Lily Gladstone's Historic Golden Globe Speech Sends Searches For Blackfeet Language Skyrocketing

On Sunday, January 7, Lily Gladstone made history by becoming the first Indigenous performer to win a Golden Globe for best actress for her role in "Killers of the Flower Moon." In one of the ceremony's most poignant moments, Gladstone accepted their award in the Blackfeet language. Then, they spoke in English: "I'm so grateful I could speak even a little bit of my language, which I'm not fluent enough in," though she credited her mother with "working tirelessly" to ensure someone taught her the language while growing up on a Blackfeet reservation in Montana. 

Gladstone elaborated on why using their Native language on stage was such a vital moment for cinema, stating, "Native actors used to speak their lines in English and then the sound mixers would run them backward to accomplish Native language on camera. This is a historic win that doesn't belong to just me. This is for every little Rez kid, every little urban kid, every little Native kid out there who has a dream, who is seeing themselves represented in our stories, told by ourselves, in our own words, with tremendous allies and tremendous trust."

Later, Gladstone told reporters that she introduces herself to "significant" situations by speaking Blackfoot. Hours after, Gladstone's win proved the power that Hollywood has to raise awareness and representation. After Gladstone delivered her barnburner of a speech — which brought the in-person Golden Globes audience to their feet to celebrate the historic moment — people flocked to Google to learn more about the language they heard.

Looper researched Google search trends in the last 24 hours and discovered how much of an impact Lily Gladstone had on the search engine. The phrase "What is Blackfeet language" saw a 3100% increase in search volume, while the search for "Blackfoot language" increased by 3,450%. Searches for "Lily Gladstone language" shot up 5,000%, while searches for "Black feet language," "What is black feet language," and "Blackfeet" went up 2,600%, 1,000%, and 1,650%, respectively. 

People also searched for "Black feet meaning," "Black foot tribe," and "Blackfoot Indian" (the latter uses an outdated nomenclature for Indigenous people), with the first two queries rising by 300% and the last rising 200%.

These searches may have been related to the closed captioning provided for the telecast on streaming. As Teen Vogue pointed out, the captions referred to Gladstone's words as "a global language" — as opposed to recognizing its North American roots to the Algonquian language family.

Of course, we'd be remiss not to discuss the film that skyrocketed Lily Gladstone to international acclaim — "Killers of the Flower Moon," the latest epic from director Martin Scorsese. Based on devastatingly true events, the movie details how white men with varying degrees of power conspired to murder high-ranking members of the Osage tribe in Oklahoma during the 1920s. 

In the film, Gladstone plays Mollie Burkhardt, a historical figure who survived this brutal assault on her people. Mollie, whose maiden name is Kyle, is part of a family that owns what was dubbed a "headright" to Osage land. When she meets Ernest Burkhardt (Leonardo DiCaprio), the two fall in love. Soon, Mollie's family members start "mysteriously" dying. Ernest is behind these deaths, spurred on by his uncle William King Hale (Robert De Niro), a rancher and false friend to the Osage tribe. Mollie is a remarkably strong character, and under the weight of her husband's betrayal and her struggle with diabetes, Gladstone lets the legendary woman's vulnerability through in calculated (and gut-wrenching) ways. 

Now that they've got a Golden Globe, Gladstone is firmly in the running for the Oscar for Best Actress. During their speech, Gladstone acknowledged Scorsese, De Niro, and DiCaprio for helping her tell this story. "You are all changing things," they said. "Thank you for being such allies."