R.I.P. Sacheen Littlefeather

We were already scheduled to do a post on Sacheen Littlefeather (Mary Louise Cruz, 1946-2022) on her birthday six weeks from now as part of our section on Native American performers and other items of Native American interest. Her birthday came with the added benefit of falling during Native American Heritage Month. But news of her passing today has pushed it ahead of schedule.

Littlefeather was primarily an activist, who came to prominence during the 1969 Native American Occupation of Alcatraz protest. At the 1973 Oscars Marlon Brando famously enlisted her to speak in his stead in the event he won an award for The Godfather, which he did, and thus she did. The point was to draw attention to the Wounded Knee standoff, then still happening, and to protest the way Hollywood had been portraying Native Americans in movies for decades. It was brave of her to go in front of the nation like that, and her worst fears were undoubtedly realized. Many of those present (including guys like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood) as well as much of the country at large, proved Brando and Littlefeather right by booing and laughing and swearing at her, ridiculing her name, and making fun of her and that moment for years. YEARS. Some are undoubtedly doing it TODAY.

It’s hard to sort the moment out. On the one hand, I think it’s a sound principle to use a public forum to raise public awareness of a cause. “Now’s not the time or place?” Fuck you, it’s ALWAYS the time or place. On the other hand, you do have to measure the effectiveness of the tactic. The moment has a lot in common with the anti-war stunts of John and Yoko in 1969. People laughed at them, called them clowns, nothing changed. The people’s hearts are hard. Breaking in, I think, must probably be as delicate as cracking a safe. You have to TRICK people into being kind and caring, it almost seems. Or do like Jesus: “Be good to each other. Now watch me pull a rabbit out of a hat!”

Littlefeather had a short stretch of fame in the years following. An earlier spread she had done for Playboy ran in the magazine in 1973. She appeared in movies like The Trial of Billie Jack (1974), Freebie and the Bean (1974), Johnny Firecloud (1975), and Winterhawk (1975). She continued to be an activist in all the years since. Only a couple of months ago did the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences send her a formal apology for her shabby treatment.

Above all, on that night 50 years ago, Hollywood and most of America believed the Native American story to be a closed book; they were “over”. So they thought it was silly and preposterous or something. They really did regard that woman like some sort of mascot, like the Land O’Lakes Butter squaw or the old Cleveland Indians logo. But her people were and are millions of real, 3 dimensional human beings who got, and continue to get a raw deal. Calling attention to that? Yeah, that’s fucking hilarious.