Film Club: “Lilo & Stitch” and the Colonization of Hawaii
The animated film explores a legacy of colonization.
Cover photo: Lilo and Stitch dance together, movie still from Disney’s Lilo & Stitch (2002). Via ABC News (cropped).
Intro
Though I’ve never visited the island chain, I’ve long felt attracted to Hawaii. Simultaneously exotic and domestic, the tropical paradise holds a special place in the heart of Americans. Like many Millennials, my first introduction to Hawaii was Disney’s animated film Lilo & Stitch (2002). The beloved movie offers insight into Hawaii’s tragic history and ongoing challenges.
Hawaii
Why is Lilo & Stitch set in Hawaii? Creator/director Chris Sanders first considered rural Kansas but chose Hawaii instead as he had recently visited. He found the site ‘intimate’ and “magical”. “It’s not my culture,” Sanders admits, but he made a conscious effort to include Hawaiians in the filmmaking process.
Hawaiian native Tia Carrere — voice of Nani — praises Lilo & Stitch as “so ahead of its time” in depicting an “Indigenous story” with real people, places, and themes. She proclaims, “I was so proud to be able to represent Hawaii.” The film confronts a legacy of colonial rule on the islands, including institutional family separation and the harmful impact of mass tourism.
History
The islands of Hawaii were first unified by King Kamehameha in 1810. Protestant missionaries arrived from New England just ten years later, marking the start of America’s lasting influence on Hawaii. Plantations were soon established, focused on sugar and pineapple industries. Pacific immigrants were recruited for work, where they communicated in Hawaiian Pidgin English.
In 1893, Sanford Dole — of the Dole Pineapple Plantation family — lead a coup against reigning Queen Lili’uokalan and the United States officially annexes Hawaii in 1898 amidst imperial competition. Hawaii thus became the frontline of the American empire, leading to Japan’s surprise attack on a U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.
The attack galvanized the United States, pulling the superpower into World War II. A million servicemen and military workers passed through Hawaii, which then had a civilian population of just 258,000. This would prove a training ground in preparation for Hawaii’s nascent tourism industry.
Following a successful referendum, Hawaii was granted statehood in 1959. In 1993, President Bill Clinton formally apologized for the U.S. role in deposing Hawaii’s monarchy, but he stopped short of recognizing the right of native Hawaiians to self-governance. The Obama Administration explored such an option but it proved controversial. According to limited polling data from 2014, some 63% of native Hawaiians oppose the establishment of a Hawaiian nation.
Elvis Presley
Many Elvis songs are featured in the Lilo & Stitch soundtrack. The “King of Rock & Roll,” Elvis Presley first visited Hawaii in 1957. He found much inspiration in the islands, resulting in multiple concerts and films. His role in Blue Hawaii (1961) is widely credited with popularizing the site as a tourist destination during the advent of commercial air travel.
Local DJ Tom Moffatt declared, “Blue Hawaii did more for Hawaii than anything the Hawaii Visitors Bureau could’ve done in that period. That put Hawaii on the world map.” Therefore, Elvis can be considered a modern symbol of Hawaii’s continued exploitation.
Furthermore, when Lilo accepts the charge to domesticate savage and “bad” Stitch into a “model citizen,” she finds inspiration in the Mississippi native. She teaches Stitch dance, music, and even romance with help from the non-Hawaiian.
Mosquitos
Mosquitos also play a notable role in Lilo & Stitch. Professed “Earth expert,” Agent Pleakley is inspired by conservation, with a particular interest in the creature. Coincidentally, mosquitos are not native to Hawaii. They were inadvertently introduced to the islands with foreign visitors in 1826.
More than a mere nuisance, mosquitos are an invasive species and a threat to local wildlife, especially birds. Likewise, non-Hawaiians have fundamentally altered the islands. By the start of the 20th century, foreign diseases had decimated Hawaii’s population from 400,000 to less than 40,000 people — a 90% reduction.
During his mission to recapture Stitch, Pleakley’s primary concern is protecting the mosquito population, not the native peoples of Hawaii. He first refers to Lilo as “part of the mosquito food chain.” This suggests Hawaiians exist primarily in service to the invasive foreigner.
Tourism
At the film’s start, Nani works as a waitress at a “fakey luau” with her friend David. Together, they perform idealized depictions of Hawaiian natives for tourists. After she’s fired, Nani explores other positions in the tourism industry with no luck. This demonstrates the monopolizing effect the industry has on Hawaii. Tourism represents just 10% of the global economy, yet it accounts for a quarter of Hawaii’s economy, with far-reaching consequences.
In 21st century mass tourism, corporations continue to extract profits while locals are left with low-paying jobs, resource-strain, price inflation, environmental degradation, and a reduced quality of life.
Disney opened its own Hawaiian resort — Aulani — in 2011. For Ireland’s University Observer, Mary O’Leary writes, “Companies such as Disney purchase cheap property on Hawaii’s islands to build resorts, funneling all tourism revenue away from the local economy. In doing so, Disney and other tourist companies make these islands unlivable for their native populations.”
Tourist destinations once had a “carrying capacity” determined by available hotel rooms and flights, but because of short-term rentals like Airbnb and low-cost airlines, this natural limit no longer exists. Today, destinations around the globe are accommodating larger and larger numbers of budget travelers while experiencing no monetary benefit in exchange.
One of Lilo’s many quirks is taking pictures of tourists she encounters. Photography enables Lilo to reject and reverse the “tourist gaze” and reassert her personhood. With this gesture, she reminds visitors they are guests in her homeland. Lilo calls her subjects “beautiful” in the same way Pleakley describes mosquitos, suggesting she too finds them fantastical and strange.
Lilo holds her handmade rag doll Scrump, movie still from Lilo & Stitch (2002). Via Espresso Mag (color-corrected and cropped).
Queerness
Lilo & Stitch possesses an undeniable queer quality. For Teen Vogue, gay author Damian Alexander calls the film “a sanctuary.” They write, “Lilo was weird and unafraid to be exactly who she was, despite the upturned noses of her peers.”
“It is [Lilo’s] own outsider identity that allows her to have the space in her life to welcome an alien outcast,” notes Katia Perea, Associate Professor of Sociology at the City University of New York.
Another queer-coded character is Pleakley, who freely experiments with gender expression. This was likely inspired by voice actor Kevin McDonald’s previous work in Canadian sketch series The Kids in the Hall (1988-95). About sexual ambiguity and cross-dressing, he explains, “Those were subjects that made us laugh.”
While many Disney films feature cross-dressing for comedic effect, Hawaii, in fact has its own tradition of mahu, or dual-spirits. Ethnohistorian and mahu Adam Keawe Manalo-Camp says, “mahu offers a space between the concepts of male and female.” Once banned by Christian missionaries, a new generation of Hawaiians is ready to reclaim this history. Mahu Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu says her goal is “decolonizing our people to the degree that we understand our rightful place in our own home, of which we still do not have.”
Family
The central theme of Lilo & Stitch is family. Lilo is an orphan, with her sister Nani acting as sole caretaker. Alluding to her deceased parents, Lilo says, “I remember everyone that leaves.” She is scarred by loss and, like Stitch, feels alienated and alone. Meanwhile, young Nani must prove she is a worthy guardian, lest a state social worker take Lilo away into the foster system.
Lilo and Nani’s desperate situation echoes real Hawaiian life. During colonization, many native children were taken to boarding schools for assimilation, divorced from their families and language. Still today, native Hawaiians disproportionately suffer from poverty and state intervention.
When Nani accepts she will lose guardianship of Lilo, she sings Aloha ‘Oe (“Farewell to Thee”). The song was written by the last monarch of Hawaii, Queen Lili’uokalani, and popularized after her deposition in 1893. In this context, the love song has been reinterpreted as a final goodbye to her people. Like the queen lost her kingdom to foreign power, so too will Nani lose Lilo.
In the film’s climax, both Lilo and Stitch face state custody. Stitch pleads, “This is my family. I found it, all on my own.” Lilo presents her receipt from the animal rescue, tangible proof of her commitment to Stitch and unconditional love. They are allowed to stay together through the power of ‘ohana, implicitly defined throughout the film as “chosen family.”
Indigenous studies scholar Gabrielle Parent argues, “there is great irony in ‘ohana saving Stitch as a single individual as he learns the concept of family, while the Hawaiian community as a whole fails Lilo and Nina completely in their responsibility as ‘ohana.”
By the film’s conclusion, Lilo & Stitch offers the image of a stereotypical nuclear family, with Nani and David presented as parents to the titular characters. Ultimately, the family expands to include aliens Jumba and Pleakley, as well as state social worker Cobra Bubbles, demonstrating the limitless potential of ‘ohana. Creator/director Sanders calls it “the best, most beautiful interpretation of family ever.”
