Speaker 1: this year. Obviously people are talking about the will smith
Speaker 1: slap and they have been referring back to your speech.
Speaker 1: Well, I have one thing to say about that.
Speaker 1: I didn't do it.
Speaker 1: Glad you made that clear. This is Sacheen little feather
Speaker 1: whose appearance at the 1973 Academy Awards on behalf of
Speaker 1: Marlon Brando recently went viral in reaction to will smith
Speaker 1: slapping chris rock at the 2022 Academy Awards ceremony.
Speaker 1: But there was a threat of violence that you faced
Speaker 1: that evening
Speaker 1: and I wonder if you're open to talking about that
Speaker 1: backstage, behind me,
Speaker 1: John Wayne
Speaker 1: was very incensed, he attempted to assault me on stage.
Speaker 1: He had to be restrained by six security men in
Speaker 1: order to prevent him from doing exactly that
Speaker 1: there is no footage of john Wayne, the Hollywood actor
Speaker 1: famous for playing cowboys reacting to session speech. But several people,
Speaker 1: including the Director of that evening's awards, have confirmed these
Speaker 1: accounts
Speaker 1: that night Marlon Brando was nominated for Best Actor for
Speaker 1: his role as Don Corleone in The Godfather. He had
Speaker 1: asked Sachin to attend the ceremony in his place and
Speaker 1: if he won to refuse the award on his behalf
Speaker 1: accepting the award for Marlon Brando in The Godfather
Speaker 1: Before session went on stage that night, the producer of
Speaker 1: the ceremony told her that she would be arrested if
Speaker 1: she did not keep her speech to under a minute.
Speaker 1: The standard speech time.
Speaker 1: I knew I had to do everything in 60 seconds
Speaker 1: or less. I saw the police officers waiting in the
Speaker 1: wings to take me in handcuffs off the stage.
Speaker 1: Here is the speech that made john Wayne so angry
Speaker 1: that he needed to be restrained from charging the stage. Hello,
Speaker 1: my name is Sacheen little feather. I'm Apache and I'm
Speaker 1: president of the National Native American Affirmative Image committee. I'm
Speaker 1: representing Marlon Brando this evening. He very regretfully cannot accept
Speaker 1: this very generous award.
Speaker 1: And the reasons for this being are the treatment of
Speaker 1: american indians today by the film industry,
Speaker 1: excuse me
Speaker 1: and on television, in movie reruns
Speaker 1: and also with recent happenings at wounded knee.
Speaker 1: I beg at this time that I have not intruded
Speaker 1: upon this evening and that we will in the future.
Speaker 1: Our hearts and our understandings will meet with love and generosity.
Speaker 1: Thank you On behalf of Marlon Brando.
Speaker 1: I carried myself as a dignified indian woman would carry herself.
Speaker 1: I spoke with courage with dignity with honor. I did
Speaker 1: not use my fist. I did not use profanity and
Speaker 1: I did not use a loud and egregious voice. I
Speaker 1: spoke from my heart because the heart and the heartbeat
Speaker 1: is the voice of all indigenous people everywhere. And that
Speaker 1: is exactly what happened
Speaker 1: In 60 seconds or less
Speaker 1: in this week's episode. We are going to tell the
Speaker 1: behind the scenes story of Sachin speech and break down
Speaker 1: the political and cultural forces at play. That led to
Speaker 1: that moment
Speaker 1: And later in the episode, we'll hear from singer songwriter
Speaker 1: and the first indigenous person to win an Oscar Buffy
Speaker 1: Sainte Marie. She tells us about her reaction to Sachin
Speaker 1: speech as well as what she believes the academy's role
Speaker 1: should be in relation to social justice movements.
Speaker 1: In 1973, Sacheen Little Feather was both an activist and
Speaker 1: an actress. She says what inspired her to begin acting
Speaker 1: in part was the fact that her father was deaf.
Speaker 1: I couldn't communicate with him in sign language like my
Speaker 1: mother did. So I had to communicate through
Speaker 1: other ways and basically had to act out for him
Speaker 1: the messages. So you you were performing out of a
Speaker 1: kind of necessity. Family necessity. Yes, absolutely. And when I
Speaker 1: was in grade school
Speaker 1: I got to play several parts in several different plays
Speaker 1: and enjoyed the experience. Of course there was a lot
Speaker 1: of racially, you know, prejudice back then as well.
Speaker 1: We were called the N word in grade school
Speaker 1: and when I went to visit Mississippi Alabama and the
Speaker 1: Southern states, I was made to drink out of the
Speaker 1: black drinking faucet
Speaker 1: and use the black bathrooms and I felt heard saw
Speaker 1: and knew that there were great injustices going on
Speaker 1: not only as an indian person
Speaker 1: but with all people of color. Were you thinking that
Speaker 1: acting could be a way that you could
Speaker 1: make a difference in terms of these issues. I think
Speaker 1: in terms of acting,
Speaker 1: I felt that there should be
Speaker 1: native people. Black people asian people, chicano people.
Speaker 1: I felt that there should be an inclusion of everyone,
Speaker 1: a rainbow of people that should be involved in creating
Speaker 1: their own image.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about some of the ways
Speaker 1: that you
Speaker 1: you know, encountered images of indigenous people on screen. I mean,
Speaker 1: did you have strong feelings about the western when you
Speaker 1: were growing up? Did you immediately see this as a problem?
Speaker 1: I think that everybody who saw Westerns who was native
Speaker 1: wanted to be a cowboy.
Speaker 1: I think that there is
Speaker 1: a desire to be identifying with the winner. You know,
Speaker 1: who wants to identify with the loser?
Speaker 1: Well, I saw native people as being stereotyped. There was
Speaker 1: a Hollywood indian, the movie indian and then the real indian,
Speaker 1: there were two indians, one that was not real and
Speaker 1: one that was real
Speaker 1: and I knew the one that was real, that had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with the screen. Indian with the Hollywood
Speaker 1: indian
Speaker 1: and under the domination of that stereotype. We couldn't get
Speaker 1: jobs in the industry and represent ourselves as we really are.
Speaker 1: There was job discrimination and the movie industry basically looked
Speaker 1: like Clorox factory. I mean, it was so white, it
Speaker 1: was ridiculous. What sorts of opportunities were there for you
Speaker 1: when you were starting your acting career? Well, very few
Speaker 1: except I got a few jobs with italian film crews
Speaker 1: because in those days I was considered exotic and that
Speaker 1: meant that you didn't get employment very often because you
Speaker 1: were too exotic for mainstream. You heard that rather than
Speaker 1: we won't hire you because you're a person of color,
Speaker 1: no matter what your credentials were,
Speaker 1: no matter how good you were. Period, especially in ads
Speaker 1: and advertising, you didn't use a bar of soap, you
Speaker 1: didn't use laundry detergent,
Speaker 1: you didn't drink coca cola. We were just non existent
Speaker 1: and no one ever questioned that.
Speaker 1: I questioned it.
Speaker 1: I questioned it when I refused the Academy Award for
Speaker 1: Marlon Brando in 1973.
Speaker 1: I want to talk a lot about what happened that night.
Speaker 1: But I think part of the important context is your
Speaker 1: work as an activist and your interest as an activist.
Speaker 1: You had participated in the Alcatraz occupation
Speaker 1: And you brought awareness to what was happening at wounded knee,
Speaker 1: the occupation there. And it would be really helpful I
Speaker 1: think to hear you talk about what that moment was
Speaker 1: like in the early 1970s in terms of native struggle
Speaker 1: and organizing
Speaker 1: many native americans have parents who went to american indian
Speaker 1: boarding schools, whether they were run by the government or
Speaker 1: run by the churches because the churches were instrumental in
Speaker 1: grabbing indian land from indians and keeping that land for themselves.
Speaker 1: And this is a way
Speaker 1: That making child napping legal was taking Children away at
Speaker 1: the age of four and 5 from the parents
Speaker 1: and keeping them in boarding schools
Speaker 1: In the US there were over 400 boarding schools operating
Speaker 1: from the late 1800s up until as recently as the
Speaker 1: 1960s with the express intention to assimilate indigenous Children by
Speaker 1: removing them from their families,
Speaker 1: keep the child but destroy everything about the indian, destroy
Speaker 1: everything about the culture, destroy the language, destroy the native
Speaker 1: american spiritual belief system and turn the native american into
Speaker 1: a dominant society, person with dominant society values.
Speaker 1: So in the late 60s, in the early 1970s
Speaker 1: was there a particular way in which folks were coming
Speaker 1: to consciousness that they were organizing in a way that
Speaker 1: was especially important at that time.
Speaker 1: There was the american indian movement
Speaker 1: and its followers
Speaker 1: and they were the ones that were wounded knee. In
Speaker 1: South Dakota. The american indian movement was a militant civil
Speaker 1: rights group similar to the black panthers or militia that
Speaker 1: was raising consciousness and fighting for indigenous issues. A month
Speaker 1: before solutions appearance at the Academy Awards members of the
Speaker 1: American Indian movement along with 200 oglala Lakota activists seized
Speaker 1: control of the small town of wounded knee. South Dakota
Speaker 1: taking citizens hostage
Speaker 1: and demanded the U. S. Government make good on treaties
Speaker 1: respecting indigenous land ownership.
Speaker 1: The american indian movement wanted to bring attention to the
Speaker 1: broken promises of the US government and the impoverished living conditions.
Speaker 1: Indigenous peoples were forced to endure.
Speaker 1: Here's russell means one of the leaders of the occupation
Speaker 1: talking about those conditions from wounded knee at the time,
Speaker 2: we are suffering starvation, hunger, inadequate shelter, inadequate warmth in
Speaker 2: climate type of weather,
Speaker 1: there was a great injustice there
Speaker 1: the way that native american indian people were treated.
Speaker 1: And so the american indian movement came there within hours
Speaker 1: of the occupation police had surrounded the town
Speaker 1: and as a result the FBI came in and there
Speaker 1: was a media blackout at wounded knee. Federal officials were
Speaker 1: blocking press from speaking to the indigenous activists as part
Speaker 1: of their military tactic to squash the occupation. Now when
Speaker 1: I came up on the podium to represent Marlon Brando,
Speaker 1: I mentioned in my speech, wounded knee,
Speaker 1: Let's talk about how you um arrived at that moment
Speaker 1: of going on stage and giving this speech.
Speaker 1: When did you meet Marlon Brando? How did how did
Speaker 1: you connect with him and how did this plan develop
Speaker 1: that you would stand in for him at the Academy Awards.
Speaker 1: I lived in san Francisco not far from Francis ford
Speaker 1: Coppola Francis ford Coppola is of course the director of
Speaker 1: the Godfather trilogy. And I used to walk the hills
Speaker 1: of san Francisco
Speaker 1: which is quite a feat because they're very steep. But
Speaker 1: that was my exercise and I used to walk by
Speaker 1: Francis ford Coppola's house every day and he used to
Speaker 1: sit out on his porch. I had read many articles
Speaker 1: about Marlon Brando being interested in native american indian people
Speaker 1: but I had wondered if Marlon Brando was very sincere
Speaker 1: in his interest in native american indian people
Speaker 1: or was he just studying up for a film role.
Speaker 1: So I wrote a letter to him but I didn't
Speaker 1: know where to send it.
Speaker 1: And it was a very sincere letter and I knew
Speaker 1: that Francis ford Coppola had directed him and The Godfather.
Speaker 1: So I asked Francis ford Coppola when I was walking
Speaker 1: by one day
Speaker 1: as an attractive young woman,
Speaker 1: I called out to him and I said hello and
Speaker 1: I introduced myself and he asked me to come up
Speaker 1: on his porch. And I did and I began a
Speaker 1: conversation with him
Speaker 1: and eventually I told him I had this letter from
Speaker 1: Marlon Brando
Speaker 1: and I said but I don't know where to send it.
Speaker 1: So he helped me to send that letter.
Speaker 1: I waited a year. I was working at the radio
Speaker 1: station K. F. R. C. Finally one day a year
Speaker 1: later at the radio station
Speaker 1: I got this very mysterious call.
Speaker 1: So they put the call through
Speaker 1: and he said to me
Speaker 1: in his voices that he had
Speaker 1: oh I bet you don't know who this is.
Speaker 1: And I said sure I do. And he said well
Speaker 1: who is it?
Speaker 1: And I said it's Marlon Brando.
Speaker 1: And he he laughed and I said well you sure
Speaker 1: beat indian time all the hell I told them
Speaker 1: And he laughed again and we laughed
Speaker 1: and we just talk like we're old friends
Speaker 1: about everything that was native, if he was playing a
Speaker 1: part of the native or if he was really interested
Speaker 1: in native american indian people
Speaker 1: and we had a great conversation
Speaker 1: and from then on we just became phone buddies,
Speaker 1: he used to call me at home and then I
Speaker 1: would fly down and spend time with he and his
Speaker 1: family as a house guest.
Speaker 1: And uh, I just knew him as a human being.
Speaker 1: I was interested in him
Speaker 1: as a fellow activist and also as just a person period.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you got to a place where you
Speaker 1: did feel that he was sincere in the interest that
Speaker 1: he was showing. Absolutely yes, I did. So when did
Speaker 1: he start to talk to you about the plan? The
Speaker 1: possibility that you would accept the Oscar on his behalf
Speaker 1: if he were to win. And he was clearly a
Speaker 1: frontrunner for winning the academy Award that year.
Speaker 1: So he called me on a saturday
Speaker 1: and the academy awards was the next day,
Speaker 1: That's how fast it happened.
Speaker 1: And he swore me to secrecy not to tell anybody
Speaker 1: which I did not.
Speaker 1: And I flew down to his house
Speaker 1: and I asked him about my wardrobe because I really
Speaker 1: didn't have anything to wear except for my pow wow dress,
Speaker 1: a northern style buckskin dress
Speaker 1: and moccasins and hair ties. So you could say basically
Speaker 1: he chose my wardrobe for me because he did,
Speaker 1: I didn't have any evening gown or evening where? And
Speaker 1: I went down to his house and he was very
Speaker 1: busy and his secretary typing up this acceptance speech should
Speaker 1: he win.
Speaker 1: And I was kept basically in the dark.
Speaker 1: So it was really late in the day when his
Speaker 1: secretary gave me this long speech to read like eight pages, right, eight, Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so I I said to myself, wow, this is
Speaker 1: pretty long, I don't think I could do this.
Speaker 1: And when I got to the Academy Awards, Howard Koch,
Speaker 1: who was the producer of the Academy Awards Show itself,
Speaker 1: said to me,
Speaker 1: If you read that speech or go over 60 seconds,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have you arrested. That's when Sachin knew
Speaker 1: that she would have to improvise and not read off
Speaker 1: of the statement Marlon Brando and his secretary had written
Speaker 1: and his name was called as best actor.
Speaker 1: And so I knew what I had to do
Speaker 1: and I was praying beforehand the whole time for the
Speaker 1: strength and the courage
Speaker 1: to do what I needed to do.
Speaker 1: And my ancestors were with me,
Speaker 1: 50 million people were watching the broadcast that night.
Speaker 1: The immediate reaction in the room was mixed as we noted,
Speaker 1: john Wayne was furious and people reacted with a mixture
Speaker 1: of booing and applause
Speaker 1: According to Sachin, there were consequences. You have said that
Speaker 1: after giving your speech that you were red listed
Speaker 1: and could you talk about what you mean by that,
Speaker 1: what that meant in terms of your career
Speaker 1: in the industry, the FBI, I found out, went around
Speaker 1: to studios, I have a friend who was with a
Speaker 1: particular studio and she told me Sachin the FBI were
Speaker 1: just here and they told us that if we would
Speaker 1: ever hire you they would shut us down. Shut our
Speaker 1: production down. So
Speaker 1: there were lies that were printed about me in the press.
Speaker 1: There were lies going around about me altogether. Said I
Speaker 1: rented my buckskin dress that I was an indian. I
Speaker 1: was a mexican actress that it was all a publicity
Speaker 1: stunt etcetera etcetera etcetera. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Speaker 1: But ultimately Sachin was not concerned about what Hollywood or
Speaker 1: the government thought about her or her speech. People who
Speaker 1: sent me notes of congratulations were Coretta scott King, the
Speaker 1: widow of martin Luther king and also cesar Chavez also
Speaker 1: my own people
Speaker 1: and others
Speaker 1: who counted in my life who I admired and I
Speaker 1: knew that I had done the right thing irregardless of
Speaker 1: what other people had said or did to me.
Speaker 1: I knew I had done the right thing
Speaker 1: coming up, legendary folk singer, songwriter Buffy Sainte Marie,
Speaker 1: Buffy Sainte Marie was the first indigenous person to win
Speaker 1: an Oscar.
Speaker 1: The winner is Jack Cichy Buffy Sainte Marie,
Speaker 1: She won for Best Original Song in 1983. She co
Speaker 1: wrote up where we belong for the movie and officer
Speaker 1: and a gentleman. It was performed by Joe Cocker and
Speaker 1: Jennifer Warrants.
Speaker 1: Thank you for me too,
Speaker 1: marty Stuart Levin joe conquer jennifer warren's kurtz over my mom,
Speaker 1: my little boy Cody
Speaker 1: and most of all, my husband Jack nature gave me
Speaker 1: the chance to be a part of opportunity. Gentlemen, thank
Speaker 1: you very much.
Speaker 1: Buffy Sainte Marie. It's wonderful to see you always. Thanks
Speaker 1: jackal and you two in 1983 you became the first
Speaker 1: indigenous person to win an Oscar. Could you talk about
Speaker 1: that experience? Did it really uh, strike you that you
Speaker 1: were making history at that moment when your name was
Speaker 1: called and you went up on stage. Oh no, I
Speaker 1: never know. I never thought about that until recently when
Speaker 1: people have been phrasing it like that. No,
Speaker 1: yes. I was the first indigenous person to win an
Speaker 1: Oscar and it was up where we belong from an
Speaker 1: officer and a gentleman. I wrote the melody for them.
Speaker 1: So when it came to be that we had been
Speaker 1: nominated and we knew we were going to go to
Speaker 1: the Oscar ceremony. Oh, I had this pink sparkly sequined dress.
Speaker 1: I mean it was so wonderful but we didn't really
Speaker 1: expect to win. And then we did. And it was just,
Speaker 1: it was just astounding
Speaker 1: the previous time an indigenous person was on the Academy
Speaker 1: awards stage with Sacheen little feather. 10 years earlier, Buffy
Speaker 1: had caught it on tv at the time. She didn't
Speaker 1: know session personally. What was your reaction to her speech?
Speaker 1: Of course I knew marlin And this was 1973 for
Speaker 1: Pete's sakes, 1973 there was a war against indigenous people
Speaker 1: in south Dakota wounded name was going on.
Speaker 1: So what we had to deal with was a little
Speaker 1: bit different from everybody else in that studio audience or
Speaker 1: most of the people watching television. And I was very
Speaker 1: proud of Sachin and I was totally surprised of course.
Speaker 1: And he was proud of marlin too because let me
Speaker 1: tell you how it is. Sometimes the american indian movement
Speaker 1: or some of the group would invite a celebrity, you know,
Speaker 1: someone of the level of jane fonda or Marlon brando
Speaker 1: and they would show up all heart, you know, they
Speaker 1: would really, really want to help and all.
Speaker 1: But what do you think the dog on media is
Speaker 1: going to do? They're not there to see our issue
Speaker 1: and we wind up with a great big story about
Speaker 1: our celebrity who was there to help the indians and
Speaker 1: the issue isn't even portrayed accurately, which kind of was
Speaker 1: the point.
Speaker 1: So for Sachin to get up there in front of
Speaker 1: the whole wide world and to represent marlin in that way,
Speaker 1: I thought, I thought it was great. But you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot to say. We should probably give people
Speaker 1: kind of a feeling about how it was in Hollywood
Speaker 1: for indigenous people, you know? Yeah, yeah. Because that's the
Speaker 1: first thing she said, she talks about the treatment of
Speaker 1: the american indian, maybe you could help us to sort
Speaker 1: of get a sense of the picture that she was describing.
Speaker 1: Well, it's kind of weird. If you, if you look
Speaker 1: at movie history, I guess probably the first thing that
Speaker 1: you would come up with involving indigenous people would pay thomas. Edison,
Speaker 1: I mean he made, he made one of the first
Speaker 1: movies and you know, they were colorful things and interesting things.
Speaker 1: So we started showing up and being portrayed by other
Speaker 1: people in the movies right out of the gate
Speaker 1: too Short. Edison films made in the late 18 hundreds,
Speaker 1: Buffalo dance and Sue ghost dance featuring Sioux tribes members
Speaker 1: are considered to be the first instances of indigenous peoples
Speaker 1: caught on film
Speaker 1: From Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the north in 1922 to
Speaker 1: educational films from the mid-20th century. Indigenous communities have long
Speaker 1: been of interest to documentarians, but the films were almost
Speaker 1: never told from indigenous points of view.
Speaker 1: The University of Arizona's American Indian Film Gallery includes nearly
Speaker 1: 500 documentaries. They featured narration that the project's archivists described
Speaker 1: as condescending at best and racist and inaccurate at worst.
Speaker 1: So Buffy was naturally skeptical of projects aimed to capture
Speaker 1: indigenous history. But anyway, in 1967 or 68, I was
Speaker 1: invited to take a role in the Virginia.
Speaker 1: The Virginian was a television series set in late 1800s
Speaker 1: Wyoming and I was offered a role in an episode.
Speaker 1: But I said if you want me Buffy Sainte Marie
Speaker 1: who got hit records and is known as an indigenous
Speaker 1: person to show up in your movie. What I want
Speaker 1: is real easy. All the indigenous parts are to be
Speaker 1: played by indigenous people
Speaker 1: and of course they said oh no that uh we've got,
Speaker 1: I forget what the number was 32 extras or something
Speaker 1: and we've got some leading parts to they can't all
Speaker 1: the indians and I said well then I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: do it because I know they can
Speaker 1: so they were going to use makeup right to make
Speaker 1: people look like indians. Huh? Yeah they said they said
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. We've got Filipinos, we've got Italians,
Speaker 1: we've got jews, we've got Koreans and besides that we've
Speaker 1: got makeup artists that can turn a dog into a
Speaker 1: cat And my reaction to that was you know it's
Speaker 1: more important than just fooling white people.
Speaker 1: We're giving you a gift here.
Speaker 1: We had so much to bring to the table and
Speaker 1: see Marlon had been in indian country. He knew that
Speaker 1: he knew we weren't just one little two little three
Speaker 1: little indians to be exploited when somebody needed something in
Speaker 1: feathers to act like a villain or a victim he
Speaker 1: knew so we appreciated marlin. So Sachin you know she
Speaker 1: looked so beautiful. She was wearing her traditional clothes and
Speaker 1: yet we're all quite you know any anybody that I've
Speaker 1: ever talked to about that evening. You know we were
Speaker 1: all totally surprised of course
Speaker 1: but bravo to both of them, you know, they they
Speaker 1: did something
Speaker 1: and I was hoping that you could also talk about
Speaker 1: some of your activism during that period, part of the
Speaker 1: Alcatraz occupation for example, because that period
Speaker 1: is so critical in terms of the american indian movement
Speaker 1: and uh do you have some, you know, any reflections
Speaker 1: on the legacy of that movement today? Well, Alcatraz was
Speaker 1: very important at the time and I still think that
Speaker 1: Alcatraz is important because Alcatraz was not done just by
Speaker 1: a bunch of people who were ticked off because their
Speaker 1: rights are being denied. It wasn't, there was a lot
Speaker 1: more to it than that.
Speaker 1: Um the history of Alcatraz itself, I mean Alcatraz should
Speaker 1: have come to indigenous people, it should have come back
Speaker 1: to us when they were finished using it for what
Speaker 1: they were using it for at the time, Alcatraz sat
Speaker 1: on public land. And so when the infamous Alcatraz prison
Speaker 1: was shut down and a development plan for a casino
Speaker 1: was announced, indigenous activists decided to occupy the island and
Speaker 1: reclaim it.
Speaker 1: Buffy never lived on the island, but she helped bring
Speaker 1: clean drinking water to the occupiers.
Speaker 1: We wanted to turn it into cultural centers and you know,
Speaker 1: we had, we had done our homework, but I mean we,
Speaker 1: I don't mean me particularly, but it was john Trudell
Speaker 1: and a lot of other people who are in the
Speaker 1: next world now who really did that work. But the
Speaker 1: reason why it was important. Alcatraz was one of many,
Speaker 1: many building complexes campuses that were created on indigenous land
Speaker 1: with the blessing of indigenous people
Speaker 1: with contracts and when they were no longer going to
Speaker 1: be used for that specific purpose, they were supposed to
Speaker 1: come back to us.
Speaker 1: I mean I wound up ducking bullets. I'm running running
Speaker 1: through the woods in Russian Wisconsin over this medical facility
Speaker 1: built on MMA nominee land and it was supposed to
Speaker 1: be returned to the people. I mean it was built
Speaker 1: by the catholic church
Speaker 1: with the agreement of the Menominee people and then it
Speaker 1: was supposed to revert back to the tribe and the
Speaker 1: local vigilantes were not having any of it. They wanted
Speaker 1: it for themselves and they were shooting at us. So
Speaker 1: there were things going on before and after Alcatraz, Although
Speaker 1: I'm glad you bring it up.
Speaker 1: What kind of bothers me a little bit is that
Speaker 1: it's like every 25 years there's an Indian uprising and
Speaker 1: we get our names in the paper and then everybody
Speaker 1: forgets about us because you know, just the way of
Speaker 1: the world in Canada indigenous people are quite prominently represented
Speaker 1: in just about any field or profession you can think of.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, from, from, from television broadcasters and lawyers.
Speaker 1: There's a huge, huge mix of professions and there are
Speaker 1: a few people, you know in the academy, there are
Speaker 1: a few indigenous, I'm not the only indigenous person in
Speaker 1: the academy, there are other indigenous people, but it's tricky
Speaker 1: right now, you know, with the academy because just our
Speaker 1: way of voting, you vote in your own field, like
Speaker 1: I only vote, I'm in the music branch,
Speaker 1: but and I'm the only indigenous person in the music
Speaker 1: branch
Speaker 1: and you have to have two people in your branch
Speaker 1: to nominate somebody.
Speaker 1: And so although we have directors and producers and actors
Speaker 1: and actresses and we have people in, in, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the professions, there are not two indigenous
Speaker 1: people
Speaker 1: in any profession
Speaker 1: familiar enough with what the indigenous talent scene is in
Speaker 1: film to be able to properly bring those people forward.
Speaker 1: We have to discuss that it is a lot of
Speaker 1: talented people, structural issue that you're pointing to, You might
Speaker 1: have bigger numbers, but if people are isolated in their branches,
Speaker 1: then what's the impact that they can have? Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Right.
Speaker 1: Do you think the Academy can or should have a
Speaker 1: stronger presence in terms of
Speaker 1: weighing in on social political issues, activists work?
Speaker 1: Oh Gosh, that's that's so hard. You know, I try
Speaker 1: very hard not to tell anybody else what to do.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to a question like that, I
Speaker 1: would I would certainly be willing to be part of
Speaker 1: a discussion, but I do see many sides of many
Speaker 1: questions I told you as a philosophy major. So I
Speaker 1: can look, I can look at things from six or
Speaker 1: 10 points of view at the same time and have
Speaker 1: fun with that.
Speaker 1: I don't know the way I look at it. Jacqueline
Speaker 1: is that there's a whole lot of good work left
Speaker 1: to be done in the world, including in the movie industry.
Speaker 1: And that's why we're here. Yeah. So I don't take
Speaker 1: your your question about you know, whether the academy ought
Speaker 1: to be doing more,
Speaker 1: everybody ought to be doing more. Everybody's ripening and growing
Speaker 1: and understanding and learning at the same time. So just
Speaker 1: as for myself, I'm just gonna keep on producing good stuff.
Speaker 1: And if somebody sees it great and if they don't
Speaker 1: see it, not as great, but still great because I'm
Speaker 1: a creative
Speaker 1: the movie industry is one of the places that I've
Speaker 1: been allowed to, you know, do My little dance is,
Speaker 1: you know, scoring movies and being in things and encouraging
Speaker 1: people and just being involved with the academy is it's
Speaker 1: it's a great privilege and we can make good change
Speaker 1: and we should and it shouldn't be a chore and
Speaker 1: it shouldn't hurt. It shouldn't hurt. We can do this enjoy.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're creative people and we certainly have the resources.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely. Yes. I have 11 more question for you
Speaker 1: take a little step back when you hear the term
Speaker 1: indigenous representation Buffy, what does that mean to you?
Speaker 1: I would have to say I would have to ask
Speaker 1: for details.
Speaker 1: I'm not exactly sure what you're going out but I'll
Speaker 1: take a stab at it. But I've gotten out of
Speaker 1: being a concert artist and you know, folk singer songwriter,
Speaker 1: however you want to describe has been airplane tickets and
Speaker 1: those airplane tickets not only have taken me to London
Speaker 1: and paris and Hong kong and Sydney, you know, but
Speaker 1: also to the indigenous corners of the world where Michael,
Speaker 1: Jackson and Madonna would not want to go and
Speaker 1: I would not even be invited to go. It's just
Speaker 1: a different world. So the world of indigenous people, whether
Speaker 1: you're talking about indigenous people like Maoris in new Zealand
Speaker 1: or aboriginal people in Australia and all the different kinds
Speaker 1: of people in africa. Whether you're talking about the Sami people,
Speaker 1: the indigenous people of Scandinavia. I mean I've spent lots
Speaker 1: of time with other indigenous people.
Speaker 1: So when I hear the word indigenous, I don't just
Speaker 1: think of Canadian indians or american indians. I don't, I
Speaker 1: think about first, I know this is actual. When you
Speaker 1: say the word indigenous first, my brain takes a trip
Speaker 1: from the arctic circle all the way to to the
Speaker 1: bottom of south America, all those different people, they're all indigenous.
Speaker 1: And I've traveled enough in both the glamorous world of
Speaker 1: show business but also a lot with indigenous people and
Speaker 1: I know I know how it, I know how it
Speaker 1: is and indigenous people in the world, what we have
Speaker 1: in common is a lot of really, really good stuff.
Speaker 1: Indigenous people had different systems. Indigenous people sometimes still but
Speaker 1: not as much as we wish had languages that were
Speaker 1: quite different from the concept of language is that most
Speaker 1: people have.
Speaker 1: I mean if you talk about spanish and italian and
Speaker 1: Portuguese and french, you know they're all kind of related
Speaker 1: and if you look at your hand, each one of
Speaker 1: those is like a finger. But an indigenous language doesn't
Speaker 1: come from that part of exercising the brain doesn't come
Speaker 1: from there. It's like a thumb, it has a different function.
Speaker 1: And people who are interested in this subject will tell
Speaker 1: you that indigenous languages are sometimes exercising a different part
Speaker 1: of the brain. Coming up with different ways of thinking
Speaker 1: different ideas. And when you think of the things that
Speaker 1: indigenous people, just indigenous people of the Americas have given
Speaker 1: the rest of the world, you might say, oh they
Speaker 1: look different or they have different music or different, oh
Speaker 1: boy we can think differently. We have contributions that have
Speaker 1: yet to be made to the world and people want
Speaker 1: to start paying attention.
Speaker 1: It's not only survival stuff, it's all kinds of other stuff,
Speaker 1: artsy stuff stories, ways of telling stories. I spent some
Speaker 1: time with an indigenous woman from Mexico who came from
Speaker 1: a small rural group
Speaker 1: discovered the spanish language and fell in love with it,
Speaker 1: went to university and when she went home she had
Speaker 1: the darndest time explaining to her friends what it was
Speaker 1: that she did because in her language there's no metaphor.
Speaker 1: So everything the only thing you talk about is what
Speaker 1: is therefore there's no lying.
Speaker 1: But she could not explain what poetry was.
Speaker 1: And she became a poet. So now she's a poet
Speaker 1: who writes in her own language
Speaker 1: for the first time ever and in spanish. So indigenous
Speaker 1: people all over the world are a page that most
Speaker 1: of you have not turned yet. And it is exciting,
Speaker 1: like a library is exciting. It's about everything and we're
Speaker 1: about everything, including our stories and how we can portray them.
Speaker 1: It's all good. You know, it's just all good. Yeah.
Speaker 1: When you talk the way you're describing this incredible wealth
Speaker 1: of cultural heritage and thinking, think about that. And then
Speaker 1: you think about the tiny range of representations of indigenous
Speaker 1: people on screen. I mean the gap is uh is staggering.
Speaker 1: There just how limited the representations have been.
Speaker 1: It's staggering. You know, And um, you know, there's one
Speaker 1: way of looking at it would be to say poor
Speaker 1: us were not represented. But the other way of looking
Speaker 1: at it is poor. You you don't know what you're missing.
Speaker 1: So that's always the way I've thought about it.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you Buffy, thank you so much for these insights.
Speaker 1: I always enjoy talking with you so much. Thank you
Speaker 1: now that your big eyes are finally open,
Speaker 1: how that you're wondering how must they feel
Speaker 1: meaning them? That you've chased across America's movie screens.
Speaker 1: No,
Speaker 1: that you're wondering
Speaker 1: how can it be real?
Speaker 1: But the ones you've called
Speaker 1: propaganda,
Speaker 1: they starve in their splendor.
Speaker 1: You've asked for my comment. I simply will render
Speaker 1: my country.
Speaker 1: The Academy Museum podcast is written and hosted by me
Speaker 1: Jacqueline Stewart.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by antonia sarah ito. The Academy
Speaker 1: Museum podcast team includes Kimberly stevens, victoria Alejandro and antonia
Speaker 1: sarah ito. The show is a production of the Academy
Speaker 1: Museum of Motion Pictures in collaboration with L. A Studios
Speaker 1: mixing and original music by E scott kelly.
Speaker 1: Our theme music was composed by Nicholas, Patel, Antonio Sarah
Speaker 1: Edo and Leo G are the executive producers for Elia Studios.
Speaker 1: Our podcast website Elliott dot com slash podcast is designed
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Speaker 1: Elliot's Studios, the Academy Museum Marketing team created our branding
Speaker 1: thanks to the team at the Academy Museum, including Sean
Speaker 1: Anderson Peter Castro Stephanie sykes and Mat Younger
Speaker 1: and to our Academy colleagues, randy Haber camp and Clare Lockhart.
Speaker 1: Thanks also to the team at Elliot's Studios, including Taylor
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Speaker 1: Cosentino and Leo G
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