This is along the lines of what I meant by offending people.

"where the F do I live?"

No need to use that kind of language.I'll clarify my entire post and the specific line you quoted.

You are aware that when the GF came out...and until fairly recently that many college team logos and mascots were of caricatures and stereotypes of native americans? If not the college you went to, then almost certainly one school in your athletic conference had one. Where did these images and stereotypes come from?

I bet that pre 1972 that there were at least 25 to 1...Westerns to "Italian crime syndicate" films made by Hollywood. In the Westerns, the Native people would invariably be "the villains"...not even be specific to a certain tribe or nation, and would be viewed as the aggressors/or mindless savages.

Because we don't read a lot in this country, we suspend logic and feed into these films...the "Red" man is a savage who exists just so the cavalry can come in and save the day.

Around the time the Oscars aired the year in question, there were Native civil rights struggles in general taking place and one public standoff specifically. Brando's speech was meant to lend support to the struggle and make a personal statement against the "How!"..."injun" foolishness that hollywood had ran with for years.

I don't think the one dimensional "savage" roles of Amerindians in film can be compared to one of the more complex and fleshed out roles...gangster or otherwise in the history of US films. Vito was a HUMAN being with a history and strengths weaknesses not a man riding a horse wearing generic "injun" clothes spouting "gibbersih lines that came from NO actual language".

Not fair to say that Brando was playing into stereotypes because he gave life to one of the most interesting film characters of all time....

on an interesting note....I watched a doc. about Native Americans in film and Iron Eyes Cody..aka Native man crying over pollution in those 70s psa
is ACTUALLY Sicilian, beleive it or not.
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I believe that Jewish interests lobbied to keep the Wolz scene out of the film and home video releases. I applaud the groups if they got that done.