Anthony Burtman
Doctor Brown
English 306
2 October 2016
The
Speech: Unfinished, The Oscar: Unaccepted
The
evening of the 1973 45th Academy Awards Ceremony at the Dorothy
Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles ended in astonishment, disbelief, and
realization. The top actors in lead roles of 1972 productions were to be
commended with runners-up for the “Best Performance” Oscar award including
Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier in Sleuth,
Peter O'Toole in The Ruling Class,
Paul Winfield in Sounder, and Marlon
Brando in The Godfather. Brando, who
was selected for the award, did not arrive at the ceremony, but instead sent a
speech with Native American representative Sacheen Littlefeather to decline the
award on his behalf. He would not accept the award to protest the treatment of
Native Americans in the film industry. His refusal of such a prestigious award
attracted the attention of his fans, viewers of the event, the Native American
Community, and the film industry. Brando’s speech and Littlefeather’s
appearance caused the audience to reflect on the country’s past injustices over
Native American tribes and the portrayal of Native Americans in the modern
American media.
Marlon Brando was a
famous American actor and activist who starred in the role of Vito
Corleone in The Godfather (1972) which earned him the
Oscar nomination in 1973. By this point, he had already made himself a name
with his iconic role of the Biker in The
Wild One as well as the New Jersey longshoreman in On The Waterfront. Aside from his roles as an actor, however, he
also had a history of being a political activist participating in the Zionist
movement, the Civil Rights movement, and a fighter against the negative image
of Native American Indians in the media. ("Brando for Our
Times").
On
February 27, 1973, exactly a month before the Academy Awards, an armed and
hostile occupation took place Wounded Knee, South Dakota. The so called
“Wounded Knee Incident” began with the American Indian Movement (AIM) leading
around 200 Sioux Native Americans into Wounded Knee and taking hostage of 11
residents in the Oglala Sioux settlement. ("History, Incident at Wounded
Knee"). The AIM had been proactive
in occupying land claiming the right to unused federal lands and demanding that
the U.S. launch investigations of Indian treaties broken by the U.S. government
(Wittstock). The incident, up to the point of the Academy Awards, was viewed
only as a savage display of incivility of the activist group and received
little coverage from the inside. The AIM occupied the town for a total of 71
days placing Brando’s protest in the midst of the conflict. With the night of
45th Academy Awards Ceremony following the events of Wounded Knee so
closely, it was the perfect opportunity to seize the public’s attention and
confront the United States’ treatment of the Native American Peoples.
Marlon Brando did
not show up to the Academy Awards ceremony and instead had actress and activist
Sacheen Littlefeather refuse the award on his behalf and speak to the viewers
about the treatment of Native Americans in the Media. Sacheen Littlefeather, a
native Apache, was at the time president of the National Native American Image
Association and was not well known to the general public. She was able to act
as a representative for the group as well as Native Indian Americans
national-wide.
Sacheen
Littlefeather’s appearance on stage can be deemed as a “performance.” She
attended the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California to
begin her acting career in the early 1970’s (“Sacheen
Littlefeather”). As an actress, her delivery of Brando’s message was
particularly strategic. She employed many dramatic effects from the moment
Brando’s name was called for the award. Even the entry music, the theme of The Godfather, caused a dramatic shift
in tone as the camera panned to find not Brando, but Littlefeather standing
from the audience. She appeared on stage dressed in Apache-styled clothing
wearing a cotton calico-like dress appropriated for the formal event with
bedazzled jewels across the top. At the very start of her speech, her presence
on stage was strong but humble, her voice was full of somber with quivers on
occasion, and her eyes gleamed with sadness ("Marlon
Brando's Oscar® Win for The Godfather"). This was a clear
appeal to pathos as she stresses the regretful circumstances under which she
spoke and under which Brando decided not to arrive.
Littlefeather
addressed the ethics of the unfair treatment of Native Americans by dressing in
the Apache-styled dress and representing herself under her Native American
heritage. The ethos and logos of her argument was highlighted by her discussion
of Wounded Knee and why Brando felt that evening to be the time to discuss the
matter. She also announced that Brando was headed for Wounded Knee to offer his
support for peace in the conflict. This challenged the ethics of the U.S.
government’s interactions with the Native American communities and past
treaties not honored by emphasizing the actor’s desire to get involved.
Brando had intended
for his entire speech to be read, however, Littlefeather was only allotted 60 seconds
on stage and was threatened with arrested if she did not comply (WITW
Staff). As a result, Littlefeather was
forced to improvise on the spot and summarize parts of Brando’s fully
pre-written speech. As she stated her purpose for appearing on stage, she was
faced with a mixture of “boos” and applause from the audience. None-the-less,
Littlefeather took advantage of the situation which resulted in a cleaver
strategy to lure the audience and the press into curiosity of what the raw
speech had said. She stated that she would share the full speech with the press
shortly after the ceremony, only allowing for the message to be broadcast
through other outlets of the media ("Marlon Brando's
Oscar® Win for The Godfather").
The speech would later be released by The New York times on March 30 that same
year, making Brando’s words public. His speech was more aggressive in tone as
compared to that of Littlefeather’s as he wrote: “We cheated them out of their lands… We
starved them into signing fraudulent agreements that we called treaties which
we never kept” (Brando).
Brando knew that by
refusing to accept the award he would capture his audience’s attention. On one hand,
showing up to the ceremony himself would have defeated the point of his
protest. As such, the replacement of himself on stage with an unknown Native
American woman gave the Native American community the representation that they
have been lacking. It was symbolic of bringing the underrepresented to the big
screen as he stated “It was the first time in history that an American Indian
ever spoke to 60 million people” (“Brando for Our Times”). But the
result of Littlefeather’s limited time was a creation of an interfold within
Brando’s protest. Brando was the primary initiator of the protest with his own
message. With Littlefeather’s improvisation, his true message did not come
across. The contrast between the two renditions is drastic enough that a boundary
was created between Brando’s message and that of Littlefeather. Although this
may have undermined Brando’s intent, it allowed for Littlefeather, as an
aspiring native American actress who had not yet had the opportunity to make it
big in the media, to not only speaking out for all other Native Americans in
the media, but also for herself. She was able to resonate with other Native
American women in the film industry.
This
begs the question on how effective Brando’s approach truly was. Although
Brando’s full speech was published with The New
York Times, the effect was not as widespread as it could have been with
television coverage. It is possible that if he had shown up himself, he could have
read the entire speech and used his popularity to keep the attention of the
audience as opposed to the interruptions Littlefeather faced onstage. None-the-less,
his absence was able to emphasize his departure for Wounded Knee. Many
Native Americans viewed the incident as inspiring, to see representatives of
the Native American community speak out against the government that had failed
to do just by the community many times. The general American public however,
viewed the Wounded Knee Incident as showing Native Americans as violent and
rash despite the conflict between Native Americans and police forces. Fire was
shot from both sides and both the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service were in the
opposition, resulting in two Native American deaths. Only after Littlefeather
announced that Brando was headed off
to Wounded Knee was the occupation viewed more thoroughly by the media. ("Marlon
Brando Rechaza Oscar”). People began to understand the perspective of the AIM’s
plight and why Brando felt so strongly to protest.
Brando
spoke out about how “the motion
picture community has been as responsible as any for degrading the Indian and
making a mockery of his character, describing his as savage, hostile and evil.”
Although the later years after Brando’s protest did result in
productions that focused on the accurate historical representations of Native
Americans and sensitive narratives, including 1992’s The Last of the Mohicans and 1998’s Smoke Signals, most depictions and treatment of Native Americans in
the media have not changed significantly (Webb). Native Americans to this day have little to no representation
in blockbuster films and are mostly cast as extras. Additionally, following the Oscars, Littlefeather was blacklisted
and would face criticism and challenging notions over her heritage which caused
a detriment to her aspiring acting career. After the ceremony, Littlefeather.
People questioned her authenticity and even as late as 2012, racial slurs have
been directed towards her and her heritage. In the 2012 late night show with
Jay Leno and David Miller, who said “[Elizabeth Warren is] about as much Indian
as that stripper chick Brando sent to pick up his Oscar for The Godfather, all
right?” (Gilio-Whitaker). This is to show that being of color in America is
truly a struggle today.
Ultimately,
Brando fought for Native American Indian justice through the end of his life
(“Brando for Our Times”). His protest was able to capture the attention of
many, but much more progress is yet to be made.
Works
Cited
"1972 (45th) Academy
Awards." Academy Awards Acceptance Speech
Database. Web.
Accessed
13 Sept. 2016.
"Brando for Our
Times." Official Marlon Brando
Website. Brando Enterprises. Web.
Accessed
13 Sept. 2016.
Brando, Marlon.
"That Unfinished Oscar Speech." The
New York Times: Best Pictures. The
New
York Times Company, 2002. Web. Accessed 13 Sept. 2016.
Gilio-Whitaker, Dina.
"A Recent TV Slur Revives Debate About Sacheen Littlefeather and Her
Role
in Marlon Brando's Oscar Refusal.” Indian
Country. Indian Country: Today Media Network, LLC. Accessed 29 Sept.
"History, Incident
at Wounded Knee." U.S. Marshals
Service. U.S. Federal Government,
Web.
Accessed 28 Sept. 2016.
"Marlon Brando's
Oscar® Win for The Godfather" YouTube. YouTube, 02 Oct. 2008.
Accessed
13 Sept. 2016.
"Marlon Brando
Rechaza Oscar." YouTube.
YouTube, LLC, 2009. Web. Accessed 29 Sept.
2016.
"Sacheen
Littlefeather." Sacheen
Littlefeather. Web. Accessed 13 Sept. 2016.
Webb, Franki.
"Under-representation of Native Americans in the Mainstream Media."
Nativeweb,
2009. Web. Accessed 30 Sept. 2016.
Wittstock, Laura
Walterman, and Elaine J. Salinas. "A Brief History of AIM." A Brief History of
AIM. Web.
Accessed 28 Sept. 2016.
WITW Staff. "43
Years Later, Native American Activist Sacheen Littlefeather Reflects on
Rejecting
Marlon Brando’s Oscar." Women in the
World. The New York Times Company, 27 Feb. 2016. Web. Accessed 29 Sept.
2016
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