Richard Dreyfuss criticizes the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ new diversity and inclusion requirements.
the Jaws Actor Margaret Hoover on Friday’s episode of TV program fire line that films must meet minimum representation and inclusion requirements to be eligible for the “make me puke” Best Picture Oscar.
“This is an art form,” he continued. It is also a form of commerce, making money, but it is an art. Nor should anyone tell me as an artist that I should succumb to the newest, newest idea of what morality is.”
In 2020, the Academy announced that it would begin rolling out inclusion criteria in 2021 to “encourage fair representation on and off screen in order to better reflect the diversity of cinema audiences.” And beginning in 2024, films must meet minimum requirements to be considered in the Best Picture category.
Dreyfuss, winner of the 1978 Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role Bye girlHe added, “And what are we risking? Are we really risking hurting people’s feelings? You can’t legitimize that. And you have to let life be life.”
the American Graffiti The actor then proceeded to defend Laurence Olivier’s performance in the 1965 film Othelloin which Olivier played Shakespeare’s leading role in blackface.
“He played the black man brilliantly,” Dreyfuss told Hoover. “Have I been told that I will never get a chance to play a black man? Is someone else being told that if he is not Jewish, he should not play The Merchant of Venice? Are we crazy? Don’t we know that art is art? This is very caring. It is, it is thoughtless, treating people like children.”
Hoover followed up with his question Close Encounters of the Third Kind representative if “there is a difference between a matter of representation and who is allowed to represent other groups? … and the situation of blackface, explicitly in this country, given the history of slavery and sensitivities about the racism of black people.”
He replied, “It shouldn’t be there. … because she is nurturing. Because it suggests that we are too weak to get our feelings hurt. We have to expect our feelings to be hurt and our children’s feelings to be hurt. We just don’t know how to stand up and upset a bully in the face.” .
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