Actor from ‘Jaws’ expresses views on kids and gender, theater apologizes

Oscar-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss was on-hand for a special screening of his 1975 movie “Jaws” at the Cabot Theater in Beverly, Massachusetts — but when he appeared onstage to participate in a Q & A session with the audience, things apparently went sideways.

Dreyfuss, according to audience members and video circulating on social media, made his grand entrance wearing a dress over his clothes, shuffling and shaking his hips to Taylor Swift’s “Love Story.” After a minute, two staffers rushed onto the stage and helped him to remove the dress — but he continued to play up the dance moves until he had replaced the dress with a blazer.

According to several reports, Dreyfuss then made a series of “misogynistic” and “transphobic” comments, allegedly complaining about the #MeToo movement and taking a swing at singer Barbra Streisand, suggesting that women “shouldn’t have that much power.”

He went on to criticize the transgender movement, saying that parents who allowed their children to self-determine their genders were not good parents. Attendee Diane Wolfe told The Boston Globe that Dreyfuss said “the parents of trans youth, allowing them to transition, was bad parenting and that someday those kids might change their minds.”

Richard Dreyfuss generates scandal by saying something sensible and correct that all sane people know to be true but that everyone has been propagandized into regarding as wrongthink https://t.co/ju5zauEEhM

— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) May 28, 2024

At the end of the session, Dreyfuss referenced the book he published last year on the lack of civics education in schools.

“It’s about the fact that 50 years ago, without telling anybody, they took civics out of the curriculum of all public schools in America, which means we have no knowledge of who the hell we are,” Dreyfuss said. “And if we don’t get it back soon, we’re all going to die. Make sure your kids are not the last generation of Americans. And you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

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Cabot executive director J. Casey Soward issued a statement amid the backlash:

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 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.

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

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