Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916 he wades in the water. In 1974, writer Peter Benchley published "Jaws", a novel about a rogue great white shark that terrorizes the fictional coastal community of Amity Island. Chief of police Martin Brody, biologist Matt Hooper, and fisherman Quint hunt the shark after it kills four people. The novel was adapted as the film "Jaws" by Steven Spielberg in 1975. Spielberg's film makes reference to the events of 1916: Brody (Roy Scheider) and Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) urge Amity's Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) to close the beaches on the Fourth of July after the deaths of two swimmers and a
Jaws (film) by Brody's conflict with Mayor Vaughn, who refuses to acknowledge the presence of a shark that may dissuade summer beachgoers from coming to Amity. Brody is vindicated when more shark attacks occur at the crowded beach in broad daylight. Sinyard calls the film a "deft combination of Watergate and Ibsen's play". "Jaws" has received attention from academic critics. Stephen Heath relates the film's ideological meanings to the then-recent Watergate scandal. He argues that Brody represents the "white male middle class—[there is] not a single black and, very quickly, not a single woman in the film", who restores public order "with