As that is written, the public continues to be ready for one thing, something, from the Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences or its film museum by means of response to their newest disaster.
Stated disaster was provoked over the weekend by an in depth column within the San Francisco Chronicle claiming that the late Sacheen Littlefeather, just lately celebrated and apologized to by the Academy for her onstage Native American activism and the backlash thereto, was not a Native American in any respect.
Slightly, mentioned the column, citing paperwork and interviews with Littlefeather’s two surviving sisters, she was of European and Mexican-American extraction, with little or no Indian blood. What she did have, the piece mentioned, was a historical past of instability, and of spreading unfaithful tales about her background and the alcoholism and abusive conduct of her California-born, Hispanic father.
Queried concerning the stories Monday, a spokesperson for the Academy didn’t reply, whereas a spokesperson for the museum mentioned that it “respectfully declines commenting on Saturday’s op-ed.”
Given the Academy’s funding in Littlefeather — who earlier this 12 months obtained a proper letter of apology from the Academy’s then-president David Rubin, adopted by an evening of reconciliation that recalled her 1973 onstage rejection of Marlon Brando’s Oscar, packaged with a three-hour “visible historical past” interview performed by the museum’s director, Jacqueline Stewart—it’s going to take greater than that. Much more.
In reality, the museum’s credibility now hangs on getting Littlefeather proper. If she has been unfairly tagged for manufacturing household historical past and buying and selling on false cultural id, researchers and attorneys at that repository of movie historical past needs to be well-equipped to clear her. But when, God forbid, the museum in its inaugural 12 months has succumbed to an unlucky delusion, maybe as a result of it match so neatly with modern notions about racism and cultural id, there isn’t a one higher suited to scrub up the mess.
It’s an obligation, each to those that fund the museum and to those that would belief its unfolding imaginative and prescient of film historical past.
Regardless of the last verdict, any shut examination of Littlefeather’s background and her claims of leisure business harassment by the years goes to be an unnerving expertise. It takes solely a viewing of the Stewart interview, posted on YouTube and performed simply weeks earlier than Littlefeather’s loss of life on October 2, to comprehend the depth of the issue.
By her personal testimony, a lot of it mentioned to be given right here for the primary time, Sacheen Littlefeather was a deeply troubled soul who struggled mightily with problems with id and acceptance.
She was, by her personal account, a recognized schizophrenic who spent a 12 months in a psychological hospital after a suicide try across the age of 19. She described the establishment as “actually a hell gap, ‘Cuckoo’s Nest.’” For practically two months, she was catatonic, she mentioned. Voices had pushed her towards suicide. A pair of medical doctors, whose names she doesn’t disclose, used a terrifying routine of “psychodrama”—they performed her dad and mom, whereas black-hooded figures listened in a dim-lit room—to assist her reconstruct reminiscences of childhood abuse and abandonment.
She was on Thorazine then, and different meds later, Littlefeather informed Stewart. There was a later episode, however she principally stabilized with a lot assist from a San Francisco Bay Space Native American neighborhood that crystallized round a 19-month occupation of Alcatraz Island that started in 1969. She was drawn by the sensation of “tribal togetherness,” mentioned Littlefeather.
Studying about and sharing Indian life, “I received to rediscover who I’m, who I actually am,” Littlefeather informed Stewart. Particularly, she turned invested in her father’s heritage. “I hated my Indian father. It was a truth. I’m half Indian,” she informed Stewart.
Whereas some “info” are actually disputed by Littlefeather’s sisters, there isn’t a doubt that she quickly afterward made contact by letter with Marlon Brando, who backed Native American activists on the time, and cultivated a relationship that led to her speech in his stead on the 1973 Oscar ceremony.
Stewart’s interview contains not a lot element about Littlefeather’s supposed boycott by the movie business. Even relating to a much-repeated declare that John Wayne needed to be restrained by six safety males from hauling her off the stage is considerably muffled right here. She didn’t see the imbroglio, however “heard a commotion backstage.” Later encounters with the likes of Walter Matthau and Lana Turner had been pleasant; however she says somebody fired two pictures in her path as she arrived at Brando’s residence after the well-known present. “The angels and my ancestors had been actually taking care of me,” says Littlefeather.
There are some startling claims on the video. Littlefeather, as an example, says meals was poisoned on the first Thanksgiving dinner, inflicting Indians to die, for which the Pilgrims gave thanks. At Wounded Knee, the FBI was supposedly blocked from hauling Indian activists to Guantanamo-like oblivion by world media consideration to Littlefeather.
Within the interview, she goes unchallenged. The extra superb statements draw an occasional “wow” from Stewart, or a word that issues aren’t taught that manner in class.
However one thing extra is so as at this level—maybe a well-researched museum exhibit, tracing roots, realities, and last classes to be discovered right here.
Sacheen Littlefeather: Truth or Fiction?
