Classic Actor Calls Out Hollywood’s Obsession with ‘Wokeness’

One of my favorite actors is Richard Dreyfuss. I think he is an amazing talent and he has had some great movies, Jaws, The Goodbye Girl, American Graffiti, Close Encounters of the Third Kind… and the list goes on.

I have always liked Dreyfuss, but now I really like him. He has opened up on Hollywood and let them have it. He actually is speaking with common sense. There is so very little of that in Hollywood, when it happens, we take notice.

In case you haven’t heard, beginning next year, The Academy Awards will have diversity quotas for its awards. It’s part of the new Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity standards (‘DIE’, but referred to by the hard left as ‘DEI’) that so many are adopting these days.

Movies must meet two of the four new criteria to be considered in nominations for the Best Picture award. The Academy is pushing films to include underrepresented groups, which include women, minorities, and the disabled, in areas including the cast, storyline, production and publicity staff.

Dreyfuss gave his opinion on these new criteria during an interview with PBS. When asked about the new Inclusion Standards, he answered, “They make me vomit.” He went on to say, “Do we not know that art is art? It’s so thoughtless and treating people like children.” He continued, “No one should be telling me as an artist that I have to give in to the latest, most current idea of what morality is.”

He had more to say, “It’s patronizing. Because it says we’re so fragile that we can’t have our feelings hurt, our children’s feelings hurt. We don’t know how to stand up and bop the bully in the face.”

Many people have given up on most movies coming out of Hollywood. Even more have given up on the movies selected for awards. Hollywood has been on the decline for decades. Many of the movies that win the covetous awards are movies that most ordinary people never see. Mainly, because they’re not worth watching. Occasionally there will be a movie that is so well done and such a great story that even Hollywood must accept the truth. Movies like Forrest Gump come to mind.

I assume that from now on, we can’t have someone like Gary Sinise playing a man without legs. We will need to have that role filled with a truly disabled person, instead of a make-believe actor playing the part. And Forrest Gump can’t be played by someone with average intellectual capabilities like Tom Hanks, a truly disabled actor will need to fill that role.

See how ridiculous this can get.

It takes courage to speak up in Hollywood. The “woke culture” in Hollywood is really “woke.” One can be destroyed and have a career ruined if one steps outside the boundaries in this culture. We have seen some stars survive the onslaught, but most were already “too big to fail” by the time they had the courage to take on the industry.

Charlton Heston and Clint Eastwood come to mind. They were both huge stars and had already pretty much finished a fantastic career and had nothing left to prove. Charlton Heston had been Moses, for Heaven’s sake.

Clint Eastwood has had so many hit movies and even went on to be a big director. He’s still hanging around and poking some Hollywood types in the eye. I love it.