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Is Mayor of Amity from Jaws an inspiration for the mayor in Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs?

I googled for it but didn't find direct evidence.

EDIT: I also noticed some interesting similarities in wardrobe and mannerisms between the earlier Jaws mayor and the later CWACOM mayor. E.g. the way they combine the colors of their shirt+jacket+ties. enter image description here enter image description here

There is one tie that's worn by the Jaws mayor for a period during the movie that looks exactly the same as the rendered tie of the CWACOM mayor.

I guess we can only confirm how much inspiration the CWACOM mayor character took from the Jaws character if ever the creators of CWACOM see this post in this website.

PS: the more I look at the two ties, the more I think they are purposely the same pattern. :-)

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Not directly I assume but the Mayor in Jaws was an early example of a Trope (indeed possibly the originator) but there are example of this throughout disaster-type movies where dire warnings are ignored by authority figures.

Suit with Vested Interest

If you've seen a Disaster Movie or Monster Movie, you've seen this trope. There's an oncoming disaster and The Hero is trying to get everyone to see the Cassandra Truth. Problem is that there's this one Suit with Vested Interests in something that's going to suffer if the disaster comes about. He'll argue against people believing the hero or an Ignored Expert, he'll try to convince people that they are safe with his product, and he'll try to stop word from getting further so that the stock prices don't sink, all while the boat does.

The vested interest varies. He could be the owner of the project that is actively causing the disaster or whose destruction is the disaster. On the other hand, it could just be that they would lose a lot of money from the Attack of the Town Festival. In fact, in the Attack of the Town Festival, expect this role to be played by the mayor.

In the case of Jaws, the mayor is downplaying any danger so as not to drive off tourists (see Attack of the Town Festival trope).

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  • Thanks. I didn't know about the "Suit with Vested Interest" and I enjoyed reading it in the context of both mayors in the Jaws movie and the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movie.
    – 719016
    Jun 18, 2019 at 15:50

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