[BONUS] An Evening with a Guy Who Spent A Weird Evening with Richard Dreyfuss

Pod Yourself A Gun - A Rewatch Podcast

A recent headline in the trades went 'Richard Dreyfuss Takes Stage At Massachusetts ‘Jaws’ Screening Wearing Dress Before Delivering Rant Described As Transphobic; Venue Apologizes.' That was a banger of a headline, but actual video and audio from the event was pretty spotty . Whenever I see headlines like these, I kind of wonder, "Was it really that bad, or was some humorless person just ignoring context and and inflection to make it sound as provocative as possible?"

Luckily when I tweeted about it, someone immediately piped up "hey, I was at that screening!"

I naturally figured, well, we might as well ask him about it. Our guest is Wes Rosen, who's a cook from Beverly, Massachusetts. He sent me a picture from the evening to prove that he was there, which probably wouldn't pass muster with the FBI, but I have no reason to believe he's bullshitting me (if it turns out I got "took," in The Wire parlance, I'll be the first to issue a correction). Wes says he doesn't listen to the show, but as a guy who makes fun of NPR and attends Jaws screenings he seems very much our demo.

As far as the question, "Was it really that bad, or was some humorless person just ignoring context and and inflection to make it sound as bad as possible," Wes seems to suggest that it was a little bit of both.

Richard Dreyfuss's book that he was promoting, by the way, is called "One Thought Scares Me."

"Our democratic republic is failing, and it shouldn’t be a surprise. We can’t fly a plane without training; we can’t practice medicine without attending medical school. And yet we expect the American people to wield the full power of their citizenship, the product of the most revolutionary governmental thinking in human history, without any education.

We no longer teach our children the Bill of Rights or Constitution. We don’t teach the Enlightenment values that underpin them. We don’t teach the critical thinking skills and mental agility necessary for our own sovereignty. We’ve stopped teaching civics, and now we can’t have a civil political discussion. The American experiment may fail if we don’t act.

Richard Dreyfuss is a forceful advocate for civic education. His latest work, One Thought Scares Me…, explains how the lack of civics education in American education for the last fifty years has led to the deterioration of all aspects of the lives of us, the people. And it shows us the path to reclaiming our American ideals."

It sounds like Dreyfuss hates Trump, but is also maybe anti-#MeToo and confused by "The LGBT" and trans identities in general. Which is to say, probably pretty close to the Frotcast Listener's Parents Demographic. Talk to your confused Boomer parents about the dangers of Shrimp Jesus today.

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