Il Accuse
An Oscar-winner hates diversity and is fine with Blackface.
As if it wasn’t hard enough for Black actors to get quality roles in Hollywood, here comes another get-off-my-lawn-yelling White actor who opposes diversity.
Oscar-winner Richard Dreyfuss gave an interview with the PBS series “Firing Line With Margaret Hoover.” He was asked his opinion about new diversity standards for Best Picture nominees.
His response:
“They make me vomit.”
His response is bad enough, but Dreyfuss, famous for “Jaws,” “The Goodbye Girl,” and “What About Bob?” doubled down.
He waxed eloquently about Laurence Olivier’s 1965 performance as “Othello,” where the great Shakespearean actor starred as the Moorish general.
In Blackface.
Dreyfuss said:
“He played a Black man brilliantly. Am I being told that I will never have a chance to play a Black man? Is someone else being told that if they’re not Jewish, they shouldn’t play ‘The Merchant of Venice’? Are we crazy? This is so patronizing. It’s so thoughtless and treating people like children.”
Aren’t there enough White roles for Dreyfuss to play?
Why would he want or need to play Black roles?
For making such a foolish statement, he should be sentenced for the remainder of his acting career to playing butlers, chauffeurs, pimps, drug addicts, and gang bangers.
Even in 2023, these roles are more plentiful for Black actors than non-stereotype roles.
When Shakespeare wrote “Othello,” there were hardly any professional Black actors. Until Ira Aldridge and James Hewlett came along in the 1800’s, there were no Black actors who played Shakespearean characters.
Black actors are ten thousand times more limited in their choice of roles than White actors.
Since Dreyfuss asked the question about whether he should have a chance to play a Black man, I will answer.
HELL NO.
Comparing non-Jewish actors playing Jewish characters to non-Black actors playing Black roles is ludicrous.
This is not comparing apples to oranges.
This is comparing a duck to a Buick.
Dreyfuss is Jewish, but he’s also White, so he can play any White character, and no one will care.
Black actors can play imaginary characters and receive criticism because the characters have been described or perceived as White.
Equality is about fairness, not patronization.
The same facts are true for Hispanic/Latinx, Asians, and Native American/First Nation actors.
People like Dreyfuss are so myopic and selfish that a non-White is being helped that they will immediately cry foul at any attempts at diversity.
We live in a world with millions upon millions of roles for White actors to play.
Comparatively, there are only a few hundred roles for People of Color.
Richard Dreyfuss doesn’t want us to have that much.