"Leonardo DiCaprio" is a poem that appears in Billy-Ray Belcourt's collection of poems NDN Coping Mechanisms. NDN is shorthand for "Native Indian" or "Indian." It's a term often used by Native Americans in reference to themselves. Belcourt is a part of the Driftpile Cree Nation.

The poem "Leonardo DiCaprio" connects to Belcourt's experience as a Native American. After talking about his ex-boyfriend's increasing attractiveness, Belcourt pivots to DiCaprio's "dad bod."

Belcourt then talks about DiCaprio's role in the movie The Revenant. DiCaprio won an Oscar for his role as a settler who is almost killed by a bear.

For Belcourt, the narrative of The Revenant reinforces racist, white tropes about the purported development of the United States.

About halfway through the poem, Belcourt cites a summary of the movie's plot from Wikipedia. The Wikipedia entry reads, "In late 1823, Hugh Glass [DiCaprio's character] guides Andrew Henry's trappers through unorganized territory."

Belcourt focuses on "unorganized territory." For him, that wording reflects how "white people see what they want."

Belcourt then goes on to relate how The Revenant would be different if it was written by Native Americans. In the Native American version of the movie, DiCaprio's character would be killed right away. For the next two hours and twenty-six minutes (The Revenant is a long movie), there'd be no visuals or images, just the "sounds of NDNs / organizing territory."

The end of the poem seems to underscore how the territory was not unorganized and how "unorganized" is a rather poor euphemism for what really happened between the settlers and the Native Americans. The absence of images or visuals seem to highlight how Belcourt feels that the true history of what took place has been erased or whitewashed.

Belcourt notes how DiCaprio often speaks about Native American issues, climate change, and other social justice causes. Yet DiCaprio's relationship to activism doesn't seem to impress Belcourt too much.