In Spielberg’s ‘Jaws’, Chief Brody Is a Man Just Trying to Do His Job
The ocean-fearing police chief of Amity Island in Steven Spielberg’s classic horror film is the ‘everyman’ hero that anyone can admire
Every year around the giddy celebrations of the 4th of July I celebrate in my own personal holiday tradition: watching Amity Island residents get torn to shreds by a great white shark named Bruce.
Obviously I’m speaking of the fictional film Jaws from 1975, the movie that created the summer blockbuster, as well as unintentionally initiating the corporatization of the film industry. I first saw the film when I was around the age of six or seven. As a kid in the early 2000's I knew it existed, and that I wasn’t allowed to see it, but one night my father had it on the TV in the living room. I asked if I could watch it with him and he said as long as I didn’t get scared. Luckily seeing Jaws as a child helped blossom a love for movies instead of leaving me scarred for life. Although, I was more hesitant in the ocean on our next summer vacation to the Outer Banks because of it.
Spielberg’s film has become a personal favorite of mine throughout the years. With every glorious rewatch I tend to find something else about the film, it’s characters, or setting that sticks in my head.
So after watching Jaws to celebrate the 4th this year I couldn’t stop thinking about the character of Chief Brody, who was played perfectly by the underrated Roy Scheider. Brody is a middle-aged husband, father, and police chief of Amity Island, the small beach community that earns their livings during the vacations of summertime.
Brody is presented as a man who seeks to coast through the second half of his career in law enforcement after leaving the rough crime of New York City. In his first summer as Amity Island’s police chief he stumbles bravely into facing a great white shark that is terrorizing his citizens. Before Brody even knows about a shark in their waters, a local college-aged girl is killed while swimming in the night.
Chief Brody is introduced to us not as some looming figure of local law enforcement, but as a loving and passionate husband and father. The chief is not the chief: he’s just Brody. A great man. Honorable, even. He takes care of everyone and anyone. I mean, in the scene after finding the first dead body on the beach, the camera cuts to the college kid (the one who found her) in the police station staring into space, holding a cup of alka seltzer water to calm his nerves. It is implied that Brody gave him the drink and safety of the police station as he types up a report in the other room. As his citizens are traumatized by the first attack, Brody is already doing his job as best as he can: taking care of their health, reporting what happened, and working his ass off to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Brody begins the work to close the beaches down right before the 4th of July, the holiday that ignites the vacationers to ferry into fictional Amity Island. Once word gets around to what Brody is up to, he quickly gets a talking to by the Mayor (played by the brilliant Murray Hamilton), as well as half a dozen local business leaders.
Brody is clearly annoyed at the situation. The medical examiner, who originally told him it was a shark attack, lies and says he was wrong after being pressured by the mayor. Mayor Vaughn tells Brody, “I don’t think you appreciate the gut reaction people have to these things,” to which Brody replies sternly, “Larry I appreciate it, I was just reacting to what I was told!”
Chief Brody begrudgingly does his job by following orders from the slick mayor. The beaches stay open for the time being, and the death of the local girl from the shark attack remains a secret. As locals pack the beaches (along with Brody, his wife, and their two sons), we see Brody watching the waters with the anxiety of a parent seeing their child off to school alone for the very first time.
The rest of the scene is film history. A dog goes missing in the water off screen, the “Kintner boy” gets brutally eaten by the shark, and the entire town is there to witness the horrific event. What happens next for Chief Brody is what piqued my interest about his role as an employee of Amity Island.
In a loud and raucous town meeting, the locals of Amity yap at the leaders (the mayor, Brody, business people) about the shark problem around the holiday season. They all demand to know if the beaches will be open or not as the mayor looks to the police chief for a public answer. Brody stumbles nervously through his words, beating around the bush, but admits that he plans on shutting down the beaches.
The room roars again with disapproval and whining from Amity’s finest. Mayor Vaughn shouts over the citizens “only for 24 hours!” to calm them down, which shocks Brody. He replies that he didn’t agree to that as the mayor ignores him. Spielberg leaves the camera on Brody’s upset face as the mayor and locals have overpowered the man who should be in power during the dangerous situation: the police chief.
The relationship between the citizens of Amity Island and their police chief is a fascinating one. They know that their community is mostly supported by the booming business of vacationers in the summer. Chief Brody knows that there is a deadly shark feeding on Amity’s children in their waters. Yet this group of leaders and citizens are furious at the idea of public safety over public profit.
Many citizens early in the film joke to Chief Brody about how they know he’s not a true “islander”, or since it is his first summer in Amity that he just doesn’t understand their economic needs yet. As a viewer, it is easy to get the feeling that in the isolated spot of Amity, these locals are just as quick to the jugular as the great white shark that looms over the film. We never find out who was the chief before Brody, or why there was an opening. Could this have happened before? Did the Amity Island citizens push out their previous chief for not meeting their economic demands?
As the first half of the film moves on, Brody works his ass off to ensure the beaches are as safe as possible if they will be open. The vacationers come in to celebrate the July 4th holiday as the beaches are filled to the brim with tourists. The only issue is that everyone is too afraid to get into the water. The mayor pressures people to get in, the shark attacks Brody’s son with friends in a smaller section of the beach, and everything flips.
Faced with multiple deaths, a horrified island, and almost losing his eldest son to the territorial great white shark, Brody finally puts his foot down and stands up to the mayor. While his son is in the hospital because of shock from the shark attack, Brody orders the frazzled Mayor Vaughn (who is whispering to himself about how to fix his political career at the moment) to sign a waiver so he can hire the local rugged fisherman Quint (Robert Shaw) to kill the shark once and for all.
The second half of the film is notably the most famous. Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss are stuck together on the Orca, Quint’s fishing boat that is being used to find the shark. The men bond, fight, bicker, scream, drink, get scared, sing, get excited, and face mortality in the final half of Jaws.
As the three men in the story transition from land to sea, Brody’s obligation to fulfill his job as the police chief stays the same. He no longer receives political orders from the mayor or citizens. Instead, he is relegated to doing whatever either Quint or Hooper order him to do on the boat. His obvious fears for the ocean have him hilariously tip-toeing around the Orca as he tries to follow orders.
Brody on the boat feels like a fish out of water. He begins by wearing a life vest, complains about taking orders from Quint, and gets annoyed at the childlike competitions that constantly arise between Quint and Hooper. All three men are, at the same time, fighting for the right to lead the mission to find and kill the shark. Quint is the sailor who provided the boat and has his own vendetta against sharks after surviving shark attacks after the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. Hooper is from an oceanographic institute and has been training his entire life for this moment, just like Quint, but from a scientific perspective. And Brody is the leader on the island of Amity, where the shark has already eaten too many of the citizens that he is supposed to protect.
In the finale of the film, the shark gets the best of the mad Quint, then narrowly devours Hooper through his underwater shark cage. Brody is left alone to face the beast of it all, just as how the story began. He is a singular figure of authority in Amity that must always try his hardest to prevail for the greater good. For men like Chief Brody, there is just no such thing as quitting.
In the famous climactic scene between Brody and the great white, Brody bests Bruce by shooting an air tank that he had lodged in the enormous mouth of the shark. The great white explodes, Hooper resurfaces safely, and the two survivors begin their slow and peaceful swim back to the beaches of Amity Island.
In the end of it all, Brody is simply an American man that is more than just his job title. He genuinely tries. He gives a damn. I think that is a pretty admirable thing to be.
