(ReclaimingAmerica.net) – Legendary actor Richard Dreyfuss has lashed out against Hollywood’s new standards for “diversity” and “inclusion,” which he has described as “patronizing” and “thoughtless.”
In an interview with the PBS program “Firing Line with Margaret Hoover,” the Jaws star defended Laurence Olivier’s 1965 “blackface” appearance in Shakespeare’s Othello.
“They make me vomit,” Dreyfuss said about the new requirements, expressing his dismay.
The Oscar award winner declared the latest “moral” fad shouldn’t govern art.
“Because this is an art form. It’s also a form of commerce, and it makes money, but it’s an art,” he declared, as cited by Breitbart News.
“And no one should be telling me as an artist that I have to give in to the latest, most current idea of what morality is,” he added.
Dreyfuss stated nobody could “legislate” over the “perceived slighting of others.”
“And what are we risking? Are we really risking hurting people’s feelings? You can’t legislate that. And you have to let life be life,” he argued.
“And I’m sorry, I don’t think that there is a minority or a majority in the country that has to be catered to like that,” the actor elaborated.
He lauded the “brilliant” performance of Sir Laurence Olivier in the title role of Othello with darkened skin.
“Laurence Olivier was the last white actor to play Othello, and he did it in 1965. And he did it in blackface. And he played a black man brilliantly,” Dreyfuss said.
“Am I being told that I will never have a chance to play a black man? Is someone else being told that if they’re not Jewish, they shouldn’t play the Merchant of Venice?” he asked.
“Are we crazy? Do we not know that art is art? This is so patronizing. It’s so thoughtless, and treating people like children,” the actor quipped.
It is noted that in 2021, a University of Michigan music professor originally from China was forced to quit teaching a Shakespeare class after showing the classic film to his students, some of whom got offended by Olivier’s looks in the movie.
Dreyfuss argued “there shouldn’t be” any difference in who plays a particular character because the opposite is “patronizing.”
“It says that we’re so fragile that we can’t have our feelings hurt. We have to anticipate having our feelings hurt, our children’s feelings. We don’t know how to stand up and bop the bully in the face,” he elaborated.
Dreyfuss, whose films include Jaws, American Graffiti, Mr. Holland’s Opus, and The Goodbye Girl, is behind the Dreyfuss Civics Initiative to promote civics education from the fourth grade. He has described failing to teach the American Constitution as “suicidal.”
Do you agree with Dreyfuss? Share your thoughts and opinions by emailing [email protected]. Thank you.
Hollywood’s new diversity inclusion standards are “thoughtless” and “patronizing,” Richard Dreyfuss said in an interview Friday. https://t.co/nh5MHcojmY
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) May 7, 2023
