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After taking the stage dressed in house clothes and, at one point, waving his cane like a baseball bat at a screening of the film Weekend in Massachusetts. JawsRichard Dreyfuss went on to deliver a rant that attendees described as transphobic, sexist, and homophobic.
“This was disgusting,” one attendee posted on the Facebook page for the Cabot Theater in Beverly, Massachusetts. “How could Capote not have examined his actions better. Clearly (I found out too late), he has a reputation for spouting this kind of racist, homophobic, misogynistic nonsense.”
The incident happened on Saturday night before the movie was shown. In a short YouTube video captured by an audience member, Dreyfus can be seen walking on stage for a Q&A while wearing a floral-print dress and shaking his hips in a sarcastic manner.
At one point, as he was slowly making his way to his seat with the help of a cane, he swung the cane like a baseball bat toward the crowd.
Social media accounts for the event indicate that the trouble started when Dreyfus started talking about it Nuts Director Barbara Streisand called it “genius”, but the women, in the commentator’s account of the event, were “very negative and that’s why the movie was bad”. From there, Dreyfus apparently made disparaging remarks about the Me Too movement, and then “started talking about how you shouldn’t listen to a 10-year-old who says he wants to be a boy instead of a girl.”
The commentator continued: “Jesus Christ, what an explosion.” “The crowd was screaming at him and most of them walked out before the movie started. Talk about an idiot movie.
In an apology statement Cabot sent to attendees, the venue wrote: “We are aware of and share serious concerns, following the recent event with Richard Dreyfuss prior to a screening of Jaws at The Cabot. The views expressed by Mr. Dreyfuss do not reflect the values of inclusivity and respect we hold as an organization.” We are deeply sorry for the distress this has caused to many of our patrons.
“We regret that an event that was supposed to be a conversation celebrating an iconic film instead became a platform for political views. We take full responsibility for the oversight in not anticipating the direction of the conversation and the inconvenience it caused to many patrons.
“We are in active dialogue with our patrons about their experience and are committed to learning from this event about how we can better operationalize our mission to entertain, educate and inspire our community.”
One attendee responded on Facebook, saying: “Although The Cabot’s apology to its customers seems sincere, no refund has been offered. “We didn’t get what we paid for (which we all assumed would be a light and fun evening of listening to stories and anecdotes about the time… RD spent his time on the Vineyard making Jaws.) This was insulting and we are demanding a refund.”
Deadline has reached out to The Cabot and a rep for Dreyfuss for additional comment.
Dreyfus apparently made similar comments Friday night Jaws Show at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. “I live in Mass, but the Cabot show was fully booked, so I saw him in New Hampshire on May 24,” one Facebook commenter wrote. “He made homophobic remarks that night as well.”
Another member of Capote’s audience wrote, “Richard Dreyfus is an embarrassment to society. I walked out tonight because of his little bigoted view of women and choice.”
Dreyfus has been an outspoken critic of the Oscars’ inclusivity rules and transgender youth who affirm their gender. Last year on PBS firing line, the Goodbye girl The Academy Award winner said the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ diversity efforts “make me puke.”
“We are too fragile to get our feelings hurt,” he said. “We don’t know how to stand up and punch the bully in the face.”
At the end of Dreyfus’s Q&A session at Cabot, which was also captured on cellphone video, the actor plugged his 2022 book One thought scares me“Fifty years ago, without telling anyone, they removed civics from the curriculum in America’s public schools,” he said. We have no idea who the hell we are and if we don’t get it back soon we’ll all die. We have to make sure that your children are not the last generation of Americans, and that you know exactly what I’m talking about.
