The Academy Awards featured a brief land acknowledgment during the ceremony Sunday night that drew scorn on social media.
Actress Julianne Hough gave recognition to three Native American tribes in a 15-second segment during the 97th annual Oscars ceremony.
“We gather in celebration of the Oscars on the ancestral lands of the Tongva, Tataviam and Chumash peoples, the traditional caretakers of this water and land. We honor and pay our respects to indigenous communities here and around the world,” Hough said early in the Hollywood awards show.
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Julianne Hough attends the 97th Annual Oscars at Dolby Theatre on March 02, 2025 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Savion Washington/Getty Images) (Photo by Savion Washington/Getty Images)
The short clip was roasted across social media platform X shortly after it aired.
“Performative nonsense. Give the land back if you’re so woke,” Sen. Josh Hawley’s communications director, Abigail Jackson, wrote.
Washington Examiner contributor Brad Polumbo exclaimed, “i repeat: give it back or shut the f— up!”
“Do the named indigenous groups ever have to acknowledge who they took the land from?” Libertas Institute President Connor Boyack asked.
“WHHHYYY” former Democratic campaign strategist Evan Barker wrote.
Marine Corps veteran Rick Swift remarked, “Will she be giving up her home?”
“What I feel when I watch this clip is the same thing I feel when you say you ‘stand with [insert foreign nation here].’ If you stand with them, go fight and die for them. And if you’re standing on land owned by the ancient chupacabra and hitachi tribes, then give it back to them. Don’t pretend to care if you don’t actually care. Just be like me and say you don’t care,” political commentator Natalie Jean Beisner wrote.
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Los Angeles County, where the Oscars are traditionally held, adopted a formal land acknowledgment in 2022.
The acknowledgment read, “The County of Los Angeles recognizes that we occupy land originally and still inhabited and cared for by the Tongva, Tataviam, Serrano, Kizh, and Chumash Peoples. We honor and pay respect to their elders and descendants past, present, and emerging as they continue their stewardship of these lands and waters.”
The Academy Awards acknowledged three Indigenous tribes during its ceremony Sunday night. (Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)
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It continued, “We acknowledge that settler colonization resulted in land seizure, disease, subjugation, slavery, relocation, broken promises, genocide, and multigenerational trauma. This acknowledgment demonstrates our responsibility and commitment to truth, healing, and reconciliation and to elevating the stories, culture, and community of the original inhabitants of Los Angeles County. We are grateful to have the opportunity to live and work on these ancestral lands.”
