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people, love. It's

1:02

March 27th, 1973, and

1:05

another remarkable event is

1:07

about to be uncovered

1:10

by Ari, Rebecca, and

1:13

Ali, the Retrospectors. Satchine

1:16

Little Feather's moccasins and tasseled buckskin dress

1:18

were quite a contrast to the gaudy

1:21

70s evening wear that surrounded her at

1:23

the 45th Academy Awards today in history

1:25

in 1973. Yet her outfit was about

1:28

to be the least of Tinsletown's worries

1:30

because not only was Little Feather

1:32

there to turn down Marlon Brando's

1:35

best actor award, she was also

1:37

preparing to deliver an extraordinary rebuke

1:39

of Hollywood's portrayal of Native Americans

1:41

on the silver screen. a note that

1:44

Marlon Brando had written for her, it

1:46

was a 739 word harangue, but just

1:48

before she was meant to go on

1:50

the stage, the producer of the show,

1:52

Howard W. Cock, drew the line, he

1:54

took it to one side and said,

1:56

look, you can go on, but you

1:58

are not giving that kind of speech,

2:00

you know, we wouldn't let the actual

2:02

winner give that length of speech if

2:04

it was... actually about the film. So

2:06

the tone of her remarks in the

2:08

truncated version was actually very mild. That's

2:10

the weird thing about it is that

2:12

you think it's going to be very

2:14

strong and very calling Hollywood out but

2:16

it's actually just kind of polite being

2:18

like could we not do this anymore?

2:20

Yeah it's actually so brief that even

2:22

in our tightly constricted show I can

2:24

now read the whole thing right? This

2:26

is what she said which doesn't seem

2:28

controversial to me bearing in mind the

2:30

ripples that this made. Hello, my name

2:32

is Sashin Littlefeather. I'm Apache and I'm

2:34

a president of the National Native American

2:36

Affirmative Image Committee. I'm representing Molin Brando

2:38

this evening and he's asked me to

2:40

tell you in a very long speech

2:42

which I cannot share with you presently

2:44

because of time, but I will be

2:46

glad to share with the press afterwards

2:48

that he very regretfully cannot accept this

2:51

very generous award. And the reasons for

2:53

this being are the treatment of American

2:55

Indians today by the American Indians today

2:57

by the film industry by the film

2:59

industry and on television in movie reruns

3:01

and also with recent happenings at Wounded

3:03

knee. I beg at this time that

3:05

I have not intruded upon this evening,

3:07

and that in the future our hearts

3:09

and our understandings will meet with love

3:11

and generosity. thank you on behalf of

3:13

Marlon Brando. I mean considering that that

3:15

was improvised, I thought it was pretty

3:17

gracious really. It was amazing. And just

3:19

to explain what Wounded Kne was, so

3:21

that's a place in South Dakota which

3:23

was the site of this month-long standoff

3:25

between Native American activists and U.S. authorities,

3:27

which had been sparked by the murder

3:29

of a Lakota man, and basically it

3:31

was this thing that was subjected to

3:33

this huge media blackout, but people really

3:35

didn't know what to make of it.

3:37

Not the audience, you know... Hissing on

3:39

the one hand and applauding on the

3:41

other, nor the press particularly like the

3:43

write-ups are a full mix of reaction,

3:45

nor the 85 million people watching on

3:47

television. You know, bear in mind that

3:49

people were expecting Brando to come on

3:51

stage and suddenly there's this woman dressed

3:53

in, you know, full Native American regalia

3:55

talking about something that's also a little

3:57

bit unclear because she doesn't have very

3:59

much time to explain herself. So people

4:01

were like, is this at prank? Is

4:03

this a surrealist performance piece? There is

4:05

a legend that apparently John Wayne was

4:07

in the wings of the stage and

4:09

he was so infuriated by her remarks

4:11

that he had to be restrained by

4:14

security guards. There are people who are

4:16

against the stunt not because they disagreed

4:18

with the politics but because they thought

4:20

that Brando himself should have done it

4:22

and taken the blowback. He's invited a

4:24

Native American woman to make this speech

4:26

on his behalf. She's a relatively unknown

4:28

26 year old woman and that he

4:30

should have really done this in person

4:32

and then just accepted the criticism that

4:34

came his way. watching the whole statement

4:36

that she'd intended to make. I'd have

4:38

had a very different view to what

4:40

I have. I watched this one-minute speech

4:42

and I think, wow, she is strong,

4:44

those are fierce words, this is a

4:46

moment, it's exciting. Actually, if you see

4:48

her recite the whole thing that Brando

4:50

had written, which he did shortly before

4:52

she died, for the academy, they filmed

4:54

it. Oh, it goes on. and basically

4:56

tells the entire history of the oppression

4:58

of Native Americans and then halfway through

5:00

has the sentence you're probably wondering what

5:02

the hell has this got to do

5:04

with the Academy Awards and actually if

5:06

I'd have found myself sitting in the

5:08

audience listening that that is exactly what

5:10

I would be thinking because it would

5:12

it would have been a complete hijacking

5:14

of what is supposed to be a

5:16

celebratory night about the movies into politics

5:18

however this one-minute version tautly focused on

5:20

the movie industry because she improvised it

5:22

rather than read Brando's stuff, is much

5:24

more effective, I think. You have to

5:26

ask yourself what world was Brando living

5:28

in there, he was picturing her, giving

5:30

this entire speech like a rapt audience

5:32

and halfway through it, saying, you're probably

5:34

wondering, well, as if they wouldn't have

5:37

got the Shepherds crook out by there

5:39

and wrapped her off. So how did

5:41

she get here? While she wasn't born

5:43

Sashine, Little Feather, her birth name was

5:45

Marie Louise Cruz. She was born in

5:47

Salinas, California in 1946. Her parents Manuel

5:49

and Geraldine were both leather workers and

5:51

they ran a saddle shop. She moved

5:53

to the Bay Area in 1969 to

5:55

study at California State University and pursue

5:57

a modeling career. And it was around

5:59

this time that she started getting involved

6:01

with native politics. She joined a group

6:03

called United Bay Indian Council. So this

6:05

was the moment where the so-called red

6:07

power movement was starting to pick up.

6:09

There was an occupation of Alcatraz Island

6:11

that went on for like 18 months

6:13

by activists and that received nationwide coverage.

6:15

You know, she was young, she was

6:17

passionate. It didn't hurt that she was

6:19

very pretty as well. She did her

6:21

pretty as well. She did her pretty

6:23

as well. She did modeling that caught

6:25

attention that otherwise maybe the movement wouldn't

6:27

have received. It was interesting. In 1972

6:29

that they went... all the way through

6:31

with doing the shoot and then he

6:33

was like no. Do you know what,

6:35

maybe it's like you know that thing

6:37

where people have sexual fantasies and then

6:39

they do them and they're like actually

6:41

that wasn't sexy. He saw the pictures

6:43

and was like no no sorry no

6:45

this. And what was special about this

6:47

particular Academy Award ceremony was this was

6:49

the first year that the Oscars were

6:51

being broadcast internationally. via satellite. So, until

6:53

this point, obviously, they were seen all

6:55

around the world, but only on tape,

6:57

whereas this was going out live, and

6:59

this was a pretty good year for

7:02

movies, not only the Godfather, but also

7:04

Cabaret, American Graffiti, the Exorcist, there were

7:06

a lot of films that had cut

7:08

through all around the world that people

7:10

wanted to tune in, see the glamorous

7:12

stars of them going up the red

7:14

carpet. So, if you're going to make

7:16

a political statement like this, this, this

7:18

was kind of... I was about to

7:20

say Native American woman, but actually any

7:22

woman of colour coming on stage at

7:24

all. Never mind as the winner of

7:26

the prize, but actually just being there

7:28

on stage at all and giving a

7:30

voice felt like a stunt. But despite

7:32

this huge moment cutting through, I mean

7:34

this was headline news everywhere, she wasn't

7:36

invited onto any TV show. There was

7:38

a feeling amongst all the establishment, whether

7:40

they liked or didn't like this intervention,

7:42

but her part was done now. and

7:44

that if they wanted to speak to

7:46

anyone about it, it was Brando. I

7:48

feel like these days you'd be speaking

7:50

more to the activist. I mean, she

7:52

was actually an activist, she was an

7:54

actress, she was an activist. But Brando

7:56

was the person they wanted to speak

7:58

to. Eventually he went on the Dick

8:00

Cavet show and he has no... for

8:02

having done it basically and says that

8:04

he understands why the academy were annoyed

8:06

because quote you're ruining our fantasy with

8:08

the intrusion of a little reality.

8:10

I mean Little Feather herself is

8:12

a little bit more mixed about

8:15

her involvement in it because on

8:17

the one hand she does think

8:19

that it did something good for

8:21

Native American causes within the US

8:23

at an important moment but she

8:25

also says that she personally feels

8:27

that she was blacklisted or as

8:29

she says redlisted and wasn't able

8:31

to pursue the entertainment career that

8:33

she had in mind for herself

8:35

when she was a bit younger.

8:37

Look to the credit of the

8:39

Academy of Motion picture. arts and

8:42

sciences. They did apologize to her.

8:44

It's just that their timing wasn't

8:46

great. It took them 50 whole

8:48

years to finally send a letter

8:51

of apology first of all and

8:53

then they had this evening which

8:55

was built as a very special

8:58

program of conversation, reflection, healing and

9:00

celebration. A very special program of

9:02

us just absolutely hands up saying

9:05

please don't think we're racist. Yeah.

9:07

Sorry. We should have done this

9:09

50 years ago. but definitely we're not

9:11

racist everybody. And also, you're about to

9:14

die as actually Little Feather, so we

9:16

better do this quickly before you do.

9:18

And then she did die in autumn

9:21

2022. Yeah, and almost immediately after her

9:23

death, in an opinion piece that was

9:25

published in the San Francisco Chronicle, these

9:28

two women who were understood to be

9:30

the sisters of Little Feather, came forward

9:32

and told the Native American writer Jacqueline

9:35

Keeler that their family wasn't actually Native

9:37

American. Yeah, Rosalind and Trudy Chris

9:39

had come to Kila after she

9:41

published this list in 2021 of

9:43

200 academics and public figures who

9:45

claimed native heritage, which she had

9:47

investigated and found have no basis.

9:49

She specializes in the phenomena of

9:51

self-indigenisation, you know, people kind of

9:53

pretending to have vague claims to

9:55

native ancestry. Pretendians, she calls them.

9:58

And so Rosalind and Trudy said... to

10:00

her. It's disgusting to the heritage of the

10:02

tribal people and it's just insulting to my

10:04

parents. They objected to her depiction of her

10:06

life, not only the fact that she claimed

10:09

to have this native ancestry, which they said

10:11

wasn't true, but she had described being brought

10:13

up in a run-down shack at the mercy

10:15

of a cruel alcoholic father and they claimed

10:17

that she took that from their own father's

10:20

childhood. He apparently was the one who had

10:22

the abusive and neglectful upbringing. They also said

10:24

that they thought sashine her name, came from

10:26

a company that supplied the ribbons the sisters

10:28

used in their making classes. I suppose the

10:30

point is that most people don't know that

10:32

stuff. Like we know it because we've been

10:35

researching this episode. Most people

10:37

do know that Marl and Brando sent a

10:39

Native American woman to the Oscars in

10:41

1973. Yeah. And it just shows the

10:43

incredible visual power of him doing that

10:45

rather than him going up and just

10:47

making a speech because you'd have forgotten

10:49

about it then. One thing I love

10:52

about Little Feather is that

10:54

in November 2019 she received

10:56

the Brando Award which recognizes

10:58

individuals for their contributions to

11:00

Native American rights. I'm going

11:03

to refuse this award and

11:05

I'm going to send in

11:07

place of myself myself. Yeah.

11:09

Tomorrow. lacks the fundamental skills

11:11

to be able to do

11:13

the job of not likable,

11:15

he doesn't look good, and

11:17

he mumbles his lines. Ditch

11:19

the ads and get a

11:22

Sunday episode when you

11:24

join club retrospectors.