A cinema in Massachusetts has apologised to the audience at a special screening of Jaws and a Q&A with its star, Richard Dreyfuss , who reportedly made a number of sexist and transphobic comments. Appearing at the Cabot theatre in Beverly, Massachusetts on 25 May, Dreyfuss took to the stage in a house dress to a background track of Taylor Swift’s Love Story, shaking his hips suggestively and brandishing his walking stick like a baseball bat. He then reportedly took on targets including Barbra Streisand, the parents of trans teenagers and the Academy’s new inclusivity rules.
No transcript of the event has been released, but social media posts suggest that he called Streisand a “genius” but that he didn’t listen to her as she was “a woman, and woman shouldn’t have that power”. Deadline reports that he also said “you shouldn’t be listening to some 10-year-old who says they want to be a boy instead of a girl”. The Boston Globe reports that he continued by saying that allowing such young people to transition “was bad parenting and that someday those kids might change their minds.
” However, a video from the end of the event indicates that many audience members did remain and were highly appreciative of the actor, who cautioned against a decline in critical thinking to considerable applause. Writing on The Cabot’s Facebook page , one attender said: “We walked out of his interview tonight along with hundred [sic] of others because of his racist homophobi.
