harryhenry1 asked:

Can you dive more into how Lilo and Stitch DOESN'T reflect Hawaiian culture? I see a lot of people (who seem to not be hawaiian themselves) praise this or that moment (like the deleted scene making fun of tourists, or Nani singing Aloha ʻOe) as examples of how the film "nailed" hawaiian culture.

image

It’s incredible to see people claim that this story is an accurate representation of Hawaii, when it was written by two dudes who were born and raised in Quebec Canada, and Colorado, USA, who didn’t even have enough confidence in their story to make commercials that didn’t feature 4 of the most successful of Disney’s previous movies.

If you want to see real cringe, check out this full documentary on the movie. One of the most telling moments was the writers pitching their commercial ideas to the original Disney voices of Belle, Ariel, and Aladdin, and each of them reacting negatively to the out-of-character way in which the writers were twisting the characters to make Stitch seem cool or funny.

The original story is described by the writer, Chris Sanders, as his failed children’s book plot written over 14 years earlier. The original setting was in Kansas/rural middle America, and centered around a crash-landed alien, ostracized on Earth, eventually being welcomed into society by a kid. After a while, Chris decided to set it in Hawaii because he happened to be looking at a map of the islands while working out story progression, and he had previously vacationed in Kauai.

While the making fun of tourist’s thing is accurate for pretty much every place that enjoys a robust tourism industry, Nani and Lilo’s attitudes were less kanaka and more what a main-lander might think a native would act like. Overall, the movie had little more than a thin veneer of understanding of Hawaiian culture layered over a poorly executed outsider-turned-good plot.

The absolute worst example of this was using Myrtle as a bully figure. The 1970’s were the peak of the Kill Haole Day tradition in Hawaiian schools, something you won’t find in any textbook, but any true Hawaiian knows about. You’ll also find a lot of non-natives that claim “Kill Haole Day” is fake, or an urban legend. My Mom had the broken arms and black eyes to prove it. She was a 2-time State Championship paddler for the Outrigger Canoe Club, and a Punahou school athletic scholar (yes, the same Punahou that President Obama attended). Definitely not your cliché tourist caricature. A ginger haole girl like Myrtle would have been getting her teeth kicked in on the regular, so to see her picking on a local girl is about as ridiculous as a mouse taking down a cat. Funny gag for the general public, insultingly deaf for any local, especially kama’aina.

The deleted scene where Lilo fakes a Tsunami warning to freak out tourists, and then justifies it because “white people bad” is a pretty disgusting take, and
one of the best examples of projecting perceived 1970’s culture by the writers.
The only people who would find that scene amusing are the ones who perpetuate the hatred and violence that still plagues parts of the islands, of which one incident involving the gang-rape of a Finnish tourist eventually led to the debate of criminal rape laws across the United States.  

While the US was going through its Civil Rights Movement from 1954 to about 1970, Hawaii was a world away. The island demographics were completely different from the continental US, but it’s clear that the writers were approaching all of their tourist jokes from a completely Canadian/Mainland perspective rather than taking in to account the Hawaiian perspective.

If I wanted to really nitpick I could also mention one of Chris Sanders’ board suggestions being an air conditioning adjustment battle between Nani and Stitch, since no “poor” family in Hawaii would have owned an air conditioner back then, let alone bothered to use it.

Or I could harp on the “Tsunami Air” plane scene. No, not because of 9/11 happening, but the fact that a tsunami had killed 61 people on the Big Island in 1960, which makes Lilo’s tsunami warning gag that much worse.

Or the back-and-forth fight between Stitch and Jumba having Stitch jokingly saying “Merry Christmas” instead of Mele Kalikimaka. Rookie mistake there.

While some of this stuff is just tiny lame jabs I could absolutely forgive in most cases, when you combine it with the irreverent “We had a vacation in Hawaii and now we understand the culture” attitude these writers took with a failed children’s book plot thrown haphazardly into a setting they had no respect for but absolutely fetishized, it sours the already poorly told story even more.

About the only thing they really did their homework on was the hula, and the fact that Elvis was hugely popular, and so for that, I’ll give them some credit.

For the rest, it’s embarrassing to see these men who have no grasp on Hawaiian culture portray this negative, oppressive, and downright petty outlook on what was considered Hawaii’s economic and cultural hay day.

The economy was thriving, Hawaii was the envy of the world, and amazing Hawaiians like Duke Kahanamoku and his protégé Henry Keawe Ayau were renowned as ambassadors of Aloha. Heroes like Eddie Aikau represented
the best of the islands with his unparalleled bravery and strength as a lifeguard on the North Shore beaches. Entrepreneurs like Chris Hemmeter built
some of the most beautiful hotels in the world on the islands during this time,
bringing unprecedented amounts of money and jobs with them. 

This is just a start for everything happening during this time in Hawaiian history, there was so much positive to focus on, and plenty of larger than life people doing heroic and extraordinary things. People get plenty of bad examples of humanity in their every day lives, to focus on the negative when you have the opportunity to immortalize the ideal is a waste.

My Grandmother lived in Hawaii for over 30 years, and my Mother was born and raised there, and it’s where she met my Father who spent 17 years on Oahu during his Naval service. I still break into tears when singing Kanaka
Wai Wai or visiting my grandparent’s graves at the National Memorial Cemetery
of the Pacific. For me, nothing is more nauseating than seeing the perpetuation
of the poisonous “us” vs. “them” politics that have been soiling the good name
of Hawaiian culture for decades. This is precisely what Dean DeBlois and Chris
Sanders were all too happy to do with their insultingly poor depiction of an average ill-mannered child and her beleaguered sibling having to be saved
by a mediocre psudo-monster while displaying irresponsible behavior played off as cute and endearing gags.

You don’t have Belle being a snarky bitch to her father in Beauty and the Beast. You don’t have Simba live out the rest of his pathetic life in ignorant paradise in the Lion King while Scar ravages his homeland. You don’t have Pinocchio give up and move on once he finds out his father’s been swallowed by a monster whale. They shoulder their burdens and deal with the problem in a positive and admirable way. So why is everyone ecstatic for Lilo and Nani to be portrayed as awful and incompetent people in this particular story?

A good moral story puts the characters in the worst situations life has to offer so they can display the most positive and uplifting traits in humanity despite their unfair and awful conditions. That’s what it means to be a role model.

To write Lilo just like any other 6 year old brat, ignorantly happy to reign hell upon her sister’s life after their parents have died, and write Nani as an incapable mess of nerves unable to rise to the challenge of her newfound hardships for the sake of “realism”, is absolutely insulting for a movie allegedly meant to celebrate the Hawaiian people and their culture.

Worst of all, it taught an entire generation that it’s perfectly acceptable to act horrible towards people, as long as you have an excuse or you’re witty about it. Case in point below.

Been getting some death threats and racially charged insults, and a few mutuals of mine who engaged in non hostile discussion was driven to delete their responses. Haven’t seen a single response yet that actually understood what is being said, but there’s a lot of vitriol and insults flying from people that have deemed insult towards their favorite movie were tantamount to insults towards them personally.

This is all fine by me, as it just proves that nothing good comes from attaching your own personal identity/ego to a character that embodies poor decisions and behaviors. Not planning to delete this post, as I’m hoping the people who flipped their lids over this will be able to look back at their reaction in a few years and laugh, just as I do when I look back on the days when I would fly off the handle at people insulting shows and characters I liked. We’ve all gone through that phase, it’s nothing out of the ordinary.

Now for those who see Lilo and Stitch as a great movie due to the fact that it shows the negative aspects of Hawaii’s induction into statehood and increased tourism, I get it. That sort of plot can be an effective tool to expose injustices and educate the greater populace. Max Havelaar is a great example of this,
as is To Kill A Mockingbird, which remains one of the best selling novels in modern times. However, Max Havelaar and To Kill A Mockingbird are not animated Disney movies marketed towards children and families as universal meta level folktales.

If you want the true heart of the Hawaiian spirit, it isn’t contained in thinly veiled excuse for resentment of your fellow human being masquerading as a children’s movie, but in the immortal words of the Ambassador of Aloha himself:

“In Hawaii, we greet friends, loved ones, or strangers with
Aloha which means ‘with love.’ Aloha is the key to the universal spirit of real
hospitality. Which makes Hawaii renowned as the world’s center of understanding
and fellowship. Try meeting or leaving people with your Aloha. You’ll be
surprised by their reaction. I believe it, and it is my creed. Aloha to you!”
-Duke Paoa Kahanamoku

Update: Hoo nelly! Racists are big mad in the notes and reblogs, and beautifully proving my points above. 

analysis storytelling asks not art kalei hawaii duke kahanamoku henry ayau eddie aikau lilo and stitch harryhenry1 good question my dude hope this cleared up some stuff!

  1. rjatizay reblogged this from fandomshatepeopleofcolor
  2. lacina-and-lucy reblogged this from lamujerplastica
  3. pandorami reblogged this from thisishowyoumakemovies
  4. dashiecomic13 reblogged this from kaleidraws
  5. ay-its-grey reblogged this from mothrabbit
  6. kaleidraws posted this