I got dressed in my traditional Indian regalia, but there was a man, he was the producer of the whole show. He took that speech away from me and he warned me very sternly. “I’ll give you 60 seconds or less. And if you go over that 60 seconds, I’ll have you arrested. I’ll have you put in handcuffs.”
– Sacheen Littlefeather in Reel Injun(2009), dir. Neil Diamond.
They were MAD, CONFUSED AND PRESSED that Marlon Brando would betray White Supremacy in this way.
To this very day, they are TWISTED over this.
And when Littlefeather got up there and READ THEM FOR FILTH, they GAGGED. For eons.
So I imagine there are people like me out there who’ve never even heard of Marlon Brando and are extremely confused over why this is important.
Marlon Brando was the Don in The Godfather, and in 1973, he was nominated for and won an Academy Award for it. However, he was also a huge Natives rights activist, and boycotted the ceremony because he felt that Hollywood’s depictions of Native Americans in the media led to the Wounded Knee Incident (which I was always taught as “the second massacre at Wounded Knee” but apparently that’s not the real name). He sent Sacheen Littlefeather, an Apache Native rights activist, in his stead. Wikipedia’s article on her explains the rest:
Brando had written a 15-page speech for Littlefeather to give at the ceremony, but when the producer met her backstage he threatened to physically remove her or have her arrested if she spoke on stage for more than 60 seconds.[5] Her on-stage comments were therefore improvised. She then went backstage and read the entire speech to the press. In his autobiography My Word is My Bond, Roger Moore (who presented the award) claims he took the Oscar home with him and kept it in his possession until it was collected by an armed guard sent by the Academy.
That is what this gifset is about.
You have GOT to read up on this. The Wounded Knee Incident, Marlon Brando and Sacheen Littlefeather, Anna Mae Aquash. ALL OF IT.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but she was also threatened with physical harm by actors that were there. I believe John Wayne aka the duke aka Marion Mitchell Morrison, was one of them. Reports said he had to be held back by others backstage.
In the heat of battle, photographer Horace Bristol captured one of the most unique and erotic photos of WWII.
Bristol photographed a young crewman of a US Navy “Dumbo” PBY rescue mission, manning his gun after having stripped naked and jumped into the water of Rabaul Harbor to rescue a badly burned Marine pilot. The Marine was shot down while bombing the Japanese-held fortress of Rabaul.
“…we got a call to pick up an airman who was down in the Bay. The Japanese were shooting at him from the island, and when they saw us they started shooting at us. The man who was shot down was temporarily blinded, so one of our crew stripped off his clothes and jumped in to bring him aboard. He couldn’t have swum very well wearing his boots and clothes. As soon as we could, we took off. We weren’t waiting around for anybody to put on formal clothes. We were being shot at and wanted to get the hell out of there. The naked man got back into his position at his gun in the blister of the plane.”
“And well, there was his butt, and I had a camera. I mean I AM a historian.”
That is the BEST EVER quote about the nature of historians I’ve ever seen
Finnish soldier gets separated from the rest of his unit but he’s the only one carrying the emergency amphetamines for the unit, takes too many and goes on a one man rampage for like 2 weeks straight giving the opposing Soviet soldiers nightmares for decades. Oh and he did it all on skis.
Did he survive?
Yes, during his methed up 2-3 week rampage he got injured by a land mine, travelled 400km on skis, and only ate pine buds and a Siberian Jay that he caught which he ate raw. When he made it back to Finnish lines he was taken to a hospital where it was found his heart rate was nearly 200 beats per minute and his weight had dropped to 43kg (94.7lbs).
His name was Aimo Koivunen if you want to look him up
Those are the eyes of a man who has seen god and laughed
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