April 8, 2025 • 53 mins
Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind. Or forgotten.
In addition to dazzling her with its old-school hand-drawn animation and delighting her with its sweet and funny story, the 2002 Disney film Lilo & Stitch introduced Tracie to indigenous Hawaiʻian culture. The writing and directing team of Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois traveled to Hawaiʻi for extensive artistic and cultural research and sought the input of native Hawaiʻians, including voice actor and friend of the show Tia Carrere, to write this story. The result is a touching tale of found family that echoes the colonialist history of Hawaiʻi.
Give Pudge his peanut butter sandwich and take a listen!
Mentioned in this episode:
The oral history of the film in Vulture: https://www.vulture.com/article/oral-history-of-lilo-and-stitch-a-hand-drawn-miracle.html
Iolani Palace: https://www.iolanipalace.org/
The blog Tracie wrote after her first visit has been unpublished. Check back and we’ll republish it when we find it.
We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.
We both have super-serious personas in our "day jobs." No, really. Emily is a Finance writer who used to be a classroom teacher. Tracie writes and consults on social justice and mindfulness and works as a copywriter and project manager for non-profits. If you really need to see the bona fides, please visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com
For our work together, what you need to know is that Tracie is older (3 years), Emily is funnier (by at least 3 percent), and we're both hella smart, often over-literal, and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love movies and tv, science fiction and murder mysteries, good storytelling with liberal amounts of dramatic irony, and analyzing pop culture for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, and whatever else we find there.
This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
this little family.
These two sisters haveexperienced trauma and they are
doing the best they can, andthis representative of the
government in Cobra Bubbles isgoing to separate their family
for what is, he believes, thebest interest of the family.
And I think there's alsosomething like deeply like real
(00:24):
and resonant, and like ametaphor and commentary, and
like synecdoche, of theimperialism inherent in that
actual story arc.
Have you ever had something youlove dismissed because it's
just pop culture, what othersmight deem stupid shit?
You know matters, you knowwhat's worth talking and
(00:47):
thinking about, and so do we.
So come overthink with us as wedelve into our deep thoughts
about stupid shit.
Hi, I'm Tracy Guy-Decker andyou're listening to Deep
Thoughts About Stupid Shit,because pop culture is still
culture, and shouldn't you knowwhat's in your head?
On today's episode, I'll besharing my deep thoughts about
(01:09):
the 2002 Disney film Lilo andStitch with my sister, emily
Guy-Burken, and with you, solet's dive in.
All right, em?
I know you've seen Lilo andStitch, but tell me, what do you
remember about this gem of afilm?
But tell me, what do youremember about this gem of?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
a film.
So I've only seen it like maybeonce or twice.
I really like it, but it's onewhere I was just a little too
old to enjoy it as a kid,because it came out I was
already an adult, I was 23.
My kids are too young to haveit be part of their rotation.
So I remember that there's abig tough guy whose name is
Bubbles.
I remember Stitch being likeinfuriatingly adorable and Lilo
(01:51):
being like I wanted to just holdher and fold her in my that she
could in a really toughsituation and Lilo didn't mean
to make her life harder, but shewas and that's about it.
(02:12):
That's what I got.
I mean, I kind of have a basicmemory of the plot, but very
basic.
So tell me, why are we talkingabout Lilo and Stitch today?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Well, we're talking about it right now because my
family just went on a Hawaiianvacation and it is set in the
Hawaiian island of Kauai and itwas really my introduction to
Indigenous Hawaiian culture,tangential as it is, and so I
was thinking about it because myfamily just went to Hawaii.
So that's why, right now, butsort of the meat of what's in
(02:45):
there that I want to talk aboutare a couple of things.
Lilo and Stitch was a film thatlike tackled some things that
Disney hadn't in the past.
Like this, there's this family.
It does not have a neat bowending, there's no, there is a
little bit of a romantic plot,but it's very little.
Like it is not the primarydriver of of the storyline and
(03:10):
it's really about like sort ofmaking the best and the fact
that, like life is hard and itcontinues to be hard.
You know, it also did introducewestern disney audiences to
hawaiian culture in what, for2002, was an extremely nuanced
and sensitive way for 2002.
(03:30):
The animation itself isremarkable.
It was hand-drawn in the era oflike DreamWorks hitting the
scene and so, like everybodywanted, in fact, apparently
there was pressure from theanimators to use CG for like the
posters and like the trailersand the and, like the producers
(03:54):
were like it's kind of falseadvertising Cause it's not.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
You know that.
That feels to me like what'sgoing on right now with AI
writing.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yeah, it's fully hand-drawn and, in fact, the
backgrounds are watercolor,which had not been done since,
like the 40s, they had beenusing gouache, which is like
watercolor, but more opaque.
Watercolor is much lessforgiving and this was like a
very ambitious thing for them todo, and so I want to talk about
(04:24):
all of those things and alsothe actual style of the
animation.
It was one guy, like oneartist's aesthetic, and he drew
these, especially the femalecharacters, like real, like
they've got hips and thighs,like they're not like tiny
barbie doll, proportioned waifsthat we were getting and have
(04:47):
continued to get from Disney,and so there's a lot of things
that I think are reallyinteresting and powerful.
There's also, like, a lot ofreferences to other pop culture,
which I think is really cool,delightful.
So I want to talk about thestorytelling and the sort of two
stories, because there's asci-fi story with Stitch and
(05:09):
then there's also this veryin-the-weeds, real slice of life
these two sisters who are goingthrough really hard times and
reaching for each other both ofthose two things integrated.
So I want to talk about thatsort of storytelling.
I want to talk about theanimation.
I want to talk about the factthat this is how many sort of
(05:31):
white Disney audience wereintroduced to Hawaiian culture
and what is good and what isinteresting about that, and
we'll see what else comes up inour conversation.
But let me start with asconcise as I'm able to do.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I feel like that is every week.
That is our.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Yeah, I say it every single week, every week.
We're going to be concise thistime, as concise as I can of the
plot, and actually I watched itnow about four or five days ago
.
I usually watch it much closerto our recording so it might be
a little bit fuzzy, but I'll domy best.
So the film starts, I rememberas it starts.
I've seen it many, many times.
I love this movie and everytime I'm like oh, yeah, yeah,
(06:12):
yeah.
It starts with Stitch.
It starts with this trial onthe planet Turo, the United
Galactic Federation is having atrial, and this trial is
reminiscent of the trial at thevery beginning of Superman, the
movie.
And it's also reminiscent ofthe Senate scene in the Star
Wars franchise which happenedafter, but with all of the lots
(06:35):
and lots of aliens in the room.
And the trial is of a scientistDr Jumba Jukaba Jumba they call
him who is, like he prefers theterm evil genius, but he's an
idiot.
Scientist is what Captain Ifeel like that's our term.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, I can call myself an evil genius.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Yeah, he wants to be called an evil genius, but
Captain Buntu, I think, is hisname.
I have to look Gantu.
Captain Gantu, who's like ashark with legs, calls him an
idiot scientist.
Anyway, he has created agenetic mutation creature called
Experiment 626.
And that's this.
It's Stitch.
He's like a six-legged littlecreature with like spines, and
(07:22):
we learn that he is a basicallya biological weapon and he is
designed to just just destroy.
And jumba is convicted ofhaving created this stitch, who
at this point is just called 626.
Like the ground council womanlike asks, like maybe he's not a
monster, like let's ask him toask it to speak for itself, and
(07:43):
it and Stitch says some somesort of curse at them that makes
like the entire room, like allof these aliens gasp and this
robot like vomits gears.
It's hilarious.
Anyway, they put him incaptivity, they're exiling him.
He manages to escape and andlike get out whatever an escape
(08:05):
pod or something.
And they're like where is hegoing?
And they're like oh, he's goingto this earth planet, which is
mostly water and he can'tsurvive in water because he's
too dense.
And like, oh, thank goodness,it's fine, but then he's headed
straight for an island.
That's like the setup.
So he's headed straight for theHawaiian islands.
(08:26):
Then we meet Lilo and Nani.
Lilo it never says it in thefilm but in the stuff that I've
read the animators knew she wassix years old.
Her sister, nani, is herguardian, is 19.
And their parents have diedfairly recently in a car crash.
And we meet them like we meetLilo first in this, like we
(08:50):
learn that she is this justprecocious and like deeply weird
kid.
Because she's late to her hulaclass.
And she tells the teacher it'sbecause she had to feed Pudge
the fish his sandwich and shealways feeds him a peanut butter
sandwich on Thursdays and theydidn't have any peanut butter.
And Nani said she should givehim a tuna sandwich.
(09:13):
And she's like do you know whattuna is?
It's fish.
That would be an abomination.
And then the teacher's like whyis this so important?
She's like, oh, pudge controlsthe weather.
It's just so weird.
And she's dripping wet and theother little girls fall in the
(09:34):
water and they all end up on thefloor.
And then this white ginger kid,this white redheaded girl, is
like you're so weird.
And Lilo just starts wailing onher, beating her.
But you have this sympathy forher because when the teacher
pulls them off.
Lilo's like I'm sorry, I'msorry, I won't do it again, I
just want to dance, I just wantto dance, I practiced.
(09:56):
He tells her to wait on theporch for her sister.
She doesn't.
She follows the girls.
There's another moment where wesee her just being completely
rejected, in part because she'sso weird.
Like the girls all have there'slike five of them and they all
have Barbies in their hands.
And she says oh, are you goingto play dolls?
And they all put them behindtheir back and say no.
And she pulls out this likehandmade cloth doll and like,
(10:18):
tells this whole story.
And while she's talking aboutthe doll, the girls leave her.
Then nani comes to get her fromwhere she's supposed to be.
She's not there.
We go through this whole thingwhere we realize that it's just
the two of them and we meetbubbles, agent bubbles.
He's a social services workerand he's there for a home visit
(10:40):
and he is a like big black guyvoiced by what's the guy's name?
Vim Rains.
That's his name, right, the guyfrom Pulp.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Fiction oh yeah, Vim Rains.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, that guy has a voice and the character of Mr
Bubbles like fits that voice,but then has this name and when
he introduces himself to Liloshe says your knuckles say Cobra
, cobra Bubbles, that's a weirdname, he's just like anyway,
(11:10):
it's absurd and ridiculous andit does not go well, he makes it
clear that Nani is maybe goingto lose her and we see a very
touching moment.
They're fighting with eachother but then they come back
together and we see their lifethat fighting with each other,
but then they come back togetherand we just we see their life
that they love each other andit's hard and they're fighting,
(11:31):
but they also, you know, deeplycare about one another and
they're going through a reallyhard thing because their parents
are gone.
They see a shooting star, whichis actually Stitch's ship,
which is actually Stitch's shiplanding and Nani overhears,
listens to Lilo's wish, which islike please send me an angel,
the nicest angel you have,because I just want a friend.
(11:52):
So, having heard that Nanitakes Lilo to the animal shelter
where Stitch has been broughtin, they think he's some sort of
weird dog.
He's been hit by a car.
Actually several trucks thatlike received a lot of damage as
a result of like running overthis thing and all the dogs are
like cowering away from Stitch.
(12:14):
So Lilo goes to pick out a dogand Stitch is the only one,
because all the dogs are like upon the ceiling, like trying to
get away from him, and he sees aposter.
Stitch sees a poster on thewall of like a little girl and a
dog like hugging.
So he like sucks in his extralimbs so that he only has four
(12:35):
and he sucks in the spines thatare on the back of his, on his
back and neck, so that he looksmore like a dog, and he like
runs up and hugs her.
So she picks him and when shecomes out to where her sister
and the person at the shelterare talking, the person who
works for the shelter aretalking.
They're like are you sure youwant this dog?
And like the person who worksfor the shelter is like I'm not
(12:57):
even sure it's a dog and it wasdead this morning.
And so there's this whole thing.
And Lilo's the one who nameshim Stitch, to which the worker
at the shelter is like that'snot a name.
And Nani gives her the no, no,no, just with gestures.
Just go with it.
(13:18):
Just go with it.
They pay the two bucks for thelicense for the state of Hawaii.
Meanwhile, when they stepoutside on the porch, these two
aliens have been sent toretrieve him.
There's Agent Bleakley, who'slike a thin, like kind of wiggly
nerdy, very nerdy.
(13:39):
He's the Earth expert.
He has one eye.
And then there's Jumba himself,who has four eyes and is like
big and bulky.
They're totally like.
Why can't I think of the nameof the two comedians from the
like turn of the 20th century?
you know costello yeah, they'reavid and costello, like a thin
one and the fat one, and youknow with the different
attitudes toward things.
So they're there to retrieve.
(14:00):
So stitch sees them and theysee stitch and he.
So lilo has affection for him.
He's just sticking with thembecause he knows that Pleakley
and Jumba will not hurt thehumans.
Stitch and Lilo run into Lilo'sfriends I'm putting quotes
around that word the girls fromthe hula class and Stitch steals
(14:21):
the white redheaded kid's bigwheel bike and Jumba explains
he's now going to try and findthe biggest city and like cause
mayhem because that's what he'sprogrammed to do.
We see them like ride from edgeto edge of Kauai and have Lilo
say it's kind of nice to live onan island with no big cities.
They go back to Lilo's houseand he's like just destroying
(14:43):
stuff, like pulling stuff, andshe's like stop, stop, stop,
whatever.
And she says why don't you tryand make something instead?
And so he builds San Franciscoout of her toys and books and
she's like nice San Francisco.
And then he plays Godzilla anddestroys it.
Hilarity and shenanigans ensue,whereby Stitch makes everything
harder.
(15:04):
Nani ends up losing her job atlike a traditional Hawaiian luau
because of Stitch and Lilo sortof says like this is your
badness level.
She draws like a profile of himand like has like red up to his
ears and it's like this is yourbadness level.
And I know it's because youmiss your family.
I know that's why you push meaway and why you're mean to me.
(15:25):
And so we see this like.
This is really beautiful, likeinsight into where Lilo is
coming from.
Mr Bubbles comes back and he'slike what's with the dog or
whatever?
And he ends up getting I don'tremember something in the face
so that like a lens pops out ofhis sunglasses and he says I
heard you lost your job to Nani.
(15:46):
So Nani, he cannot ignore thefact that she has no job, no
income.
Nani needs to get a job.
The dog needs to be a modelcitizen, capisce.
So Lilo says to Stitch ElvisPresley was a model citizen, so
you have to be like Elvis.
So she's like teaching him howto be like Elvis.
(16:06):
Again, more hilarity ensues.
Nani's looking for jobs, whileStitch is trying to be Elvis and
like just like mayhem.
Meanwhile we see that like thereason that Earth is protected,
that Pleakley, the Earth expertlike says that it's protected is
(16:26):
because of the mosquito, whichis like this endangered species.
And we see like apparentlyPleakley's alien blood is very
appealing to mosquitoes.
So he's realizing they're notas beautiful as he thought.
And there's like weirdnessgoing on where they're in
disguise as humans andPleakley's like wearing a wig
and he feels pretty.
(16:47):
And then Jumba's like I want totry, so there's just like a
weird gender thing going onthere becomes himself because
(17:07):
Pleakley and Jumba are takingtoo long, and the house gets
destroyed.
And then Gantu catches Lilo andStitch.
Stitch escapes from the holdinglike cloche that they're in,
but Lilo is still in there.
And then Nani's like I know youcan talk, talk to Stitch.
So he talks and so she hits himagain.
She realizes he's one of thealiens because she's now seeing
(17:28):
the aliens and there's thischase scene where they get Lilo
back.
The whole thing ends on thebeach in Kauai where the
councilwoman from the verybeginning, who was the person in
charge at the trial, comes toget Experiment 626 herself.
So they're standing on thebeach, stitch is in handcuffs
(17:51):
and like walking up onto theship and says, just, can I say
goodbye?
And he.
So he goes back and he says youknow, this is my family.
And he.
So he goes back and he and hesays you know, this is my family
, it's little and broken butstill good.
And the now bubbles, who waswho was going to take lilo from
(18:15):
nani, sees all of this and hesays to nani, didn't you buy
that dog?
Or you know, didn't you buythat creature?
Or you know, didn't you buythat creature?
And so they say Lilo pulls outthe license, the dog license,
and says I paid $2 for Stitchand he's mine and if you take
him, yeah, that's stealing.
And like basically, bubblessort of says to them afterwards
(18:38):
that aliens are all about rules,and so the councilwoman agrees
to let Stitch stay in exile inthe custody of this family.
So I skipped a whole bunch ofstuff, especially like the
Hawaiian culture things.
At one point Nani's gonna, shehas Stitch in her arms and she's
like we're taking him back tothe shelter because he's a
disaster, you know.
(18:59):
And Lilo says what about ohana,which is the Hawaiian word for
family?
And we have heard them beforesay dad always said ohana means
family and family means no onegets left.
Where a conversation betweenthe two sisters, where Lilo says
are we a broken family?
And Nani and Nisha's like no,no, well, maybe a little, maybe
(19:36):
a lot, but we're still, you know, we're still good and they, you
know it's.
And Lilo says I like you betteras a sister than a mom and it's
just really poignant and sweet.
They have a friend, david, whohas made it clear he and Nani
are friends and he wants to dateher and she likes him too, but
she just has too much going on.
(19:57):
So the very last two minutes ofthe film are photographs of
this little Ohana, you know,including David, the would-be
boyfriend, and including Jumbaand Pleakley and Cobra Bubbles
as well.
So we see pictures of them likedoing stuff around Hawaii.
We see pictures of David, nani,lilo and Stitch all at
(20:18):
Graceland visiting Elvis's home.
It's just really sweet.
So that was probably adisjointed plot summary.
Sorry folks, you should just gowatch the movie if you haven't
seen it, because it's reallyreally, really good, it's
delightful, it's delightful.
So let me start.
Actually, we always start withgender, so let me start with
gender.
This passes the Bechdel testwith flying colors.
(20:41):
There are many, more than twoWell, I don't know about many,
but there's more than two namedfemale characters.
They do talk to one anotherabout things other than boys or
men.
It like easily passes withinthe first you know, I don't know
10 minutes of the movie.
So that's easy peasy.
And it's also like the actualrepresentation, as I mentioned
(21:04):
in the, is much more realisticthan what we are often given.
Like Nani is beautiful, shealso has like actual hips, you
know, like she has actualreal-to-life proportions, which
(21:24):
is really cool.
So those are some things ongender and even like the romance
, like it's clear, david sayscan I take you out sometime?
Something like that.
And Nani's like you know, Itold you I'm just, I just can't,
I can't even think about datingright now.
Nani walks away because she'sat work and Lilo says don't
(21:46):
worry, she likes your butt andyour fancy hair.
Likes your butt and your fancyhair.
And she says I know because Iread her diary.
And david goes she thinks it'sfancy.
So our filmmakers make it clearthat though nani is declining,
(22:10):
it's not that his interest isunwelcome, which I think is
important, because at some pointlater, like he helps, he tells
her about a job, but they got togo right now.
And she says thank you so much,I don't know what I can do to
repay you.
And he says well, just date meand we'll call it even which the
line itself.
I'm like I don't feel greatabout that, but I think the
(22:31):
filmmakers did make it clearthat she actually does like him
back and just feels overwhelmedby her life which is
makes it a little less unwelcomethan the line out of context
would be.
So that's my like, without toomuch more analysis.
That's where I stand on sort ofgender in this thing, on
(22:53):
femininity and romance, we cantalk a little bit more, maybe
about the like cross-dressingfor humor with Pleakley and
Jumba.
We'll get to that.
I'd like to actually talk firstlike because I want to make
sure I have enough time aboutthe fact that this was my
introduction to Hawaiian cultureand sort of how that happened
(23:17):
and what analysis and you knowwhat's good and bad and ugly
about that.
So it's written by these twomen, two white dudes, chris
Sanders and Dean DeBlois, andChris Sanders had.
This is the same team thatworked on Mulan and to their
credit, they recognized thatthis was not actually a story
(23:38):
that they should be telling Now,today.
I would hope they would likebring in other, like indigenous
Hawaiian writers into the actualwriter's room.
That's not what they did.
And also they did go to Hawaiithe lead animators and
themselves and spent a lot oftime for the visuals but also
(24:02):
for the culture, like talking toNative Hawaiians, like working
with and getting permission fromfolks to.
Like talk to kids, like there'sseveral songs in the movie that
feature the choir of, like anelementary school I don't know
which island, but on one of theislands.
And so they, like the animators, like worked, like, spent time
(24:23):
observing these kids.
And then the voice talent, tiaCarrera, who actually is
Hawaiian, which I didn't know.
She grew up in Hawaii, she isNani, I think I knew that.
But yeah Well, we've talkedabout her before because of
Wayne's World, but they broughther in fairly early and there
(24:48):
are apparently many lines ofdialogue that she wrote or that
they said how would you say it?
How would you say this backhome?
And so, like it wasn't thewriters, these guys, sanders and
DuBlois knew that they didn'tknow what it would sound like
and so, to their credit, theydid allow that influence and
(25:15):
input.
In fact, carrera also likehelped them find like voice
actors who were native hawaiianfor a lot of the like extras.
Almost like, in a very earlyscene, when stitches run over by
these trucks, these guys getout and they're like what, what
we hit, you know, and they'retalking and the, the cadence and
the language is like, like andyou can hear it, it is distinct.
(25:37):
Like I can remember watching ita couple years ago and thinking
like they see, like what we hit, and they look at it still
under the fender, and then likestitch's arm sort of falls down
and one of the drivers goes webetter call somebody, someone
like in this, like cadence thatis, I think, actually pigeon
influenced, but it's clearly notjust like a midwest actor, I
(26:02):
guess is what I'm trying to sayand and that really comes
through, like there's a.
There's one scene where in thedog shelter, where Lilo's like
let's get a lobster, and Nani'slike Lilo, lolo, we don't have a
lobster door, we have a dogdoor.
But the Lolo, like that's TiaCarrera, sort of saying like
(26:26):
that's how I would talk tosomebody that I was like short
with, like it's a Hawaiian term,know, that's like.
And there's another scene whereit actually turns out to be
bubbles but a car almost hitsNani and she's like watch where
you're going stupid head.
Which again was like Carrerasaying like that's what I would
say in that moment, like.
And so, despite the fact that itwas written by these two white
(26:48):
dudes, there's at least the airof truthiness, there's an air of
authenticity because of theseinfluences of Carrera and other
Native Hawaiian voice actors,which I deeply appreciate Today.
You know these, 20 plus yearslater, I would want to see a
(27:08):
more wholesale integration ofthe Native Hawaiian voice and
story and storytelling and also,in 2002, not just the inclusion
of the input of these voiceactors but also the time that I
think the folks spent doingtheir research, doing their
(27:37):
research.
From what I can tell, theNative Hawaiian reception of the
film felt like it reallyportrayed them in much more
nuanced and appropriate andauthentic ways than previous
Hollywood depictions of Hawaii,which were like dancing on the
beach you know it was about awhite person's trip to the
islands as opposed to centeringthe native Hawaiians they had
(28:00):
actually consulted withEgyptians and hired Egyptian
actors, even though it's whitepeople in Egypt as a story.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
And also the other aspect I'm thinking is that
willingness to do the researchwhile still being like we're two
white guys writing this movieis what got us to hear nearly 25
years later, saying this is howyou're supposed to do it.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
I think they were an important step in that process,
definitely.
The other thing that's reallyinteresting, in sort of like a
form, function kind of thing, isthe fact that, like these two,
this little family, these twosisters, have experienced trauma
and they are doing the bestthey can, and this
representative of the governmentin cobra bubbles is going to
(29:00):
separate their family for whatis he believes the best interest
of the family.
And I think there's alsosomething like deeply like real
and resonant and like a metaphorand commentary and like
synecdoche of the imperialisminherent in that actual story
(29:25):
arc, that we've got this VinRames voice like big,
broad-shouldered black dudeInstead of, like they originally
were envisioning, like a littlenebbishy white guy.
In fact they considered JeffGoldblum for the voice, and so I
think there's something likethey were kind of playing with
it.
Still, he is a representativeof, if not the US government,
(29:47):
then the state of Hawaiigovernment, which is US, like
it's not the royal state ofHawaii government, which is US,
like it's not the Hawaiian, theroyal family of Hawaii, right,
and so that's really, reallyinteresting.
And then another piece of thatwhen it has become clear to Nani
that he is going to separatethem, he gives her till the next
day and she and Lilo are on ahammock and they're sort of
(30:36):
snuggling and she sings.
Nani sings Aloha Oe, which isshe was losing, like that the
Native Hawaiians were losingtheir control over the kingdom.
The words in Hawaiian and thenin English are like a fond
embrace and then a farewell, andit is so poignant, I think, to
see that that's the way thatNani sort of is sort of saying
goodbye is with this song.
(30:56):
That is very much like wrappedup in pride in Hawaiian culture
and loss and grief that sort of.
We have this agent of thegovernment separating this
family and then the way thatnani expresses her love and
(31:18):
grief about it is through thissong.
It made me cry forever and nowthat I know that, now that I
know the history and context ofthat song, it becomes all the
more poignant because it's notjust about this family, right,
it's about the imperialism thatstole the land and decimated the
(31:43):
culture in this Disney movieand that blows my damn mind, and
that also was Tia Carrera.
Apparently there's an oralhistory.
I will link to it in the shownotes that Vulture published
about this movie.
And so, as they wereresearching and writing, the
(32:04):
writers were like how would Nanido this?
Like how would she have thishard conversation to say that
we're going to be separated?
And Carrera was like she's 19.
She's not going to actually sayit, but this is it, this is the
song.
And they said well, tell usabout the song, will you sing it
for us?
And Carrera sang it for thewriters.
And they're like that's it,that's what we're doing, like
that's it.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
That's what we're doing.
My level of outrage thatCarrera has not had a more
successful career that MikeMyers had.
When she is such she's a phenom, she is incredible and we like
dismissed her as just a prettyface and a gorgeous body.
When she is like good lord,yeah, so smart, such comedic
(32:52):
instincts, like she's a reallygood singer, she's a great
actress, I mean like yeah,anyway, yeah.
So just sending out love to tiacarrera.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
If you ever want to come on the podcast, tia, we
would love to have you yeah,yeah, that was the thing that I
wanted to like make sure that Ishared with you.
Listener is like that sort oflike like microcosm, that this,
this commentary, that happened,you know, it feels like almost
(33:21):
accidentally right, like I thinkthese guys were just trying to
tell a story about these two,this girl and her sister.
But you can't tell a Hawaiianstory, I think authentically,
without that coming in, becausethat is the reality, you know,
like, even like the job that wesee Nani lose is in this luau.
(33:43):
That's for tourists, you know,and it's ridiculous.
Tourists, you know, and it'sridiculous, you know, and like
it's there's.
That's actually a very sweetmoment too, as they're coming
home, lilo's, like did you loseyour job because of me?
(34:05):
And then he says, nah, themanager is a vampire, so cute
anyway there's.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
You know just about the, the.
I can remember the the firsttime you you went to hawaii.
You were telling me about, ormaybe you wrote about it, but
about how there were like dollsof hula dancers hula dancers and
you were like this would belike if there were dolls of jews
davening.
Yeah, yeah, I've heard about it,which maybe include that in the
(34:32):
show notes.
Yeah, that, that blog post thatI wrote yeah, I was, because
this, one of the things this iscoming, this is bringing up to
me, is like because now there'sthis ridiculous conversation
about canada being the 51ststate and it's just like there,
there are people there, and thenthere were people in Hawaii who
had their own governance.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Yeah, yeah, and you know so.
On my trip just recently, wevisited Iolani Palace I'll link
to their website as well whichis the final residence of the
Hawaiian royalty, which is how Iknow more about Queen Lili
Kualani.
But one thing I learned in thatmuseum was that when business
(35:12):
interests because it really wasbusiness interests not even the
United States really stole thecountry illegally from the queen
, part of the reason they wereable to is because the Hawaiian
population had been decimated itwas like less than 20% of what
it had been 100 years priorbecause of, like smallpox and
other diseases that Europeansbrought.
(35:33):
So white people were literallytoxic, like not just like
figuratively toxic politically,but literally toxic.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
So that's the story of all of America.
Yeah, yeah, because that's whathappened when the white
colonists first came to mainlandAmerica.
Yeah, yeah, because that's whathappened when the white
colonists first came to mainland.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
America Right Right Now.
It wasn't done, to my knowledge, intentionally.
The way that, like smallpox,infected blankets were given to
on continental US were given tonative populations, but still
anyway.
So I'm actually going to moveus on, because there's a couple
things that I want to talk about.
We're running out of time.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Yes yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
So I do want to talk about the animation.
So one of the reasons that thismovie I learned in this oral
history that I mentioned andthat was published in Vulture,
one of the reasons that thismovie looks so different is
because it flew under the radarLike they made a movie that
Michael Eisner didn't know theywere making.
Under the radar they made amovie that Michael Eisner didn't
(36:28):
know they were making.
They were like they hid out inthe Florida studio, which has
since been closed and they hadthe protection of a guy who was
a little higher up on the chain,who really believed in the
project, and so he protectedthem from the committees that
would have pushed them to makechanges and push on the romance
and push on the things thatwould have like them to make
(36:48):
changes and like push on theromance and like push on the
things that would have likeDisneyfied it, yeah, yeah.
And so that's part of thereason that they got away with
it.
So they made this movie like ona really low budget kind of the
way that, like in the earlydays of Disney, the way that the
animators talked about it inthis oral history was that like
it was a group of animators whowere young and talented and
(37:10):
hungry and wanted to provethemselves, and so they were
working very hard and doingridiculous amounts of work for
the time that they had allotted.
They also like they just thisvery ambitious thing with these
watercolor backgrounds that areabsolutely gorgeous and like
(37:31):
some of the things they talkedabout.
Like that I noticed, havingjust been in Hawaii Now, I
didn't go to Kauai, which is theisland in which it is set, but
I was on Maui and Oahu and someof the things they said was like
they noticed that, watching theocean, like the white caps, the
spray was not white, it waspink, right, because, like the
(37:53):
white caps reflected the sky indifferent ways and it's not what
you expected, but they paintedwhat they saw and it is
absolutely gorgeous and really areminder of the artistry that
hand-drawn animation can be in amoment when everyone was
(38:15):
enamored with CG.
In fact, the poster does notreally reflect the style, it's
not CG, but it's polished in adifferent way than what the
actual film is.
So I think that's really areally interesting thing.
When we think about thecreation and the context and the
storytelling and like lookingat the scenes kind of thing,
(38:38):
that feels like an importantlike thing.
For me to lift up, that part ofthe reason that this film looks
so different in ways that Ifind deeply appealing is because
it was protected from theinterests who were all about the
money, right, so they wereserving the story and that's
really really lovely.
(38:58):
Another little tidbit that Ifeel is interesting that I'll
just mention quickly originally,the final scene when they're
trying to get Lilo back becauseshe's been kidnapped, it was
originally that Stitch was goingto steal a 747 from Honolulu
and was chasing her, and so thisfilm was made between 2000 and
2002.
(39:18):
And they'd even gotten to color, they'd done the scenes, and
then 9-11 happened and they werelike we can't do this.
So they rejiggered it and soinstead he steals or not steals,
but uses Jumba's originalspaceship, and they put it in
the wilds, the forests andmountains of Kauai, instead of
(39:38):
in the cityscape.
So that was like an interestingmoment where they responded
Like this scene that had been anoutlandish and absurd and funny
was suddenly like deeplytraumatic after 9-11.
I find that also reallyinteresting in the ways that,
like we have talked about, whenyou take things out of context,
like it changes the meaning andlike different things become
(40:01):
important.
That felt like a really likeinteresting moment that I wanted
to share with our listeners.
There's so much to talk aboutand I'm running out of time, so
the final thing that I doactually want to spend a moment
on coming back to that Imentioned before in order to try
and get to Stitch, jumba andPleakley dress as humans and
(40:22):
it's ridiculous because Jumba'sgot four eyes and Pleakley has
one.
And it's ridiculous becauseJumba's got four eyes and
Pleakley has one.
But they're dressed as a couple, as a man and a woman, like,
with Jumba wearing like a bigHawaiian shirt and sunglasses
over his four eyes and like afedora, and Pleakley wearing
like a dress and a blackstraight wig.
Then at one point we seePleakley sort of like pulling
(40:44):
out a mirror and like preeningwith this wig on, and jumba's
like what are you doing?
And please?
Like nothing, nothing.
And and jumba's like I want totry and as I was watching it
this time to prep for today, aspleakley's like preening, I'm
like oh no, this is gonna be atransphobic joke like.
(41:04):
But then jumba was like no, no,I want to try it.
And then they fight over thewig and it like somehow made it
okay, because I was ready forJumba I didn't remember and I
was ready for Jumba to likebelittle Plakely for wearing the
(41:25):
wig and instead he wanted in onthe fun.
And they're aliens and theylook ridiculous and the one's
got four eyes and the other'sgot one, but they're definitely
male.
They're definitely male.
But we hear Pleakley say like Ifeel pretty and like it wasn't.
It was certainly for comediceffect, but not in the
(41:47):
transphobic way that I expectedand that was refreshing looking
back on it.
So I just wanted to like liftthat up.
Given some of the things thatwe talk about on Deep Thoughts,
I mean this may be completelyout of pocket.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
But just knowing that First Nations cultures on the
mainland has two-spirit people,nations cultures on the mainland
has two-spirit people, I wonderif there was a similar sort of
openness to gendernon-conformity among native
hawaiians?
Speaker 1 (42:14):
no idea, I will not speculate because I have I have
done zero research and I do notknow two white guys who wrote it
, two white guys who wrote itand I have a feeling they did
not consult with their nativeadvisors for the wig thing, the
wig gag.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Although, like there is playing with those gender
expectations, just with CobraBubbles.
Totally so, but it's in aplayful way, not in a like, and
you're wrong for doing that way.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Yeah, and actually making the supreme alien
authority very clearly a female,a woman she's, like they refer
to her as chairwoman, so and andit's a I don't know the I don't
have the voice actor's name onthe top of my head, but it's a
woman's voice.
So like there's definitely likeother instances of sort of
(43:07):
playing with expectations aroundgender and authority, mm-hmm,
for sure, for sure.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Well, even Lilo is like very much a little girl,
but she's not Girly.
Girly she's not like leaninginto, like even just the moment
with the dolls.
Yeah, and like some of that hasto do with her circumstances,
like nani doesn't have the moneyto buy her a barbie doll, but
(43:33):
also some of it has to do withthe fact that, you know, pudge
controls the weather and yeah,he was a vampire, yeah, yeah,
but and she's also like,committed to the hawaiian, like
to the hawaiian culture.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
that feels like what I picked up from that which is
subtle, was lilo really wantingto stay connected to the
deceased parents, like in thefact that she's been practicing
the hula it wasn't, it wasn'tguitar lessons like it's
specifically hula, it'sspecifically a ancient and
(44:04):
sacred hawaiian art that she ispracticing and isn't there a
moment where she's like, ah,tourists, or something like that
.
No, no, in fact she finds likeher hobby she takes pictures of
tourists like these, like veryawkward pictures Like we see.
This one dude shows up severaltimes, this sort of chubby white
(44:27):
guy with like sunburn, wherehe's been wearing a tank top,
and then bright white, likebelly and chest eating a ice
cream and his ice cream keepsfalling off the cone.
And she snaps a picture of himand it's like this, like awkward
whatever, and she's like at onepoint in her bedroom there's
all these pictures on the wall.
And she's like at one point inher bedroom there's all these
(44:49):
pictures on the wall and she'slike, aren't they beautiful?
And they're all these likeawkward candid moments of
tourists.
So she finds something likereally compelling about their
fish, out of water-ness I think,and their awkwardness.
I mean we don't get anexplanation in exposition as to
what she likes about them.
(45:09):
Okay, I mean we do hear Nanisay like who wants to work at
your fakey luau anyway when sheloses that job, but Lilo does
not express that.
Okay, but her primaryantagonist among her peers is a
white, redheaded kid yeah, yeahso there are like little.
(45:31):
There are markers, there aremarkers.
So I could say a lot more, butI'm gonna wrap up to try and
keep us in our agreed upon timeframe.
The highlights from this filmin terms of the form, this was a
return to hand-drawn animationin a time when, like Disney was
(45:53):
kind of at a low point, likethey'd come off the high of the
Lion King and then had a coupleof duds with like the Emperor's
New Groove and stuff, although,the people.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
they were duds financially Right at the box
office.
That movie is beloved.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
Well, let's put that on the list.
Let's put that on the list.
Yeah, like the Disney audiencehad sort of shrunk, like people
didn't trust them as much.
Animation a return to, like areal commitment to the artistry
and to a single artist's visionin a way that had not been done
(46:31):
since, like maybe the 40s.
The watercolor backgrounds, forsure, had not been done since
the 40s.
In fact, they had to like theywent and interviewed a guy who
was like in his 80s, who hadworked on snow white, to talk,
to ask him, like what were thelike?
He told them like some of thetricks, like the actual
technical, like how to keep thepaper flat and stuff, so
institutional knowledge wasn'tthere anymore.
(46:52):
It wasn't.
It wasn't there anymore, andthey were able to do that in
part because they flew under theradar at this satellite studio
in Orlando, not in LA whereMichael Eisner didn't see cuts
along the way.
He didn't see it until it wasdone.
In terms of the form, that'ssort of an interesting thing
about this film and part of whyI find it so compelling and so
(47:16):
it feels like such an experienceas a viewer.
The backgrounds feel likethey're conveying something of
Hawaii in a way that I think aCG like didn't, or what in 2002
certainly wouldn't have.
It might be interesting for usto at some point maybe compare
Lilo and Stitch and Moana, maybeputting that out there into the
(47:38):
universe.
So that's sort of interestingin terms of the form.
And then in terms of the actualcontent, this film written by
these two white dudes, inputfrom Native Hawaiian
stakeholders and contributorscontributors Tia Carrera and
(48:11):
other voice talent andstakeholders, like the students
and the teachers at theelementary school with the choir
that actually sang some of thesongs that like in the oral
history they talk about, likethe parents coming in like 15 at
a time to listen to the songsand like crying because like to
see disney, like have featuringtheir kids, you know yeah yeah.
(48:33):
so there's something like aboutsort of the historiography of
bringing culture, that ismarginalized culture, into sort
of mainstream pop culture andlike how that was happening 20
plus years ago, how we might doit differently now.
That I think is reallyinteresting.
And then, because they weretelling a story about these two
(48:58):
Native Hawaiian protagonists, weend up with this microcosm of
the imperialist story, withCobra Bubbles who turns into an
ally but through most of thefilm is an agent of the state
who is threatening and is goingto separate this family.
Then just becomes thismicrocosm of the toxicity of
(49:21):
American like mainland Americanculture and bureaucracy on
Native Hawaiian culture andfamilies and deciding what's
best for Native Hawaiians Right.
Right.
So that feels reallyinteresting and I don't know
that Sanders and DuBlois knewthey were doing it.
Maybe they did, but I don'tknow that they did.
(49:44):
I think they were just tryingto tell a story and that's the
conflict that was needed.
But that's one of those momentswhere, like to do that, you
have to reflect the reality andthe structures that are there.
So that's complicated andnuanced, but loving between
(50:08):
these two sisters and passesBechdel with flying colors.
We have an interesting, weirdlittle moment with some
cross-dressing that I wasworried was going to go
transphobic for the joke, and itdefinitely went for the joke,
but in a way that was much moregentle and accepting and playful
than I was afraid that it wouldbe in 2002.
(50:28):
I feel like I'm forgetting.
What am I forgetting?
Tia Carrera is amazing.
Tia Carrera is amazing isamazing.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
And should have had a much more luminous career than
she has had thus far, althoughit's not over yet.
What else did we mention?
Oh, you talked about.
You mentioned it a littleobliquely, but the song that she
sings, that was written by thequeen, whose name I'm not going
to be able to.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
Yeah, lily Koalani.
Speaker 2 (50:56):
Lily Koalani.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
I think I'm saying it right.
I may be forgetting a syllable.
It's very long.
It starts with Lily and yeah,aloha'oi.
And how important that is tohawaiian culture today.
I mean, it was, it was writtenin the in the 19th century, so
it's it's not ancient, but it'sfrom a moment of grief and pride
that like really fits here andis as deeply poignant.
(51:20):
Yeah, thank you for remindingus of that.
Yeah, so, in short, go watchthis movie if you haven't.
There's a whole franchise wherethey like oh, ohana and family
is the other thing that I talkedabout Like sort of chosen
family and like the family issmall and broken but still good,
like that's kind of a thesis ifwe underline it.
(51:41):
Mm-hmm.
There's a whole franchise ofLilo and Stitch stuff that
focuses on family and foundfamily and chosen family that
I'm not as familiar with.
I've seen a couple of them.
So I'm not even talking about,I'm just talking about the 2002
movie.
Well, and I know, for eldermillennials the Ohana Means
(52:05):
Family is a thing because ofthis movie.
I think it's important too tonote that it's not a like a
platitude, it's not aPollyanna-ish Ohana Means family
Like.
This family is hard, it issmall and it is broken and I
think that's really important tonote.
Yeah, what?
Speaker 2 (52:18):
are you gonna bring me next week Bill and Ted's
Excellent Adventure.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
Excellent.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
I mean, you're ready for some wild stallions, aren't
you?
I am ready.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
I'll see you then.
I'll see you then.
This show is a labor of love,but that doesn't make it free to
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(52:54):
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Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Thank you to ResonateRecordings for editing today's
episode.
Until next time, remember popculture is still culture, and
(53:17):
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
this little family.
These two sisters haveexperienced trauma and they are
doing the best they can, andthis representative of the
government in Cobra Bubbles isgoing to separate their family
for what is, he believes, thebest interest of the family.
And I think there's alsosomething like deeply like real
(00:24):
and resonant, and like ametaphor and commentary, and
like synecdoche, of theimperialism inherent in that
actual story arc.
Have you ever had something youlove dismissed because it's
just pop culture, what othersmight deem stupid shit?
You know matters, you knowwhat's worth talking and
(00:47):
thinking about, and so do we.
So come overthink with us as wedelve into our deep thoughts
about stupid shit.
Hi, I'm Tracy Guy-Decker andyou're listening to Deep
Thoughts About Stupid Shit,because pop culture is still
culture, and shouldn't you knowwhat's in your head?
On today's episode, I'll besharing my deep thoughts about
(01:09):
the 2002 Disney film Lilo andStitch with my sister, emily
Guy-Burken, and with you, solet's dive in.
All right, em?
I know you've seen Lilo andStitch, but tell me, what do you
remember about this gem of afilm?
But tell me, what do youremember about this gem of?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
a film.
So I've only seen it like maybeonce or twice.
I really like it, but it's onewhere I was just a little too
old to enjoy it as a kid,because it came out I was
already an adult, I was 23.
My kids are too young to haveit be part of their rotation.
So I remember that there's abig tough guy whose name is
Bubbles.
I remember Stitch being likeinfuriatingly adorable and Lilo
(01:51):
being like I wanted to just holdher and fold her in my that she
could in a really toughsituation and Lilo didn't mean
to make her life harder, but shewas and that's about it.
(02:12):
That's what I got.
I mean, I kind of have a basicmemory of the plot, but very
basic.
So tell me, why are we talkingabout Lilo and Stitch today?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Well, we're talking about it right now because my
family just went on a Hawaiianvacation and it is set in the
Hawaiian island of Kauai and itwas really my introduction to
Indigenous Hawaiian culture,tangential as it is, and so I
was thinking about it because myfamily just went to Hawaii.
So that's why, right now, butsort of the meat of what's in
(02:45):
there that I want to talk aboutare a couple of things.
Lilo and Stitch was a film thatlike tackled some things that
Disney hadn't in the past.
Like this, there's this family.
It does not have a neat bowending, there's no, there is a
little bit of a romantic plot,but it's very little.
Like it is not the primarydriver of of the storyline and
(03:10):
it's really about like sort ofmaking the best and the fact
that, like life is hard and itcontinues to be hard.
You know, it also did introducewestern disney audiences to
hawaiian culture in what, for2002, was an extremely nuanced
and sensitive way for 2002.
(03:30):
The animation itself isremarkable.
It was hand-drawn in the era oflike DreamWorks hitting the
scene and so, like everybodywanted, in fact, apparently
there was pressure from theanimators to use CG for like the
posters and like the trailersand the and, like the producers
(03:54):
were like it's kind of falseadvertising Cause it's not.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
You know that.
That feels to me like what'sgoing on right now with AI
writing.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yeah, it's fully hand-drawn and, in fact, the
backgrounds are watercolor,which had not been done since,
like the 40s, they had beenusing gouache, which is like
watercolor, but more opaque.
Watercolor is much lessforgiving and this was like a
very ambitious thing for them todo, and so I want to talk about
(04:24):
all of those things and alsothe actual style of the
animation.
It was one guy, like oneartist's aesthetic, and he drew
these, especially the femalecharacters, like real, like
they've got hips and thighs,like they're not like tiny
barbie doll, proportioned waifsthat we were getting and have
(04:47):
continued to get from Disney,and so there's a lot of things
that I think are reallyinteresting and powerful.
There's also, like, a lot ofreferences to other pop culture,
which I think is really cool,delightful.
So I want to talk about thestorytelling and the sort of two
stories, because there's asci-fi story with Stitch and
(05:09):
then there's also this veryin-the-weeds, real slice of life
these two sisters who are goingthrough really hard times and
reaching for each other both ofthose two things integrated.
So I want to talk about thatsort of storytelling.
I want to talk about theanimation.
I want to talk about the factthat this is how many sort of
(05:31):
white Disney audience wereintroduced to Hawaiian culture
and what is good and what isinteresting about that, and
we'll see what else comes up inour conversation.
But let me start with asconcise as I'm able to do.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I feel like that is every week.
That is our.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Yeah, I say it every single week, every week.
We're going to be concise thistime, as concise as I can of the
plot, and actually I watched itnow about four or five days ago
.
I usually watch it much closerto our recording so it might be
a little bit fuzzy, but I'll domy best.
So the film starts, I rememberas it starts.
I've seen it many, many times.
I love this movie and everytime I'm like oh, yeah, yeah,
(06:12):
yeah.
It starts with Stitch.
It starts with this trial onthe planet Turo, the United
Galactic Federation is having atrial, and this trial is
reminiscent of the trial at thevery beginning of Superman, the
movie.
And it's also reminiscent ofthe Senate scene in the Star
Wars franchise which happenedafter, but with all of the lots
(06:35):
and lots of aliens in the room.
And the trial is of a scientistDr Jumba Jukaba Jumba they call
him who is, like he prefers theterm evil genius, but he's an
idiot.
Scientist is what Captain Ifeel like that's our term.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, I can call myself an evil genius.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Yeah, he wants to be called an evil genius, but
Captain Buntu, I think, is hisname.
I have to look Gantu.
Captain Gantu, who's like ashark with legs, calls him an
idiot scientist.
Anyway, he has created agenetic mutation creature called
Experiment 626.
And that's this.
It's Stitch.
He's like a six-legged littlecreature with like spines, and
(07:22):
we learn that he is a basicallya biological weapon and he is
designed to just just destroy.
And jumba is convicted ofhaving created this stitch, who
at this point is just called 626.
Like the ground council womanlike asks, like maybe he's not a
monster, like let's ask him toask it to speak for itself, and
(07:43):
it and Stitch says some somesort of curse at them that makes
like the entire room, like allof these aliens gasp and this
robot like vomits gears.
It's hilarious.
Anyway, they put him incaptivity, they're exiling him.
He manages to escape and andlike get out whatever an escape
(08:05):
pod or something.
And they're like where is hegoing?
And they're like oh, he's goingto this earth planet, which is
mostly water and he can'tsurvive in water because he's
too dense.
And like, oh, thank goodness,it's fine, but then he's headed
straight for an island.
That's like the setup.
So he's headed straight for theHawaiian islands.
(08:26):
Then we meet Lilo and Nani.
Lilo it never says it in thefilm but in the stuff that I've
read the animators knew she wassix years old.
Her sister, nani, is herguardian, is 19.
And their parents have diedfairly recently in a car crash.
And we meet them like we meetLilo first in this, like we
(08:50):
learn that she is this justprecocious and like deeply weird
kid.
Because she's late to her hulaclass.
And she tells the teacher it'sbecause she had to feed Pudge
the fish his sandwich and shealways feeds him a peanut butter
sandwich on Thursdays and theydidn't have any peanut butter.
And Nani said she should givehim a tuna sandwich.
(09:13):
And she's like do you know whattuna is?
It's fish.
That would be an abomination.
And then the teacher's like whyis this so important?
She's like, oh, pudge controlsthe weather.
It's just so weird.
And she's dripping wet and theother little girls fall in the
(09:34):
water and they all end up on thefloor.
And then this white ginger kid,this white redheaded girl, is
like you're so weird.
And Lilo just starts wailing onher, beating her.
But you have this sympathy forher because when the teacher
pulls them off.
Lilo's like I'm sorry, I'msorry, I won't do it again, I
just want to dance, I just wantto dance, I practiced.
(09:56):
He tells her to wait on theporch for her sister.
She doesn't.
She follows the girls.
There's another moment where wesee her just being completely
rejected, in part because she'sso weird.
Like the girls all have there'slike five of them and they all
have Barbies in their hands.
And she says oh, are you goingto play dolls?
And they all put them behindtheir back and say no.
And she pulls out this likehandmade cloth doll and like,
(10:18):
tells this whole story.
And while she's talking aboutthe doll, the girls leave her.
Then nani comes to get her fromwhere she's supposed to be.
She's not there.
We go through this whole thingwhere we realize that it's just
the two of them and we meetbubbles, agent bubbles.
He's a social services workerand he's there for a home visit
(10:40):
and he is a like big black guyvoiced by what's the guy's name?
Vim Rains.
That's his name, right, the guyfrom Pulp.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Fiction oh yeah, Vim Rains.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, that guy has a voice and the character of Mr
Bubbles like fits that voice,but then has this name and when
he introduces himself to Liloshe says your knuckles say Cobra
, cobra Bubbles, that's a weirdname, he's just like anyway,
(11:10):
it's absurd and ridiculous andit does not go well, he makes it
clear that Nani is maybe goingto lose her and we see a very
touching moment.
They're fighting with eachother but then they come back
together and we see their lifethat fighting with each other,
but then they come back togetherand we just we see their life
that they love each other andit's hard and they're fighting,
(11:31):
but they also, you know, deeplycare about one another and
they're going through a reallyhard thing because their parents
are gone.
They see a shooting star, whichis actually Stitch's ship,
which is actually Stitch's shiplanding and Nani overhears,
listens to Lilo's wish, which islike please send me an angel,
the nicest angel you have,because I just want a friend.
(11:52):
So, having heard that Nanitakes Lilo to the animal shelter
where Stitch has been broughtin, they think he's some sort of
weird dog.
He's been hit by a car.
Actually several trucks thatlike received a lot of damage as
a result of like running overthis thing and all the dogs are
like cowering away from Stitch.
(12:14):
So Lilo goes to pick out a dogand Stitch is the only one,
because all the dogs are like upon the ceiling, like trying to
get away from him, and he sees aposter.
Stitch sees a poster on thewall of like a little girl and a
dog like hugging.
So he like sucks in his extralimbs so that he only has four
(12:35):
and he sucks in the spines thatare on the back of his, on his
back and neck, so that he looksmore like a dog, and he like
runs up and hugs her.
So she picks him and when shecomes out to where her sister
and the person at the shelterare talking, the person who
works for the shelter aretalking.
They're like are you sure youwant this dog?
And like the person who worksfor the shelter is like I'm not
(12:57):
even sure it's a dog and it wasdead this morning.
And so there's this whole thing.
And Lilo's the one who nameshim Stitch, to which the worker
at the shelter is like that'snot a name.
And Nani gives her the no, no,no, just with gestures.
Just go with it.
(13:18):
Just go with it.
They pay the two bucks for thelicense for the state of Hawaii.
Meanwhile, when they stepoutside on the porch, these two
aliens have been sent toretrieve him.
There's Agent Bleakley, who'slike a thin, like kind of wiggly
nerdy, very nerdy.
(13:39):
He's the Earth expert.
He has one eye.
And then there's Jumba himself,who has four eyes and is like
big and bulky.
They're totally like.
Why can't I think of the nameof the two comedians from the
like turn of the 20th century?
you know costello yeah, they'reavid and costello, like a thin
one and the fat one, and youknow with the different
attitudes toward things.
So they're there to retrieve.
(14:00):
So stitch sees them and theysee stitch and he.
So lilo has affection for him.
He's just sticking with thembecause he knows that Pleakley
and Jumba will not hurt thehumans.
Stitch and Lilo run into Lilo'sfriends I'm putting quotes
around that word the girls fromthe hula class and Stitch steals
(14:21):
the white redheaded kid's bigwheel bike and Jumba explains
he's now going to try and findthe biggest city and like cause
mayhem because that's what he'sprogrammed to do.
We see them like ride from edgeto edge of Kauai and have Lilo
say it's kind of nice to live onan island with no big cities.
They go back to Lilo's houseand he's like just destroying
(14:43):
stuff, like pulling stuff, andshe's like stop, stop, stop,
whatever.
And she says why don't you tryand make something instead?
And so he builds San Franciscoout of her toys and books and
she's like nice San Francisco.
And then he plays Godzilla anddestroys it.
Hilarity and shenanigans ensue,whereby Stitch makes everything
harder.
(15:04):
Nani ends up losing her job atlike a traditional Hawaiian luau
because of Stitch and Lilo sortof says like this is your
badness level.
She draws like a profile of himand like has like red up to his
ears and it's like this is yourbadness level.
And I know it's because youmiss your family.
I know that's why you push meaway and why you're mean to me.
(15:25):
And so we see this like.
This is really beautiful, likeinsight into where Lilo is
coming from.
Mr Bubbles comes back and he'slike what's with the dog or
whatever?
And he ends up getting I don'tremember something in the face
so that like a lens pops out ofhis sunglasses and he says I
heard you lost your job to Nani.
(15:46):
So Nani, he cannot ignore thefact that she has no job, no
income.
Nani needs to get a job.
The dog needs to be a modelcitizen, capisce.
So Lilo says to Stitch ElvisPresley was a model citizen, so
you have to be like Elvis.
So she's like teaching him howto be like Elvis.
(16:06):
Again, more hilarity ensues.
Nani's looking for jobs, whileStitch is trying to be Elvis and
like just like mayhem.
Meanwhile we see that like thereason that Earth is protected,
that Pleakley, the Earth expertlike says that it's protected is
(16:26):
because of the mosquito, whichis like this endangered species.
And we see like apparentlyPleakley's alien blood is very
appealing to mosquitoes.
So he's realizing they're notas beautiful as he thought.
And there's like weirdnessgoing on where they're in
disguise as humans andPleakley's like wearing a wig
and he feels pretty.
(16:47):
And then Jumba's like I want totry, so there's just like a
weird gender thing going onthere becomes himself because
(17:07):
Pleakley and Jumba are takingtoo long, and the house gets
destroyed.
And then Gantu catches Lilo andStitch.
Stitch escapes from the holdinglike cloche that they're in,
but Lilo is still in there.
And then Nani's like I know youcan talk, talk to Stitch.
So he talks and so she hits himagain.
She realizes he's one of thealiens because she's now seeing
(17:28):
the aliens and there's thischase scene where they get Lilo
back.
The whole thing ends on thebeach in Kauai where the
councilwoman from the verybeginning, who was the person in
charge at the trial, comes toget Experiment 626 herself.
So they're standing on thebeach, stitch is in handcuffs
(17:51):
and like walking up onto theship and says, just, can I say
goodbye?
And he.
So he goes back and he says youknow, this is my family.
And he.
So he goes back and he and hesays you know, this is my family
, it's little and broken butstill good.
And the now bubbles, who waswho was going to take lilo from
(18:15):
nani, sees all of this and hesays to nani, didn't you buy
that dog?
Or you know, didn't you buythat creature?
Or you know, didn't you buythat creature?
And so they say Lilo pulls outthe license, the dog license,
and says I paid $2 for Stitchand he's mine and if you take
him, yeah, that's stealing.
And like basically, bubblessort of says to them afterwards
(18:38):
that aliens are all about rules,and so the councilwoman agrees
to let Stitch stay in exile inthe custody of this family.
So I skipped a whole bunch ofstuff, especially like the
Hawaiian culture things.
At one point Nani's gonna, shehas Stitch in her arms and she's
like we're taking him back tothe shelter because he's a
disaster, you know.
(18:59):
And Lilo says what about ohana,which is the Hawaiian word for
family?
And we have heard them beforesay dad always said ohana means
family and family means no onegets left.
Where a conversation betweenthe two sisters, where Lilo says
are we a broken family?
And Nani and Nisha's like no,no, well, maybe a little, maybe
(19:36):
a lot, but we're still, you know, we're still good and they, you
know it's.
And Lilo says I like you betteras a sister than a mom and it's
just really poignant and sweet.
They have a friend, david, whohas made it clear he and Nani
are friends and he wants to dateher and she likes him too, but
she just has too much going on.
(19:57):
So the very last two minutes ofthe film are photographs of
this little Ohana, you know,including David, the would-be
boyfriend, and including Jumbaand Pleakley and Cobra Bubbles
as well.
So we see pictures of them likedoing stuff around Hawaii.
We see pictures of David, nani,lilo and Stitch all at
(20:18):
Graceland visiting Elvis's home.
It's just really sweet.
So that was probably adisjointed plot summary.
Sorry folks, you should just gowatch the movie if you haven't
seen it, because it's reallyreally, really good, it's
delightful, it's delightful.
So let me start.
Actually, we always start withgender, so let me start with
gender.
This passes the Bechdel testwith flying colors.
(20:41):
There are many, more than twoWell, I don't know about many,
but there's more than two namedfemale characters.
They do talk to one anotherabout things other than boys or
men.
It like easily passes withinthe first you know, I don't know
10 minutes of the movie.
So that's easy peasy.
And it's also like the actualrepresentation, as I mentioned
(21:04):
in the, is much more realisticthan what we are often given.
Like Nani is beautiful, shealso has like actual hips, you
know, like she has actualreal-to-life proportions, which
(21:24):
is really cool.
So those are some things ongender and even like the romance
, like it's clear, david sayscan I take you out sometime?
Something like that.
And Nani's like you know, Itold you I'm just, I just can't,
I can't even think about datingright now.
Nani walks away because she'sat work and Lilo says don't
(21:46):
worry, she likes your butt andyour fancy hair.
Likes your butt and your fancyhair.
And she says I know because Iread her diary.
And david goes she thinks it'sfancy.
So our filmmakers make it clearthat though nani is declining,
(22:10):
it's not that his interest isunwelcome, which I think is
important, because at some pointlater, like he helps, he tells
her about a job, but they got togo right now.
And she says thank you so much,I don't know what I can do to
repay you.
And he says well, just date meand we'll call it even which the
line itself.
I'm like I don't feel greatabout that, but I think the
(22:31):
filmmakers did make it clearthat she actually does like him
back and just feels overwhelmedby her life which is
makes it a little less unwelcomethan the line out of context
would be.
So that's my like, without toomuch more analysis.
That's where I stand on sort ofgender in this thing, on
(22:53):
femininity and romance, we cantalk a little bit more, maybe
about the like cross-dressingfor humor with Pleakley and
Jumba.
We'll get to that.
I'd like to actually talk firstlike because I want to make
sure I have enough time aboutthe fact that this was my
introduction to Hawaiian cultureand sort of how that happened
(23:17):
and what analysis and you knowwhat's good and bad and ugly
about that.
So it's written by these twomen, two white dudes, chris
Sanders and Dean DeBlois, andChris Sanders had.
This is the same team thatworked on Mulan and to their
credit, they recognized thatthis was not actually a story
(23:38):
that they should be telling Now,today.
I would hope they would likebring in other, like indigenous
Hawaiian writers into the actualwriter's room.
That's not what they did.
And also they did go to Hawaiithe lead animators and
themselves and spent a lot oftime for the visuals but also
(24:02):
for the culture, like talking toNative Hawaiians, like working
with and getting permission fromfolks to.
Like talk to kids, like there'sseveral songs in the movie that
feature the choir of, like anelementary school I don't know
which island, but on one of theislands.
And so they, like the animators, like worked, like, spent time
(24:23):
observing these kids.
And then the voice talent, tiaCarrera, who actually is
Hawaiian, which I didn't know.
She grew up in Hawaii, she isNani, I think I knew that.
But yeah Well, we've talkedabout her before because of
Wayne's World, but they broughther in fairly early and there
(24:48):
are apparently many lines ofdialogue that she wrote or that
they said how would you say it?
How would you say this backhome?
And so, like it wasn't thewriters, these guys, sanders and
DuBlois knew that they didn'tknow what it would sound like
and so, to their credit, theydid allow that influence and
(25:15):
input.
In fact, carrera also likehelped them find like voice
actors who were native hawaiianfor a lot of the like extras.
Almost like, in a very earlyscene, when stitches run over by
these trucks, these guys getout and they're like what, what
we hit, you know, and they'retalking and the, the cadence and
the language is like, like andyou can hear it, it is distinct.
(25:37):
Like I can remember watching ita couple years ago and thinking
like they see, like what we hit, and they look at it still
under the fender, and then likestitch's arm sort of falls down
and one of the drivers goes webetter call somebody, someone
like in this, like cadence thatis, I think, actually pigeon
influenced, but it's clearly notjust like a midwest actor, I
(26:02):
guess is what I'm trying to sayand and that really comes
through, like there's a.
There's one scene where in thedog shelter, where Lilo's like
let's get a lobster, and Nani'slike Lilo, lolo, we don't have a
lobster door, we have a dogdoor.
But the Lolo, like that's TiaCarrera, sort of saying like
(26:26):
that's how I would talk tosomebody that I was like short
with, like it's a Hawaiian term,know, that's like.
And there's another scene whereit actually turns out to be
bubbles but a car almost hitsNani and she's like watch where
you're going stupid head.
Which again was like Carrerasaying like that's what I would
say in that moment, like.
And so, despite the fact that itwas written by these two white
(26:48):
dudes, there's at least the airof truthiness, there's an air of
authenticity because of theseinfluences of Carrera and other
Native Hawaiian voice actors,which I deeply appreciate Today.
You know these, 20 plus yearslater, I would want to see a
(27:08):
more wholesale integration ofthe Native Hawaiian voice and
story and storytelling and also,in 2002, not just the inclusion
of the input of these voiceactors but also the time that I
think the folks spent doingtheir research, doing their
(27:37):
research.
From what I can tell, theNative Hawaiian reception of the
film felt like it reallyportrayed them in much more
nuanced and appropriate andauthentic ways than previous
Hollywood depictions of Hawaii,which were like dancing on the
beach you know it was about awhite person's trip to the
islands as opposed to centeringthe native Hawaiians they had
(28:00):
actually consulted withEgyptians and hired Egyptian
actors, even though it's whitepeople in Egypt as a story.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
And also the other aspect I'm thinking is that
willingness to do the researchwhile still being like we're two
white guys writing this movieis what got us to hear nearly 25
years later, saying this is howyou're supposed to do it.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
I think they were an important step in that process,
definitely.
The other thing that's reallyinteresting, in sort of like a
form, function kind of thing, isthe fact that, like these two,
this little family, these twosisters, have experienced trauma
and they are doing the bestthey can, and this
representative of the governmentin cobra bubbles is going to
(29:00):
separate their family for whatis he believes the best interest
of the family.
And I think there's alsosomething like deeply like real
and resonant and like a metaphorand commentary and like
synecdoche of the imperialisminherent in that actual story
(29:25):
arc, that we've got this VinRames voice like big,
broad-shouldered black dudeInstead of, like they originally
were envisioning, like a littlenebbishy white guy.
In fact they considered JeffGoldblum for the voice, and so I
think there's something likethey were kind of playing with
it.
Still, he is a representativeof, if not the US government,
(29:47):
then the state of Hawaiigovernment, which is US, like
it's not the royal state ofHawaii government, which is US,
like it's not the Hawaiian, theroyal family of Hawaii, right,
and so that's really, reallyinteresting.
And then another piece of thatwhen it has become clear to Nani
that he is going to separatethem, he gives her till the next
day and she and Lilo are on ahammock and they're sort of
(30:36):
snuggling and she sings.
Nani sings Aloha Oe, which isshe was losing, like that the
Native Hawaiians were losingtheir control over the kingdom.
The words in Hawaiian and thenin English are like a fond
embrace and then a farewell, andit is so poignant, I think, to
see that that's the way thatNani sort of is sort of saying
goodbye is with this song.
(30:56):
That is very much like wrappedup in pride in Hawaiian culture
and loss and grief that sort of.
We have this agent of thegovernment separating this
family and then the way thatnani expresses her love and
(31:18):
grief about it is through thissong.
It made me cry forever and nowthat I know that, now that I
know the history and context ofthat song, it becomes all the
more poignant because it's notjust about this family, right,
it's about the imperialism thatstole the land and decimated the
(31:43):
culture in this Disney movieand that blows my damn mind, and
that also was Tia Carrera.
Apparently there's an oralhistory.
I will link to it in the shownotes that Vulture published
about this movie.
And so, as they wereresearching and writing, the
(32:04):
writers were like how would Nanido this?
Like how would she have thishard conversation to say that
we're going to be separated?
And Carrera was like she's 19.
She's not going to actually sayit, but this is it, this is the
song.
And they said well, tell usabout the song, will you sing it
for us?
And Carrera sang it for thewriters.
And they're like that's it,that's what we're doing, like
that's it.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
That's what we're doing.
My level of outrage thatCarrera has not had a more
successful career that MikeMyers had.
When she is such she's a phenom, she is incredible and we like
dismissed her as just a prettyface and a gorgeous body.
When she is like good lord,yeah, so smart, such comedic
(32:52):
instincts, like she's a reallygood singer, she's a great
actress, I mean like yeah,anyway, yeah.
So just sending out love to tiacarrera.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
If you ever want to come on the podcast, tia, we
would love to have you yeah,yeah, that was the thing that I
wanted to like make sure that Ishared with you.
Listener is like that sort oflike like microcosm, that this,
this commentary, that happened,you know, it feels like almost
(33:21):
accidentally right, like I thinkthese guys were just trying to
tell a story about these two,this girl and her sister.
But you can't tell a Hawaiianstory, I think authentically,
without that coming in, becausethat is the reality, you know,
like, even like the job that wesee Nani lose is in this luau.
(33:43):
That's for tourists, you know,and it's ridiculous.
Tourists, you know, and it'sridiculous, you know, and like
it's there's.
That's actually a very sweetmoment too, as they're coming
home, lilo's, like did you loseyour job because of me?
(34:05):
And then he says, nah, themanager is a vampire, so cute
anyway there's.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
You know just about the, the.
I can remember the the firsttime you you went to hawaii.
You were telling me about, ormaybe you wrote about it, but
about how there were like dollsof hula dancers hula dancers and
you were like this would belike if there were dolls of jews
davening.
Yeah, yeah, I've heard about it,which maybe include that in the
(34:32):
show notes.
Yeah, that, that blog post thatI wrote yeah, I was, because
this, one of the things this iscoming, this is bringing up to
me, is like because now there'sthis ridiculous conversation
about canada being the 51ststate and it's just like there,
there are people there, and thenthere were people in Hawaii who
had their own governance.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Yeah, yeah, and you know so.
On my trip just recently, wevisited Iolani Palace I'll link
to their website as well whichis the final residence of the
Hawaiian royalty, which is how Iknow more about Queen Lili
Kualani.
But one thing I learned in thatmuseum was that when business
(35:12):
interests because it really wasbusiness interests not even the
United States really stole thecountry illegally from the queen
, part of the reason they wereable to is because the Hawaiian
population had been decimated itwas like less than 20% of what
it had been 100 years priorbecause of, like smallpox and
other diseases that Europeansbrought.
(35:33):
So white people were literallytoxic, like not just like
figuratively toxic politically,but literally toxic.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
So that's the story of all of America.
Yeah, yeah, because that's whathappened when the white
colonists first came to mainlandAmerica.
Yeah, yeah, because that's whathappened when the white
colonists first came to mainland.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
America Right Right Now.
It wasn't done, to my knowledge, intentionally.
The way that, like smallpox,infected blankets were given to
on continental US were given tonative populations, but still
anyway.
So I'm actually going to moveus on, because there's a couple
things that I want to talk about.
We're running out of time.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Yes yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
So I do want to talk about the animation.
So one of the reasons that thismovie I learned in this oral
history that I mentioned andthat was published in Vulture,
one of the reasons that thismovie looks so different is
because it flew under the radarLike they made a movie that
Michael Eisner didn't know theywere making.
Under the radar they made amovie that Michael Eisner didn't
(36:28):
know they were making.
They were like they hid out inthe Florida studio, which has
since been closed and they hadthe protection of a guy who was
a little higher up on the chain,who really believed in the
project, and so he protectedthem from the committees that
would have pushed them to makechanges and push on the romance
and push on the things thatwould have like them to make
(36:48):
changes and like push on theromance and like push on the
things that would have likeDisneyfied it, yeah, yeah.
And so that's part of thereason that they got away with
it.
So they made this movie like ona really low budget kind of the
way that, like in the earlydays of Disney, the way that the
animators talked about it inthis oral history was that like
it was a group of animators whowere young and talented and
(37:10):
hungry and wanted to provethemselves, and so they were
working very hard and doingridiculous amounts of work for
the time that they had allotted.
They also like they just thisvery ambitious thing with these
watercolor backgrounds that areabsolutely gorgeous and like
(37:31):
some of the things they talkedabout.
Like that I noticed, havingjust been in Hawaii Now, I
didn't go to Kauai, which is theisland in which it is set, but
I was on Maui and Oahu and someof the things they said was like
they noticed that, watching theocean, like the white caps, the
spray was not white, it waspink, right, because, like the
(37:53):
white caps reflected the sky indifferent ways and it's not what
you expected, but they paintedwhat they saw and it is
absolutely gorgeous and really areminder of the artistry that
hand-drawn animation can be in amoment when everyone was
(38:15):
enamored with CG.
In fact, the poster does notreally reflect the style, it's
not CG, but it's polished in adifferent way than what the
actual film is.
So I think that's really areally interesting thing.
When we think about thecreation and the context and the
storytelling and like lookingat the scenes kind of thing,
(38:38):
that feels like an importantlike thing.
For me to lift up, that part ofthe reason that this film looks
so different in ways that Ifind deeply appealing is because
it was protected from theinterests who were all about the
money, right, so they wereserving the story and that's
really really lovely.
(38:58):
Another little tidbit that Ifeel is interesting that I'll
just mention quickly originally,the final scene when they're
trying to get Lilo back becauseshe's been kidnapped, it was
originally that Stitch was goingto steal a 747 from Honolulu
and was chasing her, and so thisfilm was made between 2000 and
2002.
(39:18):
And they'd even gotten to color, they'd done the scenes, and
then 9-11 happened and they werelike we can't do this.
So they rejiggered it and soinstead he steals or not steals,
but uses Jumba's originalspaceship, and they put it in
the wilds, the forests andmountains of Kauai, instead of
(39:38):
in the cityscape.
So that was like an interestingmoment where they responded
Like this scene that had been anoutlandish and absurd and funny
was suddenly like deeplytraumatic after 9-11.
I find that also reallyinteresting in the ways that,
like we have talked about, whenyou take things out of context,
like it changes the meaning andlike different things become
(40:01):
important.
That felt like a really likeinteresting moment that I wanted
to share with our listeners.
There's so much to talk aboutand I'm running out of time, so
the final thing that I doactually want to spend a moment
on coming back to that Imentioned before in order to try
and get to Stitch, jumba andPleakley dress as humans and
(40:22):
it's ridiculous because Jumba'sgot four eyes and Pleakley has
one.
And it's ridiculous becauseJumba's got four eyes and
Pleakley has one.
But they're dressed as a couple, as a man and a woman, like,
with Jumba wearing like a bigHawaiian shirt and sunglasses
over his four eyes and like afedora, and Pleakley wearing
like a dress and a blackstraight wig.
Then at one point we seePleakley sort of like pulling
(40:44):
out a mirror and like preeningwith this wig on, and jumba's
like what are you doing?
And please?
Like nothing, nothing.
And and jumba's like I want totry and as I was watching it
this time to prep for today, aspleakley's like preening, I'm
like oh no, this is gonna be atransphobic joke like.
(41:04):
But then jumba was like no, no,I want to try it.
And then they fight over thewig and it like somehow made it
okay, because I was ready forJumba I didn't remember and I
was ready for Jumba to likebelittle Plakely for wearing the
(41:25):
wig and instead he wanted in onthe fun.
And they're aliens and theylook ridiculous and the one's
got four eyes and the other'sgot one, but they're definitely
male.
They're definitely male.
But we hear Pleakley say like Ifeel pretty and like it wasn't.
It was certainly for comediceffect, but not in the
(41:47):
transphobic way that I expectedand that was refreshing looking
back on it.
So I just wanted to like liftthat up.
Given some of the things thatwe talk about on Deep Thoughts,
I mean this may be completelyout of pocket.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
But just knowing that First Nations cultures on the
mainland has two-spirit people,nations cultures on the mainland
has two-spirit people, I wonderif there was a similar sort of
openness to gendernon-conformity among native
hawaiians?
Speaker 1 (42:14):
no idea, I will not speculate because I have I have
done zero research and I do notknow two white guys who wrote it
, two white guys who wrote itand I have a feeling they did
not consult with their nativeadvisors for the wig thing, the
wig gag.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Although, like there is playing with those gender
expectations, just with CobraBubbles.
Totally so, but it's in aplayful way, not in a like, and
you're wrong for doing that way.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Yeah, and actually making the supreme alien
authority very clearly a female,a woman she's, like they refer
to her as chairwoman, so and andit's a I don't know the I don't
have the voice actor's name onthe top of my head, but it's a
woman's voice.
So like there's definitely likeother instances of sort of
(43:07):
playing with expectations aroundgender and authority, mm-hmm,
for sure, for sure.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Well, even Lilo is like very much a little girl,
but she's not Girly.
Girly she's not like leaninginto, like even just the moment
with the dolls.
Yeah, and like some of that hasto do with her circumstances,
like nani doesn't have the moneyto buy her a barbie doll, but
(43:33):
also some of it has to do withthe fact that, you know, pudge
controls the weather and yeah,he was a vampire, yeah, yeah,
but and she's also like,committed to the hawaiian, like
to the hawaiian culture.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
that feels like what I picked up from that which is
subtle, was lilo really wantingto stay connected to the
deceased parents, like in thefact that she's been practicing
the hula it wasn't, it wasn'tguitar lessons like it's
specifically hula, it'sspecifically a ancient and
(44:04):
sacred hawaiian art that she ispracticing and isn't there a
moment where she's like, ah,tourists, or something like that
.
No, no, in fact she finds likeher hobby she takes pictures of
tourists like these, like veryawkward pictures Like we see.
This one dude shows up severaltimes, this sort of chubby white
(44:27):
guy with like sunburn, wherehe's been wearing a tank top,
and then bright white, likebelly and chest eating a ice
cream and his ice cream keepsfalling off the cone.
And she snaps a picture of himand it's like this, like awkward
whatever, and she's like at onepoint in her bedroom there's
all these pictures on the wall.
And she's like at one point inher bedroom there's all these
(44:49):
pictures on the wall and she'slike, aren't they beautiful?
And they're all these likeawkward candid moments of
tourists.
So she finds something likereally compelling about their
fish, out of water-ness I think,and their awkwardness.
I mean we don't get anexplanation in exposition as to
what she likes about them.
(45:09):
Okay, I mean we do hear Nanisay like who wants to work at
your fakey luau anyway when sheloses that job, but Lilo does
not express that.
Okay, but her primaryantagonist among her peers is a
white, redheaded kid yeah, yeahso there are like little.
(45:31):
There are markers, there aremarkers.
So I could say a lot more, butI'm gonna wrap up to try and
keep us in our agreed upon timeframe.
The highlights from this filmin terms of the form, this was a
return to hand-drawn animationin a time when, like Disney was
(45:53):
kind of at a low point, likethey'd come off the high of the
Lion King and then had a coupleof duds with like the Emperor's
New Groove and stuff, although,the people.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
they were duds financially Right at the box
office.
That movie is beloved.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
Well, let's put that on the list.
Let's put that on the list.
Yeah, like the Disney audiencehad sort of shrunk, like people
didn't trust them as much.
Animation a return to, like areal commitment to the artistry
and to a single artist's visionin a way that had not been done
(46:31):
since, like maybe the 40s.
The watercolor backgrounds, forsure, had not been done since
the 40s.
In fact, they had to like theywent and interviewed a guy who
was like in his 80s, who hadworked on snow white, to talk,
to ask him, like what were thelike?
He told them like some of thetricks, like the actual
technical, like how to keep thepaper flat and stuff, so
institutional knowledge wasn'tthere anymore.
(46:52):
It wasn't.
It wasn't there anymore, andthey were able to do that in
part because they flew under theradar at this satellite studio
in Orlando, not in LA whereMichael Eisner didn't see cuts
along the way.
He didn't see it until it wasdone.
In terms of the form, that'ssort of an interesting thing
about this film and part of whyI find it so compelling and so
(47:16):
it feels like such an experienceas a viewer.
The backgrounds feel likethey're conveying something of
Hawaii in a way that I think aCG like didn't, or what in 2002
certainly wouldn't have.
It might be interesting for usto at some point maybe compare
Lilo and Stitch and Moana, maybeputting that out there into the
(47:38):
universe.
So that's sort of interestingin terms of the form.
And then in terms of the actualcontent, this film written by
these two white dudes, inputfrom Native Hawaiian
stakeholders and contributorscontributors Tia Carrera and
(48:11):
other voice talent andstakeholders, like the students
and the teachers at theelementary school with the choir
that actually sang some of thesongs that like in the oral
history they talk about, likethe parents coming in like 15 at
a time to listen to the songsand like crying because like to
see disney, like have featuringtheir kids, you know yeah yeah.
(48:33):
so there's something like aboutsort of the historiography of
bringing culture, that ismarginalized culture, into sort
of mainstream pop culture andlike how that was happening 20
plus years ago, how we might doit differently now.
That I think is reallyinteresting.
And then, because they weretelling a story about these two
(48:58):
Native Hawaiian protagonists, weend up with this microcosm of
the imperialist story, withCobra Bubbles who turns into an
ally but through most of thefilm is an agent of the state
who is threatening and is goingto separate this family.
Then just becomes thismicrocosm of the toxicity of
(49:21):
American like mainland Americanculture and bureaucracy on
Native Hawaiian culture andfamilies and deciding what's
best for Native Hawaiians Right.
Right.
So that feels reallyinteresting and I don't know
that Sanders and DuBlois knewthey were doing it.
Maybe they did, but I don'tknow that they did.
(49:44):
I think they were just tryingto tell a story and that's the
conflict that was needed.
But that's one of those momentswhere, like to do that, you
have to reflect the reality andthe structures that are there.
So that's complicated andnuanced, but loving between
(50:08):
these two sisters and passesBechdel with flying colors.
We have an interesting, weirdlittle moment with some
cross-dressing that I wasworried was going to go
transphobic for the joke, and itdefinitely went for the joke,
but in a way that was much moregentle and accepting and playful
than I was afraid that it wouldbe in 2002.
(50:28):
I feel like I'm forgetting.
What am I forgetting?
Tia Carrera is amazing.
Tia Carrera is amazing isamazing.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
And should have had a much more luminous career than
she has had thus far, althoughit's not over yet.
What else did we mention?
Oh, you talked about.
You mentioned it a littleobliquely, but the song that she
sings, that was written by thequeen, whose name I'm not going
to be able to.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
Yeah, lily Koalani.
Speaker 2 (50:56):
Lily Koalani.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
I think I'm saying it right.
I may be forgetting a syllable.
It's very long.
It starts with Lily and yeah,aloha'oi.
And how important that is tohawaiian culture today.
I mean, it was, it was writtenin the in the 19th century, so
it's it's not ancient, but it'sfrom a moment of grief and pride
that like really fits here andis as deeply poignant.
(51:20):
Yeah, thank you for remindingus of that.
Yeah, so, in short, go watchthis movie if you haven't.
There's a whole franchise wherethey like oh, ohana and family
is the other thing that I talkedabout Like sort of chosen
family and like the family issmall and broken but still good,
like that's kind of a thesis ifwe underline it.
(51:41):
Mm-hmm.
There's a whole franchise ofLilo and Stitch stuff that
focuses on family and foundfamily and chosen family that
I'm not as familiar with.
I've seen a couple of them.
So I'm not even talking about,I'm just talking about the 2002
movie.
Well, and I know, for eldermillennials the Ohana Means
(52:05):
Family is a thing because ofthis movie.
I think it's important too tonote that it's not a like a
platitude, it's not aPollyanna-ish Ohana Means family
Like.
This family is hard, it issmall and it is broken and I
think that's really important tonote.
Yeah, what?
Speaker 2 (52:18):
are you gonna bring me next week Bill and Ted's
Excellent Adventure.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
Excellent.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
I mean, you're ready for some wild stallions, aren't
you?
I am ready.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
I'll see you then.
I'll see you then.
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If you enjoy it even half asmuch as we do, please consider
helping to keep us overthinking.
You can support us at ourPatreon there's a link in the
show notes or leave a positivereview so others can find us and
(52:54):
, of course, share the show withyour people.
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin MacLeod from
Incompetechcom.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Thank you to ResonateRecordings for editing today's
episode.
Until next time, remember popculture is still culture, and
(53:17):
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
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