Why the Academy Was Right to Apologize to Sacheen Littlefeather

Marlon Brando did not attend the Oscars in 1973 when he fulfilled every expectation and was named Best Actor for The Godfather. In his stead, unbeknownst to almost everyone, Brando had arranged for a woman called Sacheen Littlefeather to take the stage on his behalf.  She announced Brando’s refusal to accept the honor, and delivered an impassioned speech about respect for Native Americans that shook the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. 50 years later, the aftershocks continue to reverberate.

The woman known as Sacheen Littlefeather passed away 3 weeks ago, less than a month after the Academy held a special tribute to acknowledge the impact she had on Native American awareness at the age of 27. But she has two sisters who have now come forward to claim their sibling was not telling the truth about her Apache and Yaqui ancestry. The sisters say their mother was of Dutch-French-German descent and her father was Mexican-American from Oxnard. Several observers online feel these accusations mean the Academy is required to offer up a formal response.

In an op-ed at Deadline, Michael Cieply says he thinks “the museum’s credibility now hangs on getting Littlefeather right”:

If she has been unfairly tagged for manufacturing family history and trading on false cultural identity, researchers and lawyers at that repository of film history should be well-equipped to clear her. But if, God forbid, the museum in its inaugural year has succumbed to an unfortunate delusion, perhaps because it fit so neatly with contemporary notions about racism and cultural identity, there is no one better suited to clean up the mess.

I disagree with that take. I have been thinking about this story since it broke and wondering what to make of it. I have come away thinking two things. First, the Academy made a thoughtful and innocent decision, and they had honorable intentions. And second, there are certainly worse things than giving an elderly woman a night of her dreams just before she died. Imagine if instead of allowing her to talk, they’d done a hard-hitting exposé? That may have revealed the truth, but it would not have been compassionate to humiliate a woman in her twilight years. And what would have been the point?

Maybe if they had known, they would not have addressed the issue. But I think that’s wrong. While it’s true that Littlefeather either lied or was delusional, that part of it is not the Academy’s concern. It’s what happened to her on that night back in 1973 that they apologized for, and it would be an apology owed no matter who stood up on stage, had their speech cut short and was booed.

Brando’s refusal of the Best Actor Oscar in 1973 was a moment, often derided, that has echoed awkwardly through Academy lore. From the beginning, it seemed off-key that Brando would have done such a thing, and as time passed it looked all the more embarrassing in retrospect.  A lot of people watched the Oscars back then, around 60 million. That made it an act of protest widely seen and perhaps worth the risk.

Brando may have been looking out for his image too. The counter-culture revolution had produced rebels like Brando and George C. Scott, who appear to be embarrassed to get dressed up and accept awards from a group that, back then, was largely conservative. Nixon had won in a landslide the year The Godfather came out, 1972. Brando wanted to be seen as a rebel, not an elite insider. Perhaps he used the occasion to enhance that image — and Littlefeather was a convenient surrogate.

She had cultivated her misleading identity to get work as an actress, but she also became a symbol for the Native American community in Hollywood. That moment she refused Brando’s award is part of Oscar history. 50 years later, in a more self-conscious America, the Academy felt they needed to address this issue. Had they not given her a formal apology, whether or not some would see it as self-serving, loudly vocal activists would have been pressuring them to do so.

Regardless, being celebrated and receiving an apology before she died meant something to Littlefeather. She had struggled with schizophrenia and mental illness and eventually lost her final battle to cancer. She did not live an easy or a happy life. So where’s the crime here? Maybe she needed to believe in this character she created. It was never the Academy’s job to disabuse her of that notion or that identity, especially with little evidence. They gave her one of the highlights of her life, closing the circle before she took her last breath. I have a hard time finding anything wrong with that.

This story is, to me, a good time to remember that nobody is perfect. Nothing good can come from a community constantly under siege by activists hellbent on persecuting and interrogating everything they’ve ever done. In many ways such an atmosphere seems to have led to a sense of paralysis in the film industry overall.

The Academy has spent the better part of two years, longer, doing what they thought best to atone for perceived wrongs in their past. In their effort to please everyone, they have had a hard time pleasing anyone. Their donors, many of those high-status members of the Hollywood community, want to belong to an organization that is socially aware. If the recent revelations about an incident half a century ago accomplish anything, let’s hope it helps the Academy find its way back to who they are versus what people are relentlessly pressuring them to be.

Do they always need to remind people about the troublesome mindset that was acceptable in the past, like emphasizing the grim history of Mouth Rushmore as subtext to a iconic backdrop from North by Northwest?

Yes, it’s uncomfortable on many levels that it turns out, after all, that Sacheen Littlefeather is not who she claimed to be. But it’s also deeply sad. What they did to acknowledge her impact her was, to my mind, an act of kindness.  Now it is time for them to forgive themselves for missteps in their past, and to refocus their efforts on doing what they do best — preserving and celebrating their legacy.

Here was her acceptance speech in 1973:

Here is her full speech: