the mayor … or maybe it was President Donald Trump … or Florida Gov.-turned-Sen. Rick Scott.
In a reply to Goodell’s 2017 tweet, another userpointed outthatJaws‘ political dimension has received some study before.
Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels touched on it in their 2016 bookDemocracy for Realists, explaining in an interview about the project that shark attacks in New Jersey in 1916, which partially inspired theJawsnovel that became theJawsmovie, led to decreased votes in the area for President Woodrow Wilson in his re-election campaign, despite “his administration [doing] everything they could.”
But wait: If Wilson actually suffered some real-life political damage, why did the fictional Mayor Vaughn emerge unscathed from his own shark scandal, remaining in office inJaws 2, set some three years later? (The matter of his re-election is not directly addressed in the text, but one assumes.)
What lessons should this teach us? What jokes?
Here is where Google can quickly lead down a rabbit hole:Jaws‘ Mayor Vaughn has been the subjectofessays,satirical YouTube videosandsatirical campaign adsand acolumnon the liberal news websiteSalonthat wondered “Why is Trump acting like the mayor from Jaws?” He has been turned into athrow pillowand abusiness-school questionand Goodell’s tweet about him became a T-shirt.
That tweet also prompted a public-relations industry blog earlier this year titled“What Jaws can teach us about PR.”
Mayor Vaughn (left) inJaws.Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock
And in August, the website CityLabanalyzed how“Jawsoffers a rich set of insights into the mechanics of cities … how chronic corruption, ineffective leadership, and inadequate planning can turn a hungry fish into a regional economic catastrophe.”
Mayor Vaughn himself did not live long enough for such a discussion over his time in office: He stopped appearing in theJawsfranchise after the first sequel. Actor Murray Hamilton, who portrayed him and his almost-as-memeable blazers, died in 1986.
Gone — but not forgotten. Vaughnhas his defendersstill: Hischaracter pageon theJawswiki describes him as “well-meaning and caring, but unwise.” U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, famous for his own eccentricities and off-color quips,has long jested(with an unclear level of sincerity) that Vaughn is his political hero.
Whoever is writing his wiki concurs: “The fact that he held the position of mayor for so long proved that Larry Vaughn was very good at his job.”
On Tuesday, the Twitter account for the fictional Mayor Vaughn announcedhe was up for re-election.
He won in a landslide.
source: people.com
