Slap Heard Around The World…

The Oscars slap. Everyone now knows what it is by now. We felt like a slapped society. Will Smith made headlines at the 94^th Academy Awards for walking up to the stage to hit Chris Rock after he told a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s bald head with a “G.I Jane” Reference on National Television. It will go down as a historic controversial moment in Academy Award History.

It Started with a Slap….

The Oscars are the most prestigious of the award shows Hollywood has for itself to reward their peers for their accomplishments within the industry. At 94-years-old The Oscars have been around for a while now. The red carpet of glitz and glamour on display has never been without its controversy in all that time. The awards have suffered through and made changes but some say not enough and many complain still of the lack of diversity within the Academy since it started in 1929. And despite the many controversies, such as awarding convicted rapist Roman Polanski an Oscar in 2003, for which he did not accept due to him being a fugitive and living out of the country due to extradition laws, winning an Oscar is the dream of any filmmaker across the globe.

Controversy Cross Roads…

When Smith slapped Rock across the face half of social media immediately responded negatively, referring to it as one of the ugliest and most violent moments in Academy Award History. The other half of social media thought it wasn’t that bad and instead took to reminding the other side of what they believed to be an uglier moment in Oscar History. It was not the most violent in Academy Award History, no one was assaulted in 1973, the incident between John Wayne and Sacheen Littlefeather skirted close to the line of violence if only for restraint. The reason it almost led to violence was absolutely no joke either. The controversial moment in Oscar History has found and gained renewed attention due to the slapping incident at the Oscars between Will Smith and Chris Rock in March 2022.

The year was 1973. President Nixon was settling into his second term in office and had declared an end the United States Involvement in the war in Vietnam by signing the Paris Peace Accords. The Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade and the titanic movie to beat at The Oscars that year was “The Godfather.” Liza Minelli was hot from a “Cabaret” show and would soon be cooling down with a gold man named Oscar. Marlon Brando nominated for and would go on to win “Best Actor” in a Leading Role for his part as “Don Vito Corleone” in the film adaption of Mario Puzo’s acclaimed novel “The Godfather”. The book it was adapted from and written for the screen was by Mario Puzo and the film was directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

Liv Ullmann and Roger Moore took the stage to present the category at the 45^th Academy Awards and announce that Brando had won, it wasn’t Brando who was serenaded on his walk to the stage by the theme to “The Godfather” to accept. It was Apache Actress and the-then President of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee, Sacheen Littlefeather, who walked upon the stage to accept on his behalf. Or not at all as it seemed. She appeared on stage with an eight page written speech from Brando to inform the Academy that Marlon Brando was boycotting the awards and would be refusing the acceptance of his Oscar based on protesting against Hollywood’s representation of Native Americans in film. She used the platform to bring awareness to the lack of attention being brought to the Wounded Knee Occupation occurring at the time.

 

For the first time in history, a winner of the Academy Award had refused to accept the award. There had been times in the past and certainly in the future when a winner couldn’t be there, and someone would accept the award on their behalf. But Sacheen Littlefeather showed up to reject the award on behalf of the winner while also making a political statement on his behalf in the name of Native Americans. The 26-tear-old Apache Actress attending the Academy Awards wearing traditional Apache clothes and was booed and cheered while walking to the stage.

Littlefeather read from Brando’s written speech saying:

“He [Brando] very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award. And the reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry.”

– Sacheen Littlefeather

Sacheen Littlefeather went on for 60 seconds and said:

“I beg at this time that I have not intruded upon this evening, and that we will in the future, our hearts and our understandings will meet with love and generosity. Thank You on behalf of Marlon Brando.”

– Sacheen Littlefeather

The Wounded Knee Occupation of 1973..

The Wounded Knee Occupation Brando and Littlefeather spoke of took place February 27, 1973 and lasted until May 8, 1973. The 45^th Academy Awards were March 27, 1973. The Wounded Knee Occupation, also referred to as Second Wounded Knee, began when approximately 200 Oglala Lakota (sometimes referred to as Oglala Sioux) and followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM) seized and occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, United States, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The protest followed the failure of an effort of the Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization (OSCRO) to impeach tribal president Richard Wilson, whom they accused of corruption and abuse of opponents.

Additionally, the United States government was criticized by protesters for their failure to fulfill treaties with Native American people and demanded the reopening of treaty negotiations to hopefully arrive at a fair and equitable treatment of the Native American People. The town was controlled by Oglala and AIM activists for 71 days while the United States Marshals Service, FBI agents, and other law enforcement agencies cordoned off the area. The site of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre was chosen by the activists for its symbolic value. In March 1973, a U.S. Marshal was shot by gunfire coming from the town, which ultimately resulted in paralysis. A month after the Academy Awards, in April 1973, a member of the Cherokee tribe and a member of the Oglala were both killed by shooting. A civil rights activist named Ray Robinson, who had joined the protesters, disappeared during the events and is believed to have been murdered. Due to damage to the houses, the small community was not reoccupied until the 1990’s.

‘The Duke’ of all Controversies….

When Sacheen Littlefeather used the platform of The Oscars ceremony to bring awareness to the occupation, The Wounded Knee Occupation had already attracted wide media coverage. Especially after the press accompanied the two U.S. senators from South Dakota to Wounded Knee. The events invigorated Native Americans, and many supporters of Native Americans traveled to Wounded Knee to join the protest. While it was occurring, there was widespread public sympathy for the goals of the occupation, the longstanding issues of injustice related to Native Americans was becoming more aware to Americans. Marlon Brando was one of those Americans. He chose to use his celebrity and the platform of the ceremony to bring more attention to the occupation and did it with the unprecedented event in Oscar history of rejecting his gold statue from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Brando would later appear on Dick Cavett and told him:

“I was distressed that people should have booed and whistled and stomped, even though perhaps it was directed at myself. They should have at least had the courtesy to listen to her.”

– Marlon Brando

Sacheen Littlefeather had 60 seconds to give her speech before being arrested. It all happened very last minute, she intended on reading the eight-page speech that she had waited at Brando’s Mulholland Drive house for him to finish. She arrived at the ceremony, with Brando’s assistant, just minutes before it was announced that Brando had won. Howard Koch, the producer of the Academy Awards show, immediately informed her that she could not read the speech and she would be removed after 60 seconds.

Littlefeather said later of the speech:

“And then it all happened so fast when it was announced that he had won. I had promised Marlon that I would not touch the statue if he won. And I promised Koch that I would not go over 60 seconds. So, there were two promises I had to keep”

– Sacheen Littlefeather

Let’s remember, no one wins in a compromise. But this Native American woman was the only one of all people at the time, willing to please everyone in the unprecedented moment. As a result, she improvised the eight page written speech.

While Sacheen Littlefeather was walking to the stage to give that speech seemingly causing controversy, the real controversy of the show was occurring off stage. The number of boo’s with cheer’s says the audience was torn between whether to cheer for her or to not. But backstage John Wayne wasn’t torn at all, he was furious and wanted to physically pull Littlefeather off stage and had to be restrained and held back by six security personnel staff of the ceremony. John Wayne’s movies often depicted him as a cowboy killing Native Americans and was also known for espousing racist viewpoints.

Wayne said in a 1971 Playboy interview:

“I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to the point of responsibility”

– John Wayne

The Duke, as Wayne was often called, dispatched many an Apache on film, and didn’t take kindly to Brando’s protest against Hollywood’s depiction of Native Americans. He was best known for starring in westerns throughout his career and clearly thought this was an attack on his career legacy among other reasons.

Wayne reportedly said after the ceremony:

“If [Brando] had something to say, he should have appeared that night and stated his views instead of taking some little unknown girl and dressing her up in an Indian outfit.”

– John Wayne

Many others at the awards mocked the duo for their refusal of the award including Clint Eastwood who appeared onstage after Brando’s win to present “Best Picture” and said he might have to present the award on behalf of “all the cowboys shot in all the John Ford Westerns.” Along with the renewed interest in the incident of 1973, the original clip of the Oscar moment from the 45^th Academy Awards of John Wayne attempting to attack Sacheen Littlefeather and Clint Eastwood mocking the Apache actress and activist resurfaced online.  

The Show Must Go On…

  But as in the 1973 clips, the Academy Awards did just as 1973 on March 27, 2022, after Will Smith came on stage and assaulted Chris Rock, the show went on. Will Smith still went on to win his Oscar without being removed from the ceremony. And the Awards went on and on into years of condoned behavior that would not be considered allowed for normal citizens of non-celebrity status long before Smith slapped Rock.

People tend to behave according to the world around them. Will Smith may have felt justified in what he did. Parents are being arrested across the country for treating behavior and attacking teachers at Parent and Teacher Association meetings when they don’t like what the educators have to say. It is the best way to correlate the violent incident at the Oscars to a situation where non-celebrity Americans could be compared. But are the incidents of March 1973 and March 2022 examples of the privilege afforded to the Hollywood elite as well as bringing attention to the two different justice systems that occur in the United States based on your qualified tax bracket? Or are these controversies the bookend and more of a symbol of society as a whole and the breakdown of simple tolerance of one another? Can we use these similar controversies to evaluate how far we haven’t come as a society? How much we have stayed the same in our progression.

It would almost seem that while at one end of society we are becoming more accepting of our differences and learning to be more understanding of each other’s differences, the other end of society is becoming less tolerant of the community of people that make a society. One end of the bookend is the 1973 controversy, we saw restraint to hold Wayne off, but mocking and moving on with the show, none the less. While on the other bookend is the 2022 controversy, are people believing it was “part of the bit” first before believing and realizing it was a man being violently attacked in front of a National Audience. It says more about us as society of people, than it says of Will Smith who did the slapping. It’s becoming more acceptable to use violence as a means of solving a problem. It was acceptable, and even to say, Oscar worthy, to slap Chris Rock. Being that Will Smith received a standing ovation when he was announced as the winner 45 minutes later for the very same award Marlon Brando refused to accept at the Oscars in 1973.

People stood, clapped and even cried for the actor as he accepted the award and apologized for his behavior. We still felt raw like a slapped society. We weren’t ready to hear it. We still aren’t. Smith has since resigned from the Academy and apologized for the incident. The Academy has announced a formal investigation into the incident with a decision to be made public on April 18^th, 2022.

Denzel Washington, who was nominated in the same category that night for “The Tragedy of Macbeth”, said of the incident with Will Smith later:

“who are we to condemn, prayer just seemed like the only thing to do at the time.”

– Denzel Washington

Mr. Washington, I say to you, who are we to condemn? We are a society of people and if don’t hold each other accountable within it and leave it to a higher omnipotent unseen power, we will descend into chaos. We can blame a lot on the Devil if we go through life that way.

The only thing to do at the time was to remove him from the building and let the LAPD arrest him as they reportedly tried to do. One of the hosts could have appeared on stage to accept on Will’s behalf and said nothing of why.

It is the right and moral thing that should have been done. But instead, the show went on without an interruption and were arguing as a society about how he protected his wife and violence was acceptable in that situation. How far we have fallen. And it seems my thought has come full circle in that sentence. If violence is acceptable at an elite award show with a National Audience. I fear the future for all of us seat fillers. Civil Wars develop from this kind of thought process and rawness toward each other, and History has shown us, there is nothing civil about war. And all it does is further divides us resolving nothing decades later. We must learn from this history, so we are not doomed to repeat it yet again.