Credit: Turner Classic Movies

Theatre apologises after Richard Dreyfuss makes “offensive” remarks at ‘Jaws’ screening

Tue 28 May 2024 9:10, UK

Jaws star Richard Dreyfuss has come under fire several times in recent years for sharing his views on a variety of subjects such as diversity requirements or actors performing in Blackface. Now, at a screening this week, he allegedly used his platform to make comments against the transgender community.

Dreyfuss starred in many successful movies in the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. Most notably, he played marine biologist Matt Hooper in the 1975 Steven Spielberg film Jaws. He also had roles in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, American Graffiti, and more.

However, his reputation is under threat by some of his recent public comments. In 2023, Dreyfuss took hits at the Academy Awards’ new diversity guidelines, which require films to meet at least two of four diversity benchmarks, including that the lead actors are from underrepresented groups or that at least 30 per cent of the cast and crew come from these groups. He claimed the new rules “make me vomit”, adding, “no one should be telling me as an artist that I have to give into the latest, most current idea of what morality is.”

Dreyfuss also spoke about the history of Blackface in performance, complaining, “Am I being told that I will never have a chance to play a Black man?” Of the decision to rid Hollywood of the problematic racial performance, he said, “This is so patronizing. It’s so thoughtless and treating people like children.”

His latest comments came at a Jaws retrospective screening at The Cabot theatre where he took digs at trans rights, the Me Too movement and seemingly, women in general. One attending told the Boston Globe that “[Dreyfuss] said that the parents of trans youth, allowing them to transition, was bad parenting and that someday those kids might change their minds.”

Another attendee commented on a Facebook post regarding the comments, stating they were “vile, dehumanizing, abhorrent things about trans youth, LGBTQ+ people, women and survivors of sexual violence.”

In response to the comments, Cabot executive director J. Casey Soward issued an apology, claiming he didn’t know Dreyfuss would say what he did. “We regret that an event that was meant to be a conversation to celebrate an iconic movie instead became a platform for political views,” he wrote in a statement, adding, “We take full responsibility for the oversight in not anticipating the direction of the conversation and for the discomfort it caused to many patrons.”

The Cabot also emailed ticket holders with a further apology. They wrote, “We deeply regret that Mr. Dreyfuss’s comments during the event were not in line with the values of inclusivity and respect that we uphold at The Cabot. We understand that his remarks were distressing and offensive to many of our community members, and for that, we sincerely apologize.”

Dreyfuss is yet to comment on the alleged incident.