Audience members are said to have walked out of a Richard Dreyfuss Q&A at a screening of Jaws after the actor allegedly made sexist, transphobic comments.
The actor had an event at The Cabot theater in Beverly, Massachusetts, that was billed as "An Evening with Richard Dreyfuss + Jaws Screening" on Saturday, May 25, 2024.
Attendees are said to have witnessed the actor go on a bigoted rant which, based on social media comments from attendees, was reportedly about trans youth, affirmation of their gender.
Richard played Matt Hooper, a marine biologist in Jaws (Getty Images)In a Youtube video taken by an audience member, Richard entered on stage wearing a floral print dress, shaking his hips and swinging his cane like baseball bat as Love Story by Taylor Swift is in the background. Later in the clip took, he took off the dress, and moved around the stage and put on a beige blazer, There is so far not yet a transcript of the event and what exactly was said but attendees have made claims.
According to Deadline, attendees stated he mentioned Barbara Streisand, his Nuts producer. He called her a "genius" but that women “are so passive that’s why the movie sucked."
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One audience member on The Cabot's Facebook page said: "We walked out of his interview tonight along with hundred of others because of his racist homophobic misogynistic rant." Another said: "He went on a rant about women, not in a good way, and made comments about the LGBTQ community. The discussion was supposed to be about the making of the movie Jaws, and then the screening of that movie."
The venue sent out a statement to the attendees on May 27, apologizing for the recent event.
“We are aware of, and share serious concerns, following the recent event with Richard Dreyfuss prior to a screening of the film Jaws at The Cabot," the statement began. "The views expressed by Mr. Dreyfuss do not reflect the values of inclusivity and respect that we uphold as an organization. We deeply regret the distress that this has caused to many of our patrons.“
"We regret that an event that was meant to be a conversation to celebrate an iconic movie instead became a platform for political views. 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 statement said.
Richard nor his team have said anything about the event (AFP via Getty Images)It concluded: "We are in active dialogue with our patrons about their experience and are committed to learning from this event how to better enact our mission of entertaining, educating and inspiring our community.”
The 76-year-old seemingly made similar remarks at a May 24 Jaws screenings at The Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. “I live in Mass, but the Cabot showing was all booked so I saw him in NH on May 24,” a Facebook user commented. “He made anti-gay remarks that night too.”
On PBS’ Firing Line with Margaret Hoover last year, Richard sparked controversy and backlash once more by criticising the Academy over their diversity and inclusion standards for the Oscars.
"They make me vomit," the Goodbye Girl actor said. "Because this is an art form. It's also a form of commerce, and it makes money. But it's an art. 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 continued by calling the standards "patronising" and applauded Laurence Olivier's playing Othello in blackface in 1965, saying, "He played a Black man brilliantly." Richard went on to say that you can't "legislate" hurting people's feelings and that he doesn't "think that there is a minority or a majority in the country that has to be catered to like that."
Mirror has reached out to Dreyfuss' representatives for comment.
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