From “Hero” to “Evil”

Abstract

The security guard, who was the pioneer to prevent the suspicious package left in the entertainment area, was primarily declared as ‘hero' after the incident in Atlanta during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and then he was vilified as ‘evil' as a result of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and media representations about the incident. The incident was adapted into the movie Richard Jewell in 2019, directed by Clint Eastwood. The movie, in which Jewell's devastating life is narrated in the screenplay, is regarded as to be worth analyzing because the media reflects the witch hunt that Stanley Cohen defines as a moral panic. Consequently, the moral panic creation of the media is tried to be analyzed through the movie Richard Jewell in this study.