Richard Dreyfuss blasted new representation and inclusion criteria for the Academy Awards for Best Picture nominees that will take effect in 2024 during an interview Friday for PBS. Firing line with Margaret Hoover.
“They make me puke,” said the Oscar-winner in response to Hoover’s inquiry regarding upcoming eligibility requirements. He stressed film as an “art form”, which to him meant “nobody should tell me as an artist that I should give in to the latest, newest idea of what morality is. What are we risking? Do we really risk hurting people’s feelings? You can’t legislate.” that “. Dreyfuss then offered his own alternative solution, saying, “You have to make life life. I’m sorry, I don’t think there is a minority or majority in the country whose needs should be met like that.”
He continued his tribute to the late Laurence Olivier in the 1965 film adaptation of William Shakespeare othello, which gave the white English actor blackface for “brilliantly” portraying the titular character and later earned him a Best Actor nomination at that year’s Academy Awards. “Was I told I wouldn’t get the chance to play a black man?” I hope that’s a complete hypothetical, Dreyfuss asked. “Is someone else being told that if they’re not Jewish they shouldn’t play The Merchant of Venice? Are we crazy? Don’t we know that art is art? “
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“This is very bigoted,” he lamented. “It’s ill-conceived and treating people like children…it says we’re too weak to have our feelings hurt. We have to expect our feelings to hurt us and our children’s feelings to get hurt. We just don’t know how to stand up and upset a bully in the face.” See his notes below.
In this case, the “bully” Richard Dreyfuss believes he is standing up to the diversity and inclusion standards first announced by the Academy Awards in 2020. The initiative sets new standards for Best Picture nominees, which must meet one of four new thresholds related to hiring group members. Underrepresented race or ethnicity. This practice will be implemented for the first time in the upcoming 2024 campaign.
“They make me vomit,” he says. @employee New cast and crew diversity criteria for the best picture #Oscar eligibility.
In addition, he praises Laurence Olivier’s 1965 performance of Othello in blackface.
“Was I told I wouldn’t get the chance to play a black man?” (1/2) pic.twitter.com/NcmpZoXe1c
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—Fringline with Margaret Hoover (FiringLineShow) May 5, 2023
