Brando understood this. He had written eight pages, but what Littlefeather could actually accomplish in sixty seconds in that room, watched by those millions, was worth more than eight pages read to an audience that could change the channel.
## The Press Response: How Hollywood Told the Story
The morning after the ceremony, the press response was divided along lines that were not primarily about whether Brando’s cause was just.
Some critics and commentators focused on the appropriateness of the Oscar stage as a political forum. The argument — made by Michael Caine, among others, in his capacity as one of the evening’s hosts — was that the ceremony was not the place for political statements, that the award was for the film rather than the actor’s beliefs, and that the refusal was in poor taste regardless of the merit of the underlying cause.
A separate line of criticism focused on Brando himself: the skepticism that Caine would later express to Dick Cavett’s observation was characteristic of a segment of the press that viewed Brando’s activism as performative. The suggestion was that a man wealthy enough and famous enough to have made this gesture was not the right vehicle for the message, and that his presence — even in absentia — overshadowed the political substance of what was being said.
Still other commentators criticized the choice of Littlefeather specifically. Questions were raised, in the immediate aftermath, about her credentials to speak on behalf of Native Americans. The “president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee” was an organization that most journalists had not encountered, and the press response included a degree of skepticism about whether this organization had the standing its title implied.