It was three years before the beginning of peak woke. The now-late Norm Macdonald was up on stage to accept an award on behalf of another performer. But he thought it was critical to give his time to someone important.
The result was comedy genius. Sadly, just a few years later, the joke would be all but forbidden. And then, in 2021, we lost Norm.
It would have been amazing to see how the late, great Canadian boundary-pusher would have dealt with the post-woke era. But at least we still have Johnny Two-Feathers.
Flashback: 2012 Comedy Awards. Macdonald was accepting an award on behalf of Melissa McCarthy. But, as he said, he could not “in good conscience accept this award.”
Instead, he brought up “a friend who has something very important to say.” He then motioned off-stage to a man who came on dressed in absurd Native American garb.
A little background here for the young ‘uns: It was immediately apparent that Macdonald was parodying an incident at the 1973 Academy Awards, when Marlon Brando pulled a similar stunt, except in earnest.
From Rolling Stone:
Plenty of Oscar winners have used the show’s soapbox to get a political point across (a few more are below), but few feel more bold than Marlon Brando’s decision to ask Native American civil rights activist Sacheen Littlefeather to appear in his place when he won Best Actor in 1973 for The Godfather. Not only did Littlefeather decline the award on Brando’s behalf, but used his speech time to speak out against the depiction of Native Americans in film and TV, and express support for the American Indian Movement’s occupation of Wounded Knee.
Do you know of any group of people more hypocritical than leftists?
So, anyway, Macdonald decided to parody it in the most over-the-top way possible.
The actor’s name is John Scott-Richardson, but he introduced himself as “Johnny Two-Feathers.”
“While you enjoy tonight’s show, I want you to think about something,” he said.
“The spot where you are sitting — every square foot of ground in this country — was stolen from my ancestors,” he continued without breaking character in the slightest.
Even Jon Stewart and John Oliver, liberal dignitaries both, were forced to try to cover their mouths to stifle the laughter.
“And after you stole it, you murdered them. So, you’ll forgive us if we do not laugh along. There is nothing funny about the extermination of a people,” Two-Feathers continued.
“The theater stinks of blood. That’s all I have to say.”
“Johnny Two-Feathers, everybody!” Norm said, with his usual aplomb.
Alas, years later, with Donald Trump’s campaign on the ascent, so too did wokeness see its opening. Suddenly, this sort of thing became verboten, even if it was hilarious. Sanctimonious land acknowledgements were suddenly Not Funny™ anymore.
It’s almost a wonder Stewart was never forced to apologize for this.
Macdonald never hosted the event again, which was a common theme in his career. After all, this was a guy who was fired from “Saturday Night Live” because he refused to stop telling O.J. Simpson jokes on “Weekend Update,” despite the fact that one NBC executive was still friends with the accused murderer. (“Well, it’s finally official: Murder is legal in the state of California,” he famously joked after the not guilty verdict.)
But, beyond being funny, it was a great dig at the hypocrisy of Hollywood culture. Forty years earlier, the radical liberal Marlon Brando got political at the Academy Awards, using an American Indian more or less as a prop on stage.
Norm hadn’t forgotten. Thanks to the internet, neither have we.
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