Lilo & Stitch
Ohana means family, family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.
When I think of Summer movies, the ones that come to mind are probably the same for most of us; Grease, Dirty Dancing, Aquamarine, and others of similar genres. However, for my summer series, as much as I am dedicated to covering the Summer classics, I also want to write about some other films that typically wouldn’t make my Summer watch list. I wanted to cover Lilo & Stitch because I wanted to be more inclusive. Most classic Summer movies feature a mostly white cast, often centering on a white, heterosexual couple falling in love.
However, Lilo & Stitch, set in Hawai’i, features many elements of Hawaiian culture and introduced them to children who went to see the film in 2002, as well as the new generations likely watching it on Disney+ today. I also wanted to expand on animated films. I haven’t covered enough of them on Movies Mondays, and I wanted to highlight the importance of animation. As I talk about the many aspects I love about Lilo & Stitch, which I don’t think I have seen in about 20 years before rewatching for this newsletter, I’ll be referencing an interview with Lilo & Stitch co-writer Chris Sanders conducted by Hawai’i Public Radio in 2022 for the 20th anniversary of the film.
Flying By On The Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride
The allure of Lilo & Stitch is deeply intertwined with its Hawai'i setting. It's hard to imagine the movie set anywhere else, especially not in a place like rural Kansas. While rural Kansas might have worked well in The Wizard of Oz, it would have been a stark contrast to see Lilo & Stitch take place there. Surprisingly, according to Sanders, it almost did. As he was brainstorming locations for the film, rural Kansas was one place that came to mind. Luckily, he had recently returned from a trip to Hawai'i, and when he saw a map of the island on his wall, he realized that was the perfect location for Lilo and Stitch's story.
"You do not mess around with this. It's not my culture, but I'm in charge of getting it right,"-Chris Sanders," Stitch creator and Lilo & Stitch co-writer/co-director, Chris Sanders.
Sanders also made sure to cast as many Hawaiian natives as possible. He even had a native Kuma Hula stage a hula dance for the Lilo & Stitch team to record and then hand over to animators. Sanders also partnered with Kamehameha Schools, using their choir for the songs "He Mele No Lilo" and "Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride." While watching Lilo & Stitch again, I was able to pick up on the many aspects of Hawaiian culture that were featured. Hula dancing is included early on, followed by fire dancing performed by David Kawena at a Luau, and a scene where David, Nani, and Lilo go surfing.
Ohana Means Family
Among the Hawaiian culture is a universal story of family, which is why the film resonates with such a large group of people. Lilo and Nani have lost their parents in a car crash, and the film is a journey from the loneliness they feel as they cope with this loss to rebuilding a family structure, even if it's not what they expected. Along with losing her parents, Lilo is an outcast among her friends. When Nani takes her to adopt a dog, and she finds Stitch instead, she finally has someone she can bond with.
Unfortunately, Stitch's poor behavior almost gets him sent back to the shelter, but Nani changes her mind when Lilo reminds her of the Ohana quote her father always said. In The Birdcage, I mentioned that there's this societal structure of what family is supposed to be, and anything that crosses the borders of that ideal is considered wrong. Like Val's family in The Birdcage, Lilo also finds her own version of family at the end of the film, and even though it's not the stereotypical family, it isn't any less valid than anyone else's. At the end of the film, it's the same Ohana message that Stitch learned from Lilo that inspires him to go back and help her.
Sanders admitted that initially, when creating Stitch, he just wanted to create a villain who could be redeemed instead of killed off like so many other Disney villains had been. However, he realized the story was lackluster without a motive for Stitch becoming good. That's when Ohana came into play. As Sanders put it, Stitch had found a family who loved him, and that's what changed him. At the start of the film, Stitch is rejected and seen only as an experiment gone wrong. After all, Lilo is the one who gives him a proper name, while the Galactic Federation only refers to him as Experiment 626. This is because Lilo sees him as family and never gives up on him, even during his worst moments.
Weird Girls & Outcasts
In case you haven’t noticed, Lilo is weird. She’s a weirdo. She doesn’t fit in, and she doesn’t want to fit in. (Riverdale weirdo reference video here.) Lilo’s outcast persona is one of the many aspects that sets Lilo & Stitch apart from previous Disney films. She is not a stereotypically feminine character and with the exception of Mulan, we didn’t see this much in Disney until Lilo & Stitch. Just look at Disney’s history; there was Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, and Jasmine, to name a few, who were all stereotypically feminine and ended the films as royalty, whether or not they were princesses at the start.
“You see, I never gave him a greater purpose. What must it be like to have nothing, not even memories to look back on in the middle of the night?”-Jumba Jookiba, Lilo & Stitch.
Part of Lilo’s character is that she’s also poorly behaved, which gets Nani in trouble with social worker Cobra Bubbles quite a lot. In a generation where young girls often heard things like “act like a lady,” and their behavior was corrected far more than boys, who were more likely to hear things like “boys will be boys,” a character like Lilo was refreshing. Some of the things Lilo did that made her weird were biting one of her friends at dance class, carrying a deformed doll named Scrump that looks nothing like the dolls girls typically play with, and playing with spoons in a pickle jar that she turned into voodoo dolls of her friends. Not only does Lilo learn to love Stitch despite being different, but she’s drawn to him because he is different.
Lilo sees herself in Stitch because she understands how he’s been rejected in the same ways she has. She’s constantly scolded for being defiant and badly behaved, so she wants to give Stitch a chance even when he’s wreaking havoc in her home. In a very heartwarming scene, Stitch finds The Ugly Duckling, and Lilo explains the story to him, making it very obvious that she relates to the character, and by Stitch’s reaction, he relates too.
As the two come together, they’re able to overcome their bad behavior because, as Sanders explained, they found a family. The poor behavior they exhibited earlier on wasn’t too different from what we see in society. The musical and soon-to-be two-part movie Wicked is a perfect example of this. People might find themselves becoming villains when they are cast out and mistreated by society. This relates to Lilo and Stitch–the loss of her parents made it even harder for Lilo. However, when they find love and acceptance in each other, their bad behavior dissolves.
Elvis’ Role In The Film
Elvis plays a massive role in Lilo & Stitch. In fact, actor Jacob Elordi, who portrayed the singer in the 2023 film Priscilla, admitted the most he knew of Elvis growing up was from the Disney animated film. To be completely honest, I never really understood why Elvis was included in the film. The closest answers we’ve gotten come from a Lilo & Stitch interview Sanders did with Slash Film. A few reasons are that it made Lilo more of an outcast amongst friends if she listened to music from the 50s, it connected Lilo to her deceased parents by suggesting she may have learned about Elvis’ music from her parents’ old records, and it helps build her relationship with Stitch.
“Elvis was a model citizen,”-Lilo, Lilo & Stitch.
However, Elvis had his own connection to Hawai’i, which makes his inclusion in Lilo & Stitch even more appropriate. Since talent manager Colonel Tom Parker couldn’t leave the United States, Elvis couldn’t perform outside the country. The furthest he could go to expand his impact was Hawai’i. He shot three films on the island–Blue Hawaii, Girls! Girls! Girls!, and Paradise, Hawaiian Style, and performed Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite at the Honolulu International Center. The performance was broadcast live via satellite to audiences in Asia and Oceania and cemented Elvis as a fan-favorite artist amongst Hawaiians.
While it may seem random that The King of Rock and Roll played such a significant role in Lilo & Stitch, given his history in Hawaii, it actually makes a lot of sense. This is not something anyone associated with the film has admitted, but I feel Elvis’ inclusion also plays into Lilo and Stitch’s outcast personas. For me, the most iconic artists are not the ones who stay inside the lines. It’s the artists who push the boundaries of what’s accepted and step out of the box in terms of the music they make and their overall image that become icons.
Elvis was highly controversial, and the way his performances often infuriated the public is similar to how Lilo and Stitch’s bad behavior infuriated Nani and the rest of their neighborhood.People feared them and wanted to civilize them. It’s likely Lilo resonated with how Elvis rebelled against what was expected of him to be his authentic self, even if it led to headlines like “Elvis the Pelvis.” If I ever get the chance to ask the Lilo & Stitch team if this ever crossed their mind, I will, but even if it didn’t, I still think it’s hard to ignore the connection between Lilo, Stitch, and the King of Rock and Roll.
I haven’t seen Lilo & Stitch but will definitely get to it before summer is out!