Richard Dreyfuss claims 2024 Oscars inclusion standards 'make me vomit'

Richard Dreyfuss has criticised the inclusion standards to be implemented for the 2024 Academy Awards.

During a recent appearance on PBS's Firing Line, the veteran actor was asked for his take on officials at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences updating the requirements for films in contention for next year's competition.

Richard responded that the inclusion standards "make me vomit", adding, "This is an art form. It's also a form of commerce, and it makes money, but it's an art.

"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."

Host Margaret Hoover summarised the news, "Starting in 2024, films will be required to meet new inclusion standards to be eligible for the Academy Awards for Best Picture. They'll have to have a certain percentage of actors or crew from under-represented racial or ethnic groups."

The actor argued that he doesn't "think there's a minority or a majority in the country that has to be catered to like that", asking, "What are we risking? Are we really risking hurting people's feelings?

"You can't legislate that. And you have to let life be life."

He further praised Laurence Olivier's blackface performance of Othello in the 1965 film adaptation.

"Am I being told that I will never have a chance to play a Black man?" the 75-year-old said. "Is someone else being told that if they're not Jewish, they shouldn't play the Merchant of Venice? Are we crazy?"

Richard concluded, "We have to anticipate having our feelings hurt, our children's feelings hurt. We don't know how to stand up and bop the bully in the face."