Speaker 1: On the Bechde cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and
Speaker 1: best start changing it with the Bechdel cast.
Speaker 2: Ra rah rah raha. I'm Stitch. By the way, that
Speaker 2: was me Stitch.
Speaker 3: Oh okay. I knew it was gonna happen. I was like,
Speaker 3: where's where are they going with this one? I feel
Speaker 3: like everyone has m not to I guess I'm trying
Speaker 3: to think of like impressions that middle schoolers liked doing
Speaker 3: that swept the nation, and I feel like I feel
Speaker 3: like the Stitch impression was a real inflection point for
Speaker 3: some annoying twelve year olds.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 3: I think they really were like, here's my moment to shine.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna find someone I have a crush on and
Speaker 3: go hi, just and I'll do that for a year
Speaker 3: and then surely it'll work and they'll fall in love
Speaker 3: with me. Oh baby, it's I mean, it's better. There's
Speaker 3: there's certainly worse middle schooler impressions that have swept the nation.
Speaker 3: I was in middle school when Borat came out. I
Speaker 3: was just gonna say, Bora, that was that was that
Speaker 3: was a difficult year and where was the what I mean?
Speaker 3: It was like hard enough being in the eighth grade.
Speaker 3: And then also everyone's going to do a Borat impression.
Speaker 3: It's too much. Yeah nothing, I would take stitch At
Speaker 3: any day. Yeah, Stitch is okay. Stitch rocks well, he
Speaker 3: really does. I kept laughing when I don't know why.
Speaker 3: I was cackling. I feel like I am running a fever,
Speaker 3: so at this could factory into any opinion I'm about
Speaker 3: to share. But every time he rolled up into a
Speaker 3: ball and rolled away, I was cackling. It's so funny.
Speaker 2: There's a scene.
Speaker 3: Why is that the funniest joke in any movie I've
Speaker 3: ever seen? It's so funny.
Speaker 2: There's a scene where and it's just kind of like
Speaker 2: a throwaway moment. It has nothing to do with anything, really,
Speaker 2: it's just to show that he's a rambunctious little guy.
Speaker 3: He's a little stinker. I mean, he's kind of like
Speaker 3: the littlest stinkerst It's true.
Speaker 2: But there's a scene where he starts blending something in
Speaker 2: a blender and then the lid flies off and it
Speaker 2: all shoots into his face. And it's I don't know why,
Speaker 2: but the funniest thing I've ever seen. I'm like, this
Speaker 2: is comedy genius. Like we should all just retire because
Speaker 2: like we're never going to top this hilarious physical gag.
Speaker 3: And then the Minions came along. Oh wow, my god,
Speaker 3: progresses yet again.
Speaker 4: I think that was more around my time, where like
Speaker 4: a lot of the middle school kids would try to
Speaker 4: impersonate minions Bello for example.
Speaker 3: Wow, that actually must have been a nightmare. That must
Speaker 3: have sucked.
Speaker 4: I used to like them, and then I started hating
Speaker 4: them after like one everyone tried to impersonate them. They
Speaker 4: also made like twenty more Minion movies and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 4: this is there's a lot. This is too much.
Speaker 3: I can't get enough. But I don't want a middle
Speaker 3: schooler doing an impression at any point in time. It
Speaker 3: will sour I feel like that'll sour you on almost anything,
Speaker 3: being in middle school, when someone's doing an impression aggressively. Yeah, well,
Speaker 3: welcome to the back of cast.
Speaker 2: Yeah that was I think our longest tie ride before
Speaker 2: we actually introduced the show.
Speaker 3: It's a rich text, Kate. I know. My name is
Speaker 3: Jamie Loft.
Speaker 2: My name is Caitlin Durante, And this is our show
Speaker 2: where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using
Speaker 2: the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point to
Speaker 2: initiate a much larger conversation. But Jamie, what is the
Speaker 2: Bechdel test? Tell me, I don't remember.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you, Caitlyn Durante, Here's what it is. It's
Speaker 3: a media metric created my queer cartoon is Alison Bechdel
Speaker 3: in her comic collection called Takes to Watch out For.
Speaker 3: Originally made as a sort of one off joke in
Speaker 3: a strip, but has since been kind of used as
Speaker 3: a media metric that we use. There's a lot of
Speaker 3: versions of it. The one we use is this version
Speaker 3: of the task requires that there be two characters of
Speaker 3: a marginalized gender with names who speak to each other
Speaker 3: about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue.
Speaker 3: And I do feel like Stitch is male coded that
Speaker 3: this includes Stitch. Yes, and it has to be an
Speaker 3: impactful I mean not that this movie has an issue
Speaker 3: with the Bechdel test. We're not going to have to
Speaker 3: really split hairs, fortunately, but yeah, and it should be
Speaker 3: an impactful sort of exchange. Yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 3: Do you remember now?
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you so much for the reminder. I really
Speaker 2: need it.
Speaker 3: You're so welcome. We say it every single week for
Speaker 3: seven years, but it's like someday it's really going to
Speaker 3: like take for both of us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one of these days, I can feel it. Anyway,
Speaker 2: this is our Lilo and Stitch episode, and we.
Speaker 3: Have highly demanded, highly requested Yes.
Speaker 2: And we have a highly requested guest as well. She
Speaker 2: is an actress. She's about to graduate with an MFA
Speaker 2: and Hawaiian theater. So I'm not the only master's degree
Speaker 2: hafer in the room.
Speaker 3: Okay, feeling like shit.
Speaker 2: I would never mention my masters though, So it's fine.
Speaker 3: That's true.
Speaker 2: She's an aspiring educator and teacher. You've seen her on TikTok.
Speaker 2: It's Lily he Elani Okima.
Speaker 4: Aloha, my cow cool. Thank you for having me, welcome,
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 3: We're excited to have you.
Speaker 2: I'm excited to be on here.
Speaker 3: I wasn't expecting us to get to the minions so quickly,
Speaker 3: but now it just feels like we're old friends.
Speaker 2: Yes, indeed, So, Lily, tell us about your relationship your
Speaker 2: history with Leelo and Stitch.
Speaker 4: Oh, well, I've been watching this film since I was
Speaker 4: in diapers. I well, because it takes place in Kawai
Speaker 4: in you know, CAPI. I know it's a very beloved
Speaker 4: popular film here amongst not only like native Hawaiians, but
Speaker 4: just like you know, local residents here as well. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I've been watching this film since I was a kid.
Speaker 4: I loved it, and I just kind of really appreciate, like,
Speaker 4: you know, the representation of my culture and my people,
Speaker 4: even though I'm not from Kawai. I remember, like there
Speaker 4: was a Lilo and Stitch episode because they had a
Speaker 4: series on Disney Channel and Nanny was on Oahu and
Speaker 4: I saw in the background like Leahi or like Diamond
Speaker 4: Head and some other landscapes like that I could recognize,
Speaker 4: and I was like, oh my god, that's my home,
Speaker 4: and it was just really exciting.
Speaker 3: So cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and just you know, seeing the hula and hearing
Speaker 4: Hawaiian language and yeah, just all of that. It's a
Speaker 4: very beloved film here. A lot of people love it.
Speaker 4: I still see like kids singing the songs and you know,
Speaker 4: dancing the hula and whatnot. I'm in I'm actually a
Speaker 4: hula dancer myself, I've been dancing for that long. But
Speaker 4: my umuhula, my hula teacher knows the hula teacher that
Speaker 4: was hired to do the songs in the Yeah, so
Speaker 4: kum Mark Klimalu, He's so known Kumahula in Hawaii, but
Speaker 4: I think right now his helu is in California, so yeah,
Speaker 4: he mostly teaches there. But yeah, my kuma Hula knows him.
Speaker 4: And it's a small community.
Speaker 2: So awesome.
Speaker 3: That's what I loved. I'm excited to talk about that
Speaker 3: later in the episode of just like how the collaboration
Speaker 3: happened between him and Alan silvest It was so interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 3: oh that's so amazing, Jamie.
Speaker 2: What's your history with the movie?
Speaker 3: I was, I mean it was I think it was
Speaker 3: in like third grade when this movie came out, and
Speaker 3: so I was like the target audience, and I remember
Speaker 3: seeing this movie and going like just going ape shit
Speaker 3: for this movie. I loved it so much. It was
Speaker 3: one of my favorites. It felt like I'm trying to remember.
Speaker 3: I think that like at the time, what I liked
Speaker 3: about it more than I mean I was, you know eight,
Speaker 3: I liked all Disney movies.
Speaker 4: But same.
Speaker 3: It was a shrewd media critic at the time. I
Speaker 3: was like ti pe pe poo poo. I just remember
Speaker 3: connecting really strongly with Leelo as a kid because we
Speaker 3: were supposed to be about the same age, and she
Speaker 3: was just like a weird kid and it was so
Speaker 3: cool saying I mean, I feel like a lot of
Speaker 3: you know, like young Disney characters are coded as misfits,
Speaker 3: but with Leelo, it's like she's like, she's got the goods.
Speaker 3: She's got, she's got a friend, she knows a fish
Speaker 3: who controls the weather. Like she just like she's got.
Speaker 2: A doll that she was like, Oh, the head's too big,
Speaker 2: so I pretended like a bug lady eggs in its ears.
Speaker 2: That's so funny.
Speaker 3: I love I Yeah, I really loved Leelo because it
Speaker 3: was like I feel like sometimes you're told like, even
Speaker 3: with like earlier Disney movies, you're like this girl. I mean,
Speaker 3: I feel like, actually, Belle is a good example where
Speaker 3: they're like she's so weird she can read, and you're like, well,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe historically that was weird, but it's not
Speaker 3: for a contemporary audience. You're like, well, I don't know,
Speaker 3: it just seems kind of like a hot, regular person,
Speaker 3: and it's like, I mean, I loved that movie too,
Speaker 3: but it was like there, you know, she didn't have
Speaker 3: the goods to back it up. She didn't know anyone
Speaker 3: who controlled the weather. I know. I just I loved
Speaker 3: Leela's so much. I loved this movie. And then as
Speaker 3: I because I rewatched this movie, I think maybe like
Speaker 3: once a year, you know, as I got older, it
Speaker 3: was like, oh, Nanny is such an incredible character, and yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm really excited to talk about it. It was definitely,
Speaker 3: I mean, I grew up in Massachusetts. It was definitely,
Speaker 3: I think, my first meaningful exposure to Hawaiian culture of
Speaker 3: any kind. And I'm excited to talk about how well
Speaker 3: it holds up. I guess, but yeah, I'm I'm a fan.
Speaker 3: Nice Caitlin, Wan's your history with this movie.
Speaker 2: I had only seen this movie once before prior to
Speaker 2: prepping for this episode. I know what. It came out
Speaker 2: in two thousand and two. I was in high school
Speaker 2: and I thought I was too cool for Disney movies.
Speaker 2: I felt I had aged out of Disney animated movies
Speaker 2: around probably like ninety seven. Titanic came out and I
Speaker 2: was like, I'm an adult now, Boots. I wasn't even
Speaker 2: born then, oh brag welp, Well, I was a full grown,
Speaker 2: twelve year old adult in nineteen ninety seven because I
Speaker 2: had seen the movie Titanic and it was really coming
Speaker 2: of age moment for me. And so I saw those
Speaker 2: later Disney movies from the late nineties and early two thousands,
Speaker 2: but I just didn't gravitate toward them the way I
Speaker 2: did for like the earlier Disney Renaissance movies of like
Speaker 2: the late eighties and earlier nineties. So yeah, i'd only
Speaker 2: seen Leelo and Stitch once and I remember liking it,
Speaker 2: but I just I don't know, I never revisited it.
Speaker 2: But it's another one of those movies that I wish
Speaker 2: I had because I was like sleeping on it this
Speaker 2: whole time. This movie's so funny, it's so heartwarming, it's
Speaker 2: so endearing, Like it's just it's really lovely. And yeah,
Speaker 2: I feel like I missed out on two decades worth
Speaker 2: of Lelo and.
Speaker 3: Watching this movie delight. If I was not touring right now,
Speaker 3: I would have my Stitch T shirt on Wow, which
Speaker 3: is a hand me down from my younger brother who
Speaker 3: is also a big Leelan Stitch fan, and we also
Speaker 3: watched We also watched the animated series on the Disney Channel.
Speaker 3: What a moment where it's like you could just I mean,
Speaker 3: there was a million. There was like a bunch of
Speaker 3: directive videos. I remember watching Stitch, Leelo and Stitch two.
Speaker 3: Stitch has a glitch. I don't remember one thing that
Speaker 3: happens in it, but it happened.
Speaker 4: That one was sad. Oh no, even the first one.
Speaker 4: The first one was sad too. I forgot how sad
Speaker 4: these films are.
Speaker 2: There were cry moments for sure. Yeah. And then there's
Speaker 2: also Leelo Sorry Leroy and Stitch.
Speaker 4: Oh, I didn't see that one.
Speaker 2: And then there's something called Stitch the Movie, So Stitch
Speaker 2: gets his own spinoff.
Speaker 4: I guess there's also an anime version.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh no, kidding with it with no Lelo.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they have it take place in Okinawa, so instead
Speaker 4: of it lee Lo. I don't know where her name is,
Speaker 4: but yeah, it takes place in Okinawa.
Speaker 2: Got it.
Speaker 3: The history, the history of this movie is fascinating. There
Speaker 3: was a recent YouTube video that came out from a
Speaker 3: YouTube where I like, I don't know what her real
Speaker 3: name is, but her user name is Modern Girls, and
Speaker 3: I think it was in light of the all the
Speaker 3: casting announcements for the live action movie, which I would
Speaker 3: also love to talk about. But she sort of did
Speaker 3: sort of a history of the Lulu and Stitch franchise,
Speaker 3: and it I didn't realize because I think I aged
Speaker 3: out of it somewhere in the middle. But as you
Speaker 3: go on, they slowly phase out Lilo to the point
Speaker 3: by the time you get to Lee Roy and Stitch
Speaker 3: you're just like worked as I don't know, she slowly
Speaker 3: kind of moved out of the franchise, which sucks because
Speaker 3: she's like, how.
Speaker 2: The minions are taking over and those three orphan girls.
Speaker 3: I mean no offense to the three orphan girls, but
Speaker 3: it's like they're no Lilo. They're trying to do what
Speaker 3: Leelo is doing, but they're not they're not really doing
Speaker 3: it anyways.
Speaker 2: Well, shall we get into the recap and go from there?
Speaker 3: Let's do it.
Speaker 2: Actually, let's take a quick break and then we'll do
Speaker 2: that recap. We'll be right back, Okay, So Lelo and
Speaker 2: Stitch we open on planet Touro at the Galactic Federation headquarters,
Speaker 2: where an alien scientist, doctor Jumba is on trial for
Speaker 2: illegal genetic experiments. You can really not remember. This is
Speaker 2: how this movie opens.
Speaker 3: The first ten minutes of this movie, I totally blacked out.
Speaker 3: It's fun, but you're like, it is what. I also
Speaker 3: just like there's all these little things in these movies,
Speaker 3: or at this movie in particular, where it's like, oh,
Speaker 3: whoever wrote this movie clearly grew up during the Cold
Speaker 3: War because the alien is Russian coded.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and oh that was German first. I get those
Speaker 4: accents mixed up.
Speaker 2: It's kind of vague, but it's yeah, some Eastern European,
Speaker 2: vaguely Eastern European.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I was like, wow, even in Disney Alien Land,
Speaker 3: we're not over the Cold War. Cool. There's also that
Speaker 3: where did did either of you read about like the
Speaker 3: nine to eleven shift that happened because of this movie? Ye?
Speaker 4: Yes, that was They had to completely change a scene,
Speaker 4: which also makes sense because like even in the sorry spoiler,
Speaker 4: but like in the film, Lelo even said like, there's
Speaker 4: no big cities there, so why would you animate a
Speaker 4: big city on k Like it would make sense on
Speaker 4: OHU because we have the big cities here, but Qua
Speaker 4: is a little bit more like smaller town. So I'm
Speaker 4: glad that they like changed it, but also I wasn't aware, Like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I think if you were to animate like an airplane
Speaker 4: flying through buildings, especially after nine to eleven recently happened,
Speaker 4: I think it's gonna like kind of shock people in
Speaker 4: the wrong way, poor taste. But I feel like I
Speaker 4: remember watching that when I was a kid at one point.
Speaker 4: Maybe I had some like special DBD that showed it.
Speaker 4: I don't know, but maybe like deleted see or like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: The history of nine to eleven, I mean, well, we're
Speaker 3: not going to get into the history of nine eleven,
Speaker 3: but like nine to eleven movie facts are always fascinating
Speaker 3: to me because it's like the change in Lilo and Stitch.
Speaker 3: The fact that during the movie The Master of Disguise,
Speaker 3: they were shooting the turtle turtle scene on nine to
Speaker 3: eleven and then they took a ten minute break and
Speaker 3: then resumed shooting the turtle turtle scene. And the fact
Speaker 3: that cartoons are allowed to hijack commercial planes again because
Speaker 3: that happens in Minion's two Rise of Grew. They they
Speaker 3: don't hit anything, it's a safe flight, but the Minion
Speaker 3: should not be flying the plane.
Speaker 2: No, I'm just I'm laughing at how often we've brought
Speaker 2: up the Minions. Sorry, sorry, twenty minutes in.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, So they're at the Galactic Federation.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, yes, So this doctor Jumba has created
Speaker 2: a new species, this little six legged blue guy who
Speaker 2: we will come to know as Stitch eventually. He is fireproof, bulletproof,
Speaker 2: He has super strength and the brain of a supercomputer,
Speaker 2: and his only instinct is to destroy everything it touches. Also,
Speaker 2: this creature is voiced by Chris Standers, who co wrote
Speaker 2: and co directed the movie along with Dean deploy If
Speaker 2: you're wondering if those are two white guys, yes, they
Speaker 2: sure are.
Speaker 3: As with every Disney movie about in non white culture,
Speaker 3: it is inexplicably directed by two white guys. Last minut
Speaker 3: I promise.
Speaker 2: I'll allow it.
Speaker 3: The director of Minions also does all of the voices
Speaker 3: of the Minions. Interesting para. Right, all right, that's that
Speaker 3: would be the end of my contributions, Mini and wise.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, okay. So the Grand Councilwoman of the Galactic
Speaker 2: Federation has Doctor Jumba arrested, and she arranges for the
Speaker 2: creature to be banished to a desert asteroid far off
Speaker 2: in outer space. But before this can happen, the creature
Speaker 2: hijacks the ship, escapes and crash lands on Earth, specifically Hawaii.
Speaker 2: The Grand Councilwoman is trying to figure out how to
Speaker 2: extract the creature from Earth and bring it back to
Speaker 2: planet Touro, and there are a lot of fun jokes
Speaker 2: about how humans are weak and fragile and not very smart,
Speaker 2: and how these aliens are using Earth to rebuild the
Speaker 2: mosquito population. He's so funny. The Grand Councilwoman sends doctor
Speaker 2: Jumba to extract the creature, saying that if he's successful,
Speaker 2: he can have his freedom back. And she also sends
Speaker 2: along this guy Pleakly, the resident expert on all things
Speaker 2: Planet Earth, to accompany doctor Jumba. He's such an icon,
Speaker 2: truly very funny. Voiced by Kevin McDonald.
Speaker 3: Kids in the Hall Canadian legend.
Speaker 2: Yes, cut to Hawaii, where we meet Lilo voiced by
Speaker 2: Davy Chase, a young girl who is late for a
Speaker 2: dance rehearsal because she was feeding Pudge the fish a
Speaker 2: peanut butter sandwich. She has a very active imagination and
Speaker 2: she's a bit of a misfit among the other girls.
Speaker 2: We then meet Lelo's older sister, Nanny, who I think
Speaker 2: is around like eighteen nineteen twenty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's supposed to be like late teens early twenties.
Speaker 2: Voiced by TiO Carrera. Leelo is in a bad mood
Speaker 2: and has locked Nanny out of their house right when
Speaker 2: a social worker named mister Bubbles voiced by Ving Raims doing.
Speaker 3: Like a pulp fiction bit question Mark, Yeah, like doing
Speaker 3: his character from pulp Fit.
Speaker 2: He looks more like secret service than a social worker.
Speaker 3: In my head, that like had some sort of meaningful
Speaker 3: like that came all the way. I guess it does
Speaker 3: come all the way around. But I'm just like why.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a cartoon for children, is the answer.
Speaker 3: I'm like, why is this man wearing a suit like
Speaker 3: a fucking tuxedo to be a social worker? And why
Speaker 3: does he only and the least. I mean, it's like
Speaker 3: and it's so unrealistic that he, as a social worker,
Speaker 3: would only have one case that he's working on. Social
Speaker 3: workers are famously overworked, but he is seemingly I mean,
Speaker 3: we'll talk about this later, but like of how this
Speaker 3: he sort of deals with portraying social work and the
Speaker 3: government's attitude towards social work. But he seemingly just like
Speaker 3: kind of stalking Nanni, waiting for something to go wrong,
Speaker 3: as opposed to offering any sort of meaningful support. And
Speaker 3: it's like, well, clearly you have the time to be helpful,
Speaker 3: but instead you're just sort of maliciously following this nineteen
Speaker 3: year old who is doing everything she can around good
Speaker 3: use of government funds.
Speaker 2: Love that, right, Yeah, So mister Bubbles shows up to
Speaker 2: observe them. Nanni is Leelo's guardian after their parents died
Speaker 2: in a car accident, and she's like Lelo's sole caretaker.
Speaker 2: Mister Bubbles is not impressed with Nannie's parenting and basically says,
Speaker 2: you have three days to show me that you're a
Speaker 2: fit guardian, and then he leaves. Nanni and Lelo argue.
Speaker 2: Nanni is upset with Lelo for misbehaving and making her
Speaker 2: look bad in front of mister Bubbles, is upset that.
Speaker 3: No one wants to look bad in front of ving
Speaker 3: Raim's I understand.
Speaker 2: Leelo is upset that people treat her differently and don't
Speaker 2: want to be her friend. But that night the sisters
Speaker 2: make up and then something falls out of the sky
Speaker 2: and lands near their house. Lelo thinks it's a shooting star,
Speaker 2: so she makes a wish that she will finally make
Speaker 2: a friend an angel.
Speaker 4: Lapping moniacally.
Speaker 2: Right, because the thing that fell out of the sky
Speaker 2: was stitches spaceship, and he's immediately captured and winds up
Speaker 2: in the pound or like a like a pet adoption
Speaker 2: place where Lilo and Nanny are there to adopt a dog, because.
Speaker 3: Well, because Nanni overheard Lilo really wonding a friend, wanting
Speaker 3: a friend, and better friend, I'll get you a dog friend,
Speaker 3: a radioactive dog.
Speaker 2: Yes, So Stitch makes himself look more like a dog
Speaker 2: so that Lelo will adopt him, and Lilo loves him,
Speaker 2: and she names him Stitch.
Speaker 3: I love that she gives no explanation. I'm just like, yeah,
Speaker 3: his name is clearly a stitch. She was so right
Speaker 3: to say that.
Speaker 2: I figured it must have been something from maybe like
Speaker 2: something relating to her parents, because when the like pet
Speaker 2: adoption lady is like that's not a name, Nanny goes
Speaker 2: like shut the fuck up, like in Iceland. So I
Speaker 2: figured it must have some special significance to Lilo. Based
Speaker 2: on Nanny's reaction, true.
Speaker 4: Also, kids just like name random things. I've taught kids,
Speaker 4: and I actually did like a little vet school lesson
Speaker 4: and they all had like little stuff dogs and I
Speaker 4: was like, okay, pick out whatever names. And they came
Speaker 4: up with the weirdest names ever. And of course I'm
Speaker 4: not gonna be like, those are not real names. I'm like, yeah, sure,
Speaker 4: just write it down. And they're like, how do you
Speaker 4: spell it? I'm like, I don't know, it's your.
Speaker 2: Name, made it up.
Speaker 3: Guess that's so fuzz.
Speaker 4: But Stitch is a really good, like symbolic name of
Speaker 4: like tying the ohana together exactly. Whoa.
Speaker 3: I didn't even think of that. I was just like, wow, yes,
Speaker 3: he's so Stitch. Wow, Yeah that's true.
Speaker 2: It's so deep. Okay, so Lilo adopts Stitch, but oh no,
Speaker 2: Doctor Jumba and Pleakly have arrived on Earth and are
Speaker 2: tracking Stitch. They're also trying their best to blend in.
Speaker 2: It's hilarious. Meanwhile, Lilo and Stitch are hanging out. They're
Speaker 2: getting to know each other, but Stitch is very badly behaved.
Speaker 2: He's frustrated that he's stuck on this island, and he
Speaker 2: keeps trying to find his way back into outer space.
Speaker 3: Well, because he's using he's essentially using Lilo as a
Speaker 3: meat shield when they first meet, because they can't the
Speaker 3: aliens can't capture him when he is near lil because
Speaker 3: something something mosquitoes.
Speaker 4: But there.
Speaker 3: I love the early I don't know. This movie is
Speaker 3: just so thoughtful in the way it shows their relationship building.
Speaker 3: And you see Lelo treats Stitch though, kind of the
Speaker 3: way that Nanny treats her, and it's just like a
Speaker 3: lot of good kids stuff. Yeah, and I for I
Speaker 3: didn't remember this from since the last time I watched
Speaker 3: it maybe two years ago, but that scene where she
Speaker 3: draws a picture of Stitch and then it's like very
Speaker 3: red and she's like, your badness level is here, we
Speaker 3: need to work on that.
Speaker 2: It's so high. I love it was so funny.
Speaker 3: Oh, she's the best.
Speaker 2: I also like how they set up that Lelo and
Speaker 2: Stitch are similar and compatible, Like there's a reason that
Speaker 2: she at least is drawn to him because he bites
Speaker 2: whatever Captain gone to or I'll bring him up later.
Speaker 2: But there's this other like alien guy who was responsible
Speaker 2: for trying to like exile Stitch, but he messes up,
Speaker 2: but Stitch bites him and then Leelo bites one of
Speaker 2: her classmates Myrtle.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she deserves it.
Speaker 2: She is bad.
Speaker 3: I liked that they I feel like Disney movies now generally,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, so dubious about Disney reboots. I'm like,
Speaker 3: I bet they'll change it for the reboot. But the
Speaker 3: movie did not bother to like redeem Myrtle. By the
Speaker 3: end of the movie, you're like, yeah, this kid's kind
Speaker 3: of an asshole, and sometimes that's just true.
Speaker 4: Well I know why it's because I well, I think
Speaker 4: it's in the Stitch has a glitch film. It's like
Speaker 4: we kind of here. I forgot what exactly the occupation
Speaker 4: her dad works. But Myrtle and her family are supposed
Speaker 4: to represent a very like how they family here, like
Speaker 4: you know, the hell the family that thinks like they
Speaker 4: can do whatever they want, they own the place. They're
Speaker 4: very rude. I've I've had a deal with a few
Speaker 4: Myrtles in my life growing up, and I wanted to
Speaker 4: scrap them as well, but my parents were like, no,
Speaker 4: you're gonna get in trouble. But they were lucky. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: not a fan fuck Myrtle.
Speaker 2: Okay, so One day, Leelo and Stitch visit Nanny at work.
Speaker 2: She's a server at a Luau style restaurant. Also, there's
Speaker 2: a guy named David, voiced by Jason Scott Lee.
Speaker 4: I love Dave David.
Speaker 3: I had a crush on David.
Speaker 2: He's very sweet. He has a crush on Nanny.
Speaker 3: And so does she because Leila read her diary and
Speaker 3: she said that he had a nice butt and fancy hair.
Speaker 4: And I love how he does not care about the
Speaker 4: butt parp. He was like, my hair's fancy. It's like
Speaker 4: he knows, he knows that his butt looks fine. He's
Speaker 4: just yeah, he's surprised about the hair. He's stress, he's conscious.
Speaker 2: About his hair. So he asks Nanni out, but she's like, now,
Speaker 2: it's not a good time. Then Nanny gets fired because
Speaker 2: Stitch causes a bit of a commotion at the restaurant,
Speaker 2: but only because.
Speaker 3: It is Kevin McDonald in his mouth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's they're trying to capture him. Yeah, So Nanny
Speaker 2: goes to take Stitch back to the kennel, but Lelo
Speaker 2: is like Dad said that Ohanna means family, and family
Speaker 2: means no one gets left behind, and Stitch is part
Speaker 2: of the family now, so we can't abandon him. Yeah,
Speaker 2: gets left behind or forgotten.
Speaker 3: There's so many sequences in this movie where you're just like,
Speaker 3: all right, I guess I'm just gonna cry for twenty minutes.
Speaker 3: That's good.
Speaker 2: So then mister Bubbles shows up again, knowing that Nanni
Speaker 2: lost her job. He sees Stitch misbehaving and he's like,
Speaker 2: the next time I see y'all, you need to have
Speaker 2: a job and your pet needs to be a model citizen.
Speaker 2: And then there's a montage where Nanni applies to a
Speaker 2: bunch of jobs and Lilo teaches Stitch to be like
Speaker 2: Elvis because she thinks Elvis was a model citizen. But
Speaker 2: everything goes wrong. Stitch is still misbehaving and Nanny still
Speaker 2: can't find a job. Then David takes them surfing to
Speaker 2: cheer them up, and it seems like Stitch is starting
Speaker 2: to learn to be less destructive and better behaved. But
Speaker 2: while they're surfing, the aliens try to capture Stitch, and
Speaker 2: Nanny thinks that Stitch drags Lelo underwater, and mister Bubbles
Speaker 2: sees this like near drowning.
Speaker 3: Because he has nothing else to do with his goddamn.
Speaker 4: Life and just so happens to like avoid the aliens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like open your eyes, mister Bubbles.
Speaker 3: He's full tuxedo on the beach. He stresses me out,
Speaker 3: like he's not remotely incognito at any point.
Speaker 2: So, because he sees all this catastrophe happening, he tells
Speaker 2: Nanny that he's going to take Lilo away. The following morning,
Speaker 2: Nanni is devastated. Back home, she sings Leelo a song
Speaker 2: to say goodbye Aloha Oi. Meanwhile, Stitch realizes this whole
Speaker 2: thing was his fault and he feels bad, so he
Speaker 2: leaves in search of a new family. But doctor Jumba
Speaker 2: finds him in the forest and starts chasing him, so
Speaker 2: Stitch runs back to Lilo and Nannie's house. Meanwhile, David
Speaker 2: has found Nannie a job, so she goes to check
Speaker 2: it out with him and leaves Lilo at home, right
Speaker 2: when Stitch and Doctor Jumba come crashing in and destroy
Speaker 2: the house. Mister Bubbles shows up to take Lilo away,
Speaker 2: but oh no, she and Stitch get captured by that guy,
Speaker 2: Captain Gonetu.
Speaker 3: They're put into like an evil space tic tack, and
Speaker 3: they disappeared.
Speaker 2: Right because the Grand councilwoman sent Gone to to Earth
Speaker 2: to get the job done because doctor Jumba completely we're
Speaker 2: so incompetent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this movie does sort of assume that we're like interesting,
Speaker 3: I guess, much like the Star Wars prequels. It's they
Speaker 3: think that we're interested in like intergalactic politics in a
Speaker 3: way that I'm like, yeah, I don't care if Captain
Speaker 3: Gantu gets his job back. Who the fuck is that?
Speaker 2: I want more?
Speaker 3: Nanni, mm hmmm, whatever, he's there.
Speaker 2: He is there, and he loads Lilo and Stitch on
Speaker 2: his spaceship, but Stitch manages to escape just before gone
Speaker 2: to blasts offt into space with Lilo, and Nanny sees
Speaker 2: this and she goes to Jumba inmpletely and tells them
Speaker 2: to bring Lilo back, and they're like, hmm, we can't.
Speaker 2: We're just here for the creature. Also, they call Stitch
Speaker 2: Experiment six six, so they're like, we're just here for
Speaker 2: Experiment six to six. But then Stitch convinces them to
Speaker 2: help and they go on a rescue mission and Stitch
Speaker 2: saves Lilo by hijacking a fuel truck driving it into
Speaker 2: a volcan hano, which creates a huge explosion that blasts
Speaker 2: him onto Gontu's ship, where Stitch is able to release
Speaker 2: and rescue Lilo.
Speaker 4: Like.
Speaker 3: Some don't agree with his methods, but they but he
Speaker 3: was it is.
Speaker 2: It's very destructive too.
Speaker 3: He was effective.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So then the Grand councilwoman shows up and is
Speaker 2: about to take Stitch away, but she realizes that he's
Speaker 2: not the monster she thought he was, that he belongs
Speaker 2: to this family and they all love each other, so
Speaker 2: she lets him stay on Earth, and the movie ends
Speaker 2: with Lelo, Nanny, and Stitch all being reunited and with
Speaker 2: the help of Jumba pleakly mister Bubbles, who are all
Speaker 2: like in their friend group now and David.
Speaker 3: I feel like they really let jumpa off the hook ultimately. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 3: sure he's there, but he looks funny because he's a monster.
Speaker 2: He's nice now or something.
Speaker 3: He completely or married.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they all rebuild Lil and Nannie's house together,
Speaker 2: and then we get this like kind of credit sequence
Speaker 2: where there's a bunch of like photographs of them doing
Speaker 2: different things, celebrating different holidays, traveling to different.
Speaker 4: Places, dancing, and Mary Monarch, which I'm like, wow, we
Speaker 4: also just had Mary Monarch recently, like a couple of
Speaker 4: weeks ago, and I'm like, I cannot imagine them allowing
Speaker 4: an alien on there. Hey why not?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, you never know. Yeah, And so that's
Speaker 2: how the movie ends with them as if as a
Speaker 2: happy family. So let's take another quick break and we'll
Speaker 2: come back to discuss.
Speaker 3: And way are back, Lily, Is there anything that you
Speaker 3: would like to talk about right off the bat. We'll
Speaker 3: sort of let you lead us and we'll sort of
Speaker 3: jump in.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So obviously I watched this film a lot when
Speaker 4: I was a kid, and I didn't really think about
Speaker 4: like kind of the deeper messages behind it and the
Speaker 4: symbolism and all of that. I just thought, Oh, this
Speaker 4: stitch is so funny, and oh it takes a place
Speaker 4: where I live. This is so cool. That as I
Speaker 4: got older and I would rewatch it, I really like
Speaker 4: appreciated seeing kind of the race they clearly did research
Speaker 4: and the details that they put in the film. Of course, again,
Speaker 4: and this is a film directed by two white men,
Speaker 4: and this was made in like two thousand and two,
Speaker 4: when we don't really have kind of this awareness of
Speaker 4: like authenticity and representing, you know, BIPOC communities and cultures.
Speaker 4: But I would say for its time, it did pretty good.
Speaker 4: I mean they I remember I was sharing these videos
Speaker 4: on my TikTok a while ago about because like there
Speaker 4: was like this trend going on TikTok where people were
Speaker 4: dancing to the Kalaka or himel Nolilo song, which it
Speaker 4: is a real chant, but they turned it into like
Speaker 4: a song in this film. So how you would actually
Speaker 4: chant the oh cola is very different. It's more like
Speaker 4: kahiko traditional style. But anyways, there was like a trend
Speaker 4: going on where people were like dancing to that song
Speaker 4: on TikTok, but they were just like doing whatever the
Speaker 4: hell they wanted to. They weren't dancing to like, you know,
Speaker 4: actual like lyrics or they were they were just like
Speaker 4: doing random movements that weren't even hula. Some of them
Speaker 4: were like Tahesian movements as well. I'm like, that's not.
Speaker 3: What we do.
Speaker 4: And I was trying to tell people, like hula, you
Speaker 4: dance to the words. It's not the movements, you know,
Speaker 4: bring the words to life. So you can't just like
Speaker 4: make up whatever movements you want to and call it
Speaker 4: hula because that's not hula. And of course people were
Speaker 4: saying this is just a movie, it's not real, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, it's depicting my culture, so it is real.
Speaker 4: And they were like, well, that's how they danced in
Speaker 4: the movie, and I'm like, no, they did it. And
Speaker 4: so I pulled up the receipts of the directors like
Speaker 4: talking to kumuam mar ke Lei Ujomalu, and they were
Speaker 4: like visiting his hello animating how he would play the
Speaker 4: ipuhke so that like double gored that they played to
Speaker 4: like keep the beat. And then also like videotaping the
Speaker 4: hula dancers and they like would draw like they drew
Speaker 4: like over like the video or I think they drew
Speaker 4: it like you know, by like looking at it. But yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, they wanted to like see the actual movements.
Speaker 4: And again, if you look at that film and you
Speaker 4: look at the movements, it corresponds to like the words
Speaker 4: you know, claka hey, no, his name is klawkoa and
Speaker 4: then so on and so forth, like PUA's flowers. So
Speaker 4: you see them doing like this kind of movement where
Speaker 4: this is supposed to signify flower. So it's trying to
Speaker 4: show people like they did their research, like they were
Speaker 4: trying to depict our culture for a reason. It's not
Speaker 4: random but whatever. But yeah, I was rewatching it again
Speaker 4: and just looking at Oh, they showed this so well.
Speaker 4: And then I was listening to like I think there
Speaker 4: was like one part in the film where the hula
Speaker 4: teacher was speaking Hawaiian to the students, like the kids,
Speaker 4: and I kind of found like a little kind of
Speaker 4: a funny translation that they did. I think. I don't
Speaker 4: know if there was like Hawaii language experts on the
Speaker 4: film that kind of doubled and triple checked some of
Speaker 4: the translations. So after Lelo started scrapping myrtle and like
Speaker 4: you know, punching her, and he was trying to tell
Speaker 4: every the kids to calm down, and then he tells
Speaker 4: he tries to tell the kids like stop talking. But
Speaker 4: how he said it, it was so weird. He says, which
Speaker 4: doesn't mean like don't speak. It just says like doesn't speak,
Speaker 4: like you would use that for like, you know oli,
Speaker 4: you know, like they don't speak. If you want to
Speaker 4: tell someone like don't speak, you can say like may valla, oh,
Speaker 4: like don't speak, or you can say hamo, which we
Speaker 4: mostly say that to children, like hamo, which means like
Speaker 4: silence or you can say like om a lie, which
Speaker 4: means to calm down. So I just thought it was fun.
Speaker 4: It was like, this is like a very very literal translation,
Speaker 4: but it's not a command, but.
Speaker 2: The grammar is quite there.
Speaker 4: Yeah. But I was also excited because I'm, you know,
Speaker 4: a new Hawaii language speaker. No one in my family
Speaker 4: speaks Hawaiian, so I'm like the first of my family
Speaker 4: to learn it. Especially with my degree, we had to
Speaker 4: learn Hawaiian. So I was really impressed that I was
Speaker 4: able to watch this and think, wow, I can correct
Speaker 4: them ooh Disney, but they did some like you know,
Speaker 4: the other Hawaii language was pretty spot on. And also
Speaker 4: appreciated hearing the pigeon speaking. So I'm Tia Carrera voicing
Speaker 4: nanny speaking in a pigeon accent, and then the guys
Speaker 4: who like ran over Stitch and how he ended up
Speaker 4: in the animal shelter. Although I will say that's probably
Speaker 4: the most forced pigeon I've ever heard, but it's okay.
Speaker 4: I think some of them might be. But I think
Speaker 4: that was like a first take or something like, well
Speaker 4: we went hit. I'm like, Okay, that's very very forced,
Speaker 4: very theatrical, but but yeah, I loved hearing just like
Speaker 4: Pigeon being spoken in a Disney film, because not so
Speaker 4: much when I was growing up, but when my parents
Speaker 4: were growing up, and even like my grandparents. First of all,
Speaker 4: speaking Hawaiian wasn't allowed. It wasn't until I think like
Speaker 4: the early nineteen eighties that they started offering Hawaiian language
Speaker 4: like in schools, and they started they started having like
Speaker 4: Hawaii language emmergion schools, but before then there was a band,
Speaker 4: so you weren't allowed to teach her speak Hawaiian after
Speaker 4: the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. And also like if
Speaker 4: you spoke pigeon, which is our creole language, so it's
Speaker 4: like Hawaiian English has some like Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Chinese
Speaker 4: influences there. If you spoke pigeon, you were seen as
Speaker 4: like unintelligent, you were seen as illiterate, ridiculous. So it
Speaker 4: was just basically like English only So hearing in like
Speaker 4: a Disney film like Pigeon being spoken and like Hawaiians
Speaker 4: even though it was like kind of like little not
Speaker 4: so much it was, but it was like really amazing
Speaker 4: just hearing that because I don't know, it's like validating
Speaker 4: our language and showing that it can be beautiful and
Speaker 4: that we speak it here and just because we speak
Speaker 4: pigeon or speak quin doesn't mean that we're not smart.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, of course.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was also kind of struggling to see because there
Speaker 3: was a really great oral history of Leelo inst that
Speaker 3: came out a couple of years ago, and then there
Speaker 3: was also a documentary, but it was tragically two hours long.
Speaker 3: I did not finish it before we started recording. But
Speaker 3: I was interested in what the research process was like
Speaker 3: for the Unity, and I wasn't able to find. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I also was not able to find specifics on language.
Speaker 3: The most specific information I could find was that Tia
Speaker 3: Carrero was really informative and it was more that like
Speaker 3: there were not exclusively because David Chase. It's not her fault.
Speaker 3: She's a kid, and she was also the girl from
Speaker 3: the Ring, so good for her while two thousand and
Speaker 3: two for her.
Speaker 4: She also voiced them Shihiro and Spirited Away, which is
Speaker 4: like my favorite, right yeah, in English dub.
Speaker 3: But they you know, they did not cast a young
Speaker 3: Hawaiian girl to voice Lilo, which they acknowledge in that
Speaker 3: because the the oral history was done twenty years later,
Speaker 3: and they acknowledge it, but they still are sort of
Speaker 3: like skirting the subject.
Speaker 2: In a way.
Speaker 3: I found a little funky where they were like, well,
Speaker 3: I agree there were no child actors in Hawaii. I
Speaker 3: was like, that's just not true. That's just not true.
Speaker 4: So you find them, you find them. Yeah, I think
Speaker 4: the only I think the only Native Hawaiian voice actor
Speaker 4: in that film is Jason Scott Lee who voices David,
Speaker 4: and I'm pretty sure also the voice actor for the
Speaker 4: hula teacher and some like background characters also. But yeah,
Speaker 4: Tia Carrera, even though she's born and raised here, she's
Speaker 4: a local, she speaks pigeon, she is not Native Hawaiian ethnically.
Speaker 2: Which is something that we see all that time, especially
Speaker 2: in movies from this era, where this movie, for example,
Speaker 2: characters who are Native Hawaiian are for the most part
Speaker 2: not especially like the main characters, like the core group
Speaker 2: of people who you spend the most time with, you
Speaker 2: get to care for, they are for the most part
Speaker 2: not voiced by Native Hawaiian actors, which is just frustrating
Speaker 2: for a number of reasons.
Speaker 3: Well, and it's like still going on, right, I mean,
Speaker 3: that's been a and I'm curious on your thoughts on this, Lily,
Speaker 3: Like that's a conversation that is going on in a
Speaker 3: slightly different but not very different way with the live
Speaker 3: action reboot of this movie, where every casting announcement has
Speaker 3: very understandably sparked another conversation about Disney whitewashing and colorism
Speaker 3: in their casting.
Speaker 4: Well, when they casted Maya Kaaloha for Leelo, of course,
Speaker 4: I was like, she's so cute. She looks just like Leelo,
Speaker 4: and she dances hula. She is native Hawaiian and so
Speaker 4: we were all like really excited for her, and you know,
Speaker 4: she's like, she's not an actress. I say this as
Speaker 4: an actress myself, Like anyone can act, it's just you know, obviously,
Speaker 4: the more experience you have, I think, the more confident
Speaker 4: you are. But when it comes to like acting and
Speaker 4: using your emotions, like anyone can do.
Speaker 2: That, especially with like children, I mean, like, yeah, they
Speaker 2: have to start somewhere.
Speaker 4: Especially like if you're playing a character that you can
Speaker 4: relate to, like culturally wise or whatever, then it doesn't
Speaker 4: feel like acting. It's just you. You know, I would
Speaker 4: prefer to cast someone who is connected to the character
Speaker 4: than like.
Speaker 3: An actor, right, the idea of like an eight looking
Speaker 3: at an eight year old and being like she's too green,
Speaker 3: and you're like, yeah, she's she's she's talking about Yeah.
Speaker 4: Then they released the casting of Nanny, which, of course
Speaker 4: a lot of us were like, she looks nothing like Nanny,
Speaker 4: but a lot of us thought she was part Native Hawaiians,
Speaker 4: So we were like, at least they casted someone.
Speaker 2: Who is Native Hawaiian.
Speaker 4: Would have been nice if had someone that looked more
Speaker 4: like Nanny, especially because you know, the animators designed her
Speaker 4: to look like that for a reason. You don't see
Speaker 4: that kind of like especially in the previous Disney films,
Speaker 4: like a lot of like the brown Disney girls, you know,
Speaker 4: had like tiny noses, skinny bodies, very like.
Speaker 2: Petite European centric features centric.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so Nanny is kind of one of the first
Speaker 4: very indigenous looking characters or they embraced her like curvy
Speaker 4: features and her indigenous features. And even though she's on
Speaker 4: official Disney Princess, a lot of us call her like
Speaker 4: our first Hawaiian Disney Princess. She's gorgeous and helped me
Speaker 4: a lot with like loving my own features. But you know,
Speaker 4: we thought, Okay, would have been nice to have someone
Speaker 4: who actually looked like her player, but at least she's
Speaker 4: Native Hawaiian. And then my friend released those receipts in
Speaker 4: her TikTok that she is at native Hawaiian and we're like, welp,
Speaker 4: that's an issue. It's like Doggie kamea Loja all over again.
Speaker 4: Just cast the half white, half Asian girl to play
Speaker 4: a native Hawaiian character instead of, like, I don't know
Speaker 4: an actual native Hawaiian. Because they were able to find
Speaker 4: Maya kaala hus. I'm like, why can't you find someone
Speaker 4: for Nania? You would think, yeah, but I know Sydney
Speaker 4: is born and raised in Kawai and you know she
Speaker 4: grew up there, and I have friends who know her
Speaker 4: that like went to school with her and all that.
Speaker 4: It's a very small community here, so people know her.
Speaker 4: And I guess like some people thought her family was Hawaiian,
Speaker 4: but it would be kind of unfortunate to like know
Speaker 4: that she lied about being Hawaiian to get this role.
Speaker 4: Because I also have friends who auditioned for Nanny and
Speaker 4: the casting directors told them specifically they were looking for
Speaker 4: a native Hawaiian actress. Or like a Polynesian Pacific Islander actress.
Speaker 4: So I think it's kind of like there's both parties
Speaker 4: at fault when the casting directors for not like properly
Speaker 4: looking at Sydney's background to see if she is Native Hawaiian,
Speaker 4: but also like Sidney going for a role that's for
Speaker 4: a Native Hawaiian actress. Especially again, like you look at
Speaker 4: Doogie Kamalojo, you look at like other you look at
Speaker 4: like Emma Stone in Aloha as well, where yeah, and
Speaker 4: you look at other films like I know in White Lotus,
Speaker 4: like they actually have Native Hawaiian actors play the men.
Speaker 4: But it just seems like in a lot of films
Speaker 4: or TV shows when they have like a Native Hawaiian
Speaker 4: character who's a female, like they can't find a girl
Speaker 4: to play her. It's like they want to have like
Speaker 4: a Asian person with a tan or like I don't know,
Speaker 4: just someone who doesn't like isn't Native Hawaiian. Which and
Speaker 4: there's some discussion going on in our community where it's like, well,
Speaker 4: at least she's from here, so we should give it that,
Speaker 4: and we should be you know, not getting too upset
Speaker 4: about it.
Speaker 2: But that just still takes opportunities away from actual native
Speaker 2: Hawaiian actors and people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I'm not denying that, like Sydney can't be
Speaker 4: culturally Hawaiian because she did grow up here. I think, yes,
Speaker 4: there's like you can be Hawaiian like genetically, and you
Speaker 4: can be Hawaiian culturally, or it could be both. Like
Speaker 4: I know a lot of people here who aren't genetically
Speaker 4: native Hawaiian, but they grew up with Hawaiian culture. They
Speaker 4: speak Hawaiian and all that. So I'm not going to
Speaker 4: say like you can't be Hawaiian, but I think for
Speaker 4: the sake of just casting, this character should have gone
Speaker 4: to like someone who is native Hawaiian, because again, we
Speaker 4: are very barely represented. And my friends who go to
Speaker 4: auditions and they try to like get roles for them
Speaker 4: and they never get them. There's clearly an issue going
Speaker 4: on with the casting. And now on to David So.
Speaker 4: I actually know both of the actors who were up
Speaker 4: for David. So there was Cahio and then now Kaipo
Speaker 4: was playing him. I was in like university classes, like
Speaker 4: acting classes with them. I did like some acting stuff
Speaker 4: with them. Yeah, I know. At first Cahio was casted
Speaker 4: for David, and some people also were criticizing that because
Speaker 4: of colorism, but also his features were not really looking
Speaker 4: like David's. And then all of you know, the news
Speaker 4: of him using the Ensler, you know, back in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 4: but then also on the Spotify playlist, which I didn't
Speaker 4: know those are reacent because I don't use Spotify. So
Speaker 4: I'm like, I remember when I was looking those up.
Speaker 4: I was trying to look up the playlist and I
Speaker 4: couldn't find it, and I was trying to look up, Okay,
Speaker 4: what year was this made? Because for the twenty thirteen
Speaker 4: one he was like a minor during then, which I'm
Speaker 4: not excusing, like miners who say that word are off
Speaker 4: like horrible, but sure, you know, if you was like
Speaker 4: saying this now as an adult, then I'd be like, okay, right,
Speaker 4: and I could just speak from like living here, like
Speaker 4: people aren't very aware of a lot of things outside
Speaker 4: of I e. It's not really like they don't really
Speaker 4: care about these things, which they should care. I'm not
Speaker 4: saying like that's a excuse, but there are people here
Speaker 4: that don't know a lot about like US history, or
Speaker 4: they don't know about like the very apparent, like anti
Speaker 4: black racism. I mean, it's like taught here, but not
Speaker 4: to like the biggest extent, especially if it's a public
Speaker 4: school here, it's awful. I can't go on that tangent,
Speaker 4: but that's.
Speaker 2: Fairly taught on the mainland United States as well.
Speaker 4: Like, yeah, there is just a lack of awareness here.
Speaker 4: But nowadays, with you know, more access to resources and
Speaker 4: social media and more education, I definitely hear less kids
Speaker 4: and less people using those kinds of racial slurs or
Speaker 4: even in general just saying very insensitive things now because
Speaker 4: I remember when I was a kid, people would say
Speaker 4: so much insensitive things and I'm like, don't say that.
Speaker 4: That's bad, and they're like, oh, are you like an
Speaker 4: American or whatever. I'm like, no, you should just care.
Speaker 4: But yeah, so they fired him because of those things,
Speaker 4: and I completely understand that. But my friend Kuypel is
Speaker 4: now playing David and I'm excited for him as well.
Speaker 4: He's a very good actor. It's kind of funny. I'm like,
Speaker 4: I read all like the news articles that show him
Speaker 4: and just seeing a lot of people like thirst after
Speaker 4: my friend, I'm like, I mean, I don't blame them.
Speaker 4: He is a very handsome guy, but it's just so
Speaker 4: funny because they're like, oh, he's so handsome, he looks
Speaker 4: so much like David. I'm like, wait till they know
Speaker 4: how much of like a goofball he is.
Speaker 2: Because David is also a bit of a good Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was like, perfect, perfect David.
Speaker 4: True, but he is. He's a major goof all but
Speaker 4: in all the right ways. Kype Off, you're hearing this,
Speaker 4: I love you.
Speaker 3: Thank you for that insight. I mean, I feel like
Speaker 3: it is I don't know, it's like, that's such a
Speaker 3: good point about just how Native Hawaiian actresses in particular
Speaker 3: are just like erased and so easily erased, even in
Speaker 3: two thousand and two of just like well we couldn't
Speaker 3: find anybody. And I feel like that is almost preying
Speaker 3: on other people's ignorance, where they're like, well, maybe that's
Speaker 3: true when it's so demonstrably untrue, like you yourself are
Speaker 3: a living proof that it is not true.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And Disney has so many resources, like they were
Speaker 4: able to find a Lak Cravao for Moana in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 4: and she didn't do any like films prior to that.
Speaker 4: I think she probably did some theater, but she went
Speaker 4: to come to my high school. So of course she
Speaker 4: knows how to sing, and they're all about like the
Speaker 4: music and the singing there. But yeah, they like found
Speaker 4: her and now she's an established actress and she's doing
Speaker 4: other projects. So they have the resources. They just don't
Speaker 4: want to use it sometimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they just don't like to be bothered.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just imagine how many talented people there
Speaker 4: are out there that they can you know, it's good
Speaker 4: for them too, business wise, like they can be like
Speaker 4: we find so many like talented people. I'm like, just yeah,
Speaker 4: just do it.
Speaker 2: Just do that, put in the effort. Similar to the
Speaker 2: missteps in casting, and like again like Tia Kuerra, like
Speaker 2: she's a great actor. You know, we're not impugning her
Speaker 2: talent or anything like that. It's just like native characters
Speaker 2: should be played by native actors. Similar to that is
Speaker 2: the conception.
Speaker 3: Of this movie and who it was made by not
Speaker 3: specific to Hawaii at all. Right, they originally wanted to
Speaker 3: set the movie in Kansas.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Oh I didn't read that. Yeah, So I
Speaker 2: I'm pulling a lot of this from an oral history
Speaker 2: of Lelo and Stitch from Vulture. So basically, co director
Speaker 2: Chris Sanders had an idea for a story about an
Speaker 2: alien who lived in the forest among animals, and then
Speaker 2: a creative director at Disney, Thomas Chumaker, was like, okay,
Speaker 2: but what if you made it an alien living among people.
Speaker 2: That's more interesting than an alien living among animals. And
Speaker 2: also the forest is just too much green, so we
Speaker 2: need more color. So Chris Sanders responds to that in
Speaker 2: this Oral History by saying, quote, I had a map
Speaker 2: of Hawaii up on my wall. I'd been on vacation there.
Speaker 2: One day. I thought, wait a minute, why couldn't I
Speaker 2: just set it there. I didn't know anyone at that
Speaker 2: point who was Hawaiian that I could consult with, so
Speaker 2: I turned to a road map and I just started
Speaker 2: pulling names. I found Lilo Lane, and I found the
Speaker 2: word nanny on there, and these sounded like names to me.
Speaker 2: Then I went away to Palm Springs and spent a
Speaker 2: week hold up in a hotel room unquote. And then
Speaker 2: it was there that he, I think, started developing the
Speaker 2: story and then like created the design of Stitch. He
Speaker 2: like did sketches and build a model and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: So basically he was just like, hmm, I've been to
Speaker 2: Hawaii on vacation. What if I just pull random names
Speaker 2: from a map and then I make a movie about it.
Speaker 4: We got half of that correct. Nney is like a
Speaker 4: very common name here. I've never met anyone named Lilo.
Speaker 4: That's a very unique name. Also, I love like reading
Speaker 4: online where people like say, oh, Lilo means lost or
Speaker 4: to become lost, and she kind of becomes lost. Well,
Speaker 4: there's another meaning to lelo, and it means to like
Speaker 4: transform or to become something. So if I say, like
Speaker 4: ualilo vau e koca, that means I became a doctor,
Speaker 4: so like becoming something. So I think that's kind of cool.
Speaker 4: I don't know if they like named her that because
Speaker 4: of those meanings. I think again, just ohlo Land. Yeah,
Speaker 4: Lelo is like a verb, so I'm like, huh, you
Speaker 4: name your well Actually, you know, in our language, like
Speaker 4: verbs can be nouns and nouns can be verbs depending
Speaker 4: on like how you use them. But yeah, I've never
Speaker 4: met I know a lot of nunnies, but I don't
Speaker 4: know a lot of Leelo's. I don't think I know
Speaker 4: anyone named Leelo.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it did seem like a kind of randomly lucky guess. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The documentary I watched also expanded on the fact that
Speaker 3: they were looking for up until this decision to set
Speaker 3: it in Hawaii was to put it somewhere that there
Speaker 3: just wasn't a major city, or like there wasn't a
Speaker 3: huge commercial airport so that Stitch could sort of not
Speaker 3: be detected for a while, I guess. But they originally
Speaker 3: said it in Kansas, but apparently they were like, that's
Speaker 3: too much like the Wizard of Oz. Pick another location,
Speaker 3: and that's how this so it is like it's so
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm certainly very happy that they landed on
Speaker 3: the location that they did, but it was so yeah,
Speaker 3: just white director randomness, just looking around being like well,
Speaker 3: and it's like those are generally the people making some
Speaker 3: of the more big creative decisions in children's media, and
Speaker 3: like we've talked about a million times on this show,
Speaker 3: even when I mean these these moves, I guess, like
Speaker 3: this era of Disney is so wildly hid and miss
Speaker 3: and it's clear that Disney's priorities are still based on
Speaker 3: all of these recent controversies, not in the right place,
Speaker 3: because they're never the first option is never to hire
Speaker 3: a native Hawaiian director. For a project like this, which
Speaker 3: is the clear answer is like a native Hawaiian director
Speaker 3: who is excited about doing this, like that is it's
Speaker 3: the easiest thing in the world, and.
Speaker 4: They have resources to look for a native Hawaiian director,
Speaker 4: Like I was actually talking to my husband about this,
Speaker 4: I'm like, why don't they because we have I don't
Speaker 4: know if you guys have heard of HIFF before. Are
Speaker 4: at the Hawaii International Film Festival? Oh yes, yeah, I
Speaker 4: don't know why they can't find directors from there who've
Speaker 4: like I don't know, I think there's an award show
Speaker 4: for him. I'm sorry, I've never watched a lot of
Speaker 4: it because always.
Speaker 3: It's like it's almost like they definitely could.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they could do that, or if they wanted to
Speaker 4: have a more like established director that has more experience
Speaker 4: and all that, that is like Pacific Islander. I was
Speaker 4: even saying, why didn't they get Taika why TD to
Speaker 4: direct this? Because he he's Pacific Islander, he's Maudi and
Speaker 4: he is definitely aware of Hawaiian culture and more culturally sensitive,
Speaker 4: and but I think it would have been nice to
Speaker 4: have like a native Hawaiian director or someone who is
Speaker 4: like Pacific Islander.
Speaker 3: But spoiler alert, it's directed by.
Speaker 2: A white guy again, anyah, like director, screenwriter for an
Speaker 2: animated film, like I don't know exactly who all is
Speaker 2: responsible for like character design, but whoever's like designing characters
Speaker 2: like these should be native Hawaii people and Okay, So
Speaker 2: Chris Sanders another quote from him, Dean and I have
Speaker 2: no business telling a Hawaiian story. You can tell stories
Speaker 2: like that, but then you find people who do have
Speaker 2: a business there. So we reached out to as many
Speaker 2: people as we could that lived there, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're right, you don't have a business telling a Hawaiian story,
Speaker 2: but you did it anyway.
Speaker 3: Why Well, I guess that's a I'm interested in your
Speaker 3: feelings on that, lily, because I feel like there's so
Speaker 3: many like especially because this is like two thousand and
Speaker 3: two where there's like Disney is not hiring native Hawaiian
Speaker 3: directors to direct any project, and so it's like it
Speaker 3: feels to me as I was researching it, it's like
Speaker 3: the only way that a major Disney movie would take
Speaker 3: place in Hawaii in this era is if one of
Speaker 3: these random white guy directors chose that and then tried
Speaker 3: to allocate research towards it, which is absolutely not shouldn't
Speaker 3: be the practice or the solution. But it feels like
Speaker 3: for the time that is the most that was being
Speaker 3: done within the major Hollywood system. So I don't even want, like,
Speaker 3: I like, obviously the co directors of this movie, no,
Speaker 3: they have no business making a Hawaiian movie, but they
Speaker 3: I don't know, Like I don't. It's such a weird,
Speaker 3: fraught topic because I do. I was honestly surprised based
Speaker 3: on other, you know, Disney movies we've covered that they
Speaker 3: did research at all and the bars on the absolute
Speaker 3: fucking floor, it's beneath the floor at the bars in
Speaker 3: Hell for this sort of research. But I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm interested in both your opinions on that because it's
Speaker 3: I totally agree with that you're saying, Kaitlin, And I'm
Speaker 3: also like, I don't know how else a movie like
Speaker 3: a Disney movie would have taken place in Hawaii in
Speaker 3: two thousand and two.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think a lot of it is just it's Hollywood.
Speaker 4: It's like a there's a certain network of people, so
Speaker 4: they want people that they know to direct. I also
Speaker 4: think a lot of it is like white savior complex
Speaker 4: that they think, like, we don't have the right to
Speaker 4: tell this Hawaiian story, but we're gonna try really hard
Speaker 4: and really like we respect it so much. I'm like, well,
Speaker 4: if you really respect it, then you would know that
Speaker 4: it's not your place, and that you don't need to
Speaker 4: be the center of attention, and that you can use
Speaker 4: your resources to let someone of that culture, of that
Speaker 4: place tell it. But yeah, I noticed, especially within my
Speaker 4: studies in Hawaiian theater versus like I grew up with
Speaker 4: a very Western like theater background, you know, I did
Speaker 4: a bunch of Shakespeare, learned Tennessee Williams all of that,
Speaker 4: and just with my upbringing in Western theater, it's very
Speaker 4: much about like I'm the star, I want to be
Speaker 4: this main character. I want the lights on me, I
Speaker 4: want you know, I want the attention. But then in
Speaker 4: Hawaiian theater, it's all about telling the story. It's about
Speaker 4: the characters. What is the message you're trying to convey? Why? Now?
Speaker 4: Why me? All of that and a lot of in
Speaker 4: Hawaii theater, we're telling stories about our ancestors or like
Speaker 4: our home. So it just kind of made me rethink about,
Speaker 4: like why am I an actress. Why do I perform?
Speaker 4: Is it because I want to be the attention or
Speaker 4: is it because I want to help tell meaningful stories
Speaker 4: to help inspire people? And I think it would be
Speaker 4: great of a lot of like you know, these like
Speaker 4: Western media companies like Hollywood and Disney focused on that
Speaker 4: focused on the storytelling and not about the fame and
Speaker 4: the fortune, which they're not the ego, but they're not
Speaker 4: going to do that, yeah, because the part of that
Speaker 4: they have to like reflect and think, maybe I'm not
Speaker 4: the best person to tell this story, so whop, I'm
Speaker 4: not going to get the oscar for this film. But
Speaker 4: I mean it's like you can still be a part
Speaker 4: of it, but just you should have like.
Speaker 2: You can finance it.
Speaker 4: Sir financed it, or like you know, if you want
Speaker 4: to have like multi because like also I think about
Speaker 4: in Hawaii theater, there's not always one director. There's always
Speaker 4: like multiple directors having like multiple different perspectives. And I
Speaker 4: don't know why like we need to have like films
Speaker 4: with just one director. And I would love to see
Speaker 4: more films where they have like it's more of like
Speaker 4: a collaboration and like a team. You don't need to
Speaker 4: have like, yeah, the director, because again it's about ego.
Speaker 4: It's like I want to win the Oscar for Best Directing.
Speaker 3: Not me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like, well, why why do you care about
Speaker 4: an award and not about the movie you're trying to tell.
Speaker 2: Telling the best story you can tell, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like, yeah, and they absolutely should have advocated
Speaker 3: for a native Hawaiian director, and even, like you're saying, Lily,
Speaker 3: even as a co director, that would have made worlds
Speaker 3: more sense then, because I feel like that became the
Speaker 3: Disney formula that did carry through if I'm remembering correctly,
Speaker 3: that carried through to Mowana as well. We still have
Speaker 3: two white co directors directing an animated movie about Polynesian culture,
Speaker 3: but the sort of safe guard, which I'm glad it's there,
Speaker 3: but it can't be the like the only way that
Speaker 3: Native cultures are involved in the portrayal of their own
Speaker 3: culture is like they're like, well, we allocated a lot
Speaker 3: of money and time to research, and it's like but
Speaker 3: but it always has to be inclusion at the top
Speaker 3: levels or it doesn't sustain like.
Speaker 4: Ever, Yeah, they definitely in Mowana, they definitely did like
Speaker 4: a lot better. I remember watching like this a lot
Speaker 4: of document about their creation of it, and I do
Speaker 4: I do appreciate that they actually spent years traveling to
Speaker 4: I don't know if those months or years, but like
Speaker 4: traveling to the different Pacific islands and meeting with the
Speaker 4: community and learning how to wayfind or learning how to
Speaker 4: make tapa, making food, fishing, performing arts and stuff. Again
Speaker 4: too white directors and all that, But I actually was
Speaker 4: really surprised that in their whole team they actually also
Speaker 4: had like Pacific Islanders in their trying to help make decisions,
Speaker 4: although they weren't allowed to make like final decisions. And
Speaker 4: I think there were some parts where they were trying
Speaker 4: to like push really hard to have these certain things.
Speaker 4: But Disney, of course is like new but whatever. And
Speaker 4: then for the music, I love how they had Tevoka
Speaker 4: in there, and of course lind Manuel Miranda, which I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 4: that's random because he's not Pacifica at all, but I mean, yeah,
Speaker 4: he makes good music, so why not. I would have
Speaker 4: been nice in like, we know the way, if I
Speaker 4: didn't have to hear his voice, I would have loved
Speaker 4: to hear, like hear Opataia's voice, an actual Pacifica in there.
Speaker 4: But that's why I listened to the Hawaiian dub or
Speaker 4: like the Maudi or Tsan dub of the films because i'mlike,
Speaker 4: this sounds nicer, you're actually hearing the music in there.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I remember that like Mwana kind of especially
Speaker 4: with the casting of like All Pacific Islanders, with the
Speaker 4: exception of like what's his name who plays Hey, Hey,
Speaker 4: it's like that Tutic guy forgot oh Alentudic.
Speaker 3: Yeah he's great, he's great.
Speaker 4: But that's the standard, like wanna really set the standard
Speaker 4: of like, Okay, when you're gonna make these films that
Speaker 4: have cultural like depictions, you should cast people accordingly. So
Speaker 4: they did that with like Cocode, they did that with
Speaker 4: like Encanto. They did not do that with like Ryan
Speaker 4: the Last Try Again famously, But yeah, like you said,
Speaker 4: it's kind of hit or miss. It's like you think
Speaker 4: they're doing really well, but then they like flop, and
Speaker 4: then they do really well and then they like flop again.
Speaker 4: I'm like, they just need to find the correct formula
Speaker 4: and just go with it, like stop trying to I
Speaker 4: don't know. But and then I was really looking forward
Speaker 4: to like the live action because I thought, oh, well,
Speaker 4: I mean, this could have been a great opportunity to
Speaker 4: correct some of the mistakes in the animated film and
Speaker 4: to cast native Hawaiian more Native Hawaiian actors and actresses
Speaker 4: in here. But then of course all the casting controversies
Speaker 4: and then who's directing.
Speaker 3: It and all that.
Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, no, this is this is not it.
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna keep watching the animated film.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it is frustrating to think that the two
Speaker 3: thousand and two version may very well be done more
Speaker 3: thoughtfully than a twenty twenty four version. But it goes
Speaker 3: back to like, if there was inclusion, I feel like
Speaker 3: Disney would not be so consistently flopping on these issues
Speaker 3: all the fucking time if there was inclusion at the
Speaker 3: highest levels. But because it's still a bunch of largely
Speaker 3: mostly white men, but also why women in these positions
Speaker 3: that they're never gonna stop flopping And it's like it's it,
Speaker 3: It drives me absolutely up a wall, and it's like
Speaker 3: you're literally doing worse that the business you want to
Speaker 3: be in charge of because you're so fucking like eurocentric weirdos.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they should have done it, like turning red for example,
Speaker 4: like having a Chinese actress, and she has done I
Speaker 4: think that ball picks our short. It's with a dumb
Speaker 4: blingh Oh my god. That was so cute. But like,
Speaker 4: you know, taking someone who is like a smaller director
Speaker 4: and then giving her an opportunity and really depicting the culture,
Speaker 4: having someone of that culture also with the same lived
Speaker 4: experiences being a immigrant in Canada Canadia to tell the
Speaker 4: story and.
Speaker 2: And it shows in the mood like movies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, still one of the biggest crimes of twenty twenty
Speaker 3: two that Turning Red didn't get like a huge theater release. Yeah,
Speaker 3: them putting that right on Disney. Plus, I was like,
Speaker 3: I will never forgive ever.
Speaker 2: Come on. I loved it.
Speaker 4: I watched it so many times though, I'm like, it
Speaker 4: was so good. And of course people hated it because
Speaker 4: it was about teenage girls and anything about girls as
Speaker 4: poopy and all that.
Speaker 2: I'm like, a movie about periods, and it's like, that
Speaker 2: is not what the movie's about. Even Yeah, it was
Speaker 2: like metaphors.
Speaker 4: It was like two minutes talking about pyramids, pyramids, periods. Sorry,
Speaker 4: we in some pigeon we'd call periods like pyramids. I
Speaker 4: hear my mom call it a lot. Oh let's get
Speaker 4: your pyramid.
Speaker 3: That I was babysitting a kid during my friend's wedding
Speaker 3: last year who's loved churning Red And I was like, hey, Maya,
Speaker 3: I was alive in two thousand and two, and she
Speaker 3: was like, oh, she's disgusting. I was like, all right, cool,
Speaker 3: never mind, I will see myself out.
Speaker 4: Oh that's interesting. Yeah, it does take place in two
Speaker 4: thousand and two, the same yeah year that Leelo and
Speaker 4: Stitch I think also takes place as well.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, Wow, it's all connected, Lily.
Speaker 2: Since you brought up the music in Mowana, I was
Speaker 2: curious on your thoughts on the music in Leelo and
Speaker 2: Stitch because there's also some interesting kind of like behind
Speaker 2: the scenes things happening there where. So Alan Silvestri was
Speaker 2: hired to be the composer for this movie. You'll never
Speaker 2: believe it. Another white guy who I'm actually a big
Speaker 2: fan of. He what is he fam for me? I
Speaker 2: would say he's most famous for the Back to the
Speaker 2: Future score, but he's got a pretty prolific career. He
Speaker 2: works with Robert Semechis a lot, but you know, probably
Speaker 2: not the right person to compose a film with a
Speaker 2: lot of native Hawaiian music in it. No obviously, and
Speaker 2: it seems like the directors were like trying to do
Speaker 2: some research and people were like trying. But when you
Speaker 2: read this oral history, you come upon a lot of
Speaker 2: comments from the composer and the directors who were like,
Speaker 2: oh I went to a Virgin megastore looking for music,
Speaker 2: specifically Hawaiian music, and you could find like two CDs
Speaker 2: of Hawaiian music. Oh see.
Speaker 3: I felt like that quote. I mean, not to excuse
Speaker 3: any of their behavior or hiring away guy, but I
Speaker 3: feel like that was intended to illustrate the fact that
Speaker 3: Hawaiian music was extremely underrepresented in in the mainland US
Speaker 3: at that time. It was like he was trying to
Speaker 3: do research and like literally could not because it was
Speaker 3: so underrepresented.
Speaker 4: Which is probably why they should have just went to
Speaker 4: Haveaii and find native native Hawaiian musicians, which they did,
Speaker 4: because yeah, I mean they did for like the Kamehameha
Speaker 4: Children's Choir. I really liked that they were in there
Speaker 4: because again, Kamehameha schools are all about the music and
Speaker 4: the singing. They always have like a song contest like
Speaker 4: every year, which if no one knows that I highly recommended.
Speaker 4: These kids are so talented and you know, singing Hawaiian music,
Speaker 4: dancing hula, just honoring the culture. But yeah, I find
Speaker 4: that definitely. I mean, I liked the music. I like
Speaker 4: the music. It's very catchy. It's definitely very Elvis Presley,
Speaker 4: which I know a lot of people kind of associate
Speaker 4: Elvis Presley with Hawaii for some reason because of that
Speaker 4: movie or something Blue Have II and all that.
Speaker 3: Honestly didn't know that because I hadn't seen I mean,
Speaker 3: I haven't seen I don't know if I've seen any
Speaker 3: Elvis movies. But I was because that always felt very
Speaker 3: random to me. But then when I was researching for
Speaker 3: this episode, I was like, I don't, I mean, I don't.
Speaker 3: Maybe did did that feel like a choice that made
Speaker 3: sense to you?
Speaker 4: It's a very it's a very boomer way of thinking
Speaker 4: of like music, because I'm like, not a lot of
Speaker 4: I mean, again, Elvis is a very talented guy. We
Speaker 4: grew up listening to his music. It's very catchy. But
Speaker 4: you know, he's also racist and you know, has a
Speaker 4: very problematic history, So I would not really associate with
Speaker 4: them with Hawaiian culture. I'm surprised they didn't like put
Speaker 4: Israel Kamako Vivole on there, butrough it is. He's the
Speaker 4: one that sang like Somewhere over the Rainbow and all that.
Speaker 4: He was the big guy, beautiful singer. My father in
Speaker 4: law actually went to school with him, which is really funny.
Speaker 4: I'm like small community here. He was always playing the ukulele,
Speaker 4: always singing. So rest and peace esparta is. But but
Speaker 4: we have musicians here. I don't know why they didn't
Speaker 4: like put like our music on there, especially like when
Speaker 4: you come to have III and when you go to
Speaker 4: like Waikiki and other touristy areas, it's like you get
Speaker 4: some of like the Elvis Presley or like Hapa Howle
Speaker 4: like music, but you also get a lot of Hawaiian
Speaker 4: musicians in there, and I noticed that the tourists really
Speaker 4: like listening more to like the Hawaiian music. And it
Speaker 4: would have been a great opportunity to represent Hawaiian musicians
Speaker 4: and Hawaii music. But I think the only extent was
Speaker 4: again the Kamehameha School choir. I watched it behind the
Speaker 4: scenes of them like singing in the studio and it
Speaker 4: was really cute. I'd mentioned earlier the beginning song with
Speaker 4: Himele Nolilo that's an actual song or a chant in
Speaker 4: honor of King Kalakkawa. But Kumu Markeli Homalu like changed
Speaker 4: the tune and all that and the music to make
Speaker 4: it more like I think palatable. Big quotes palatable for
Speaker 4: like an American because they don't want to hear like
Speaker 4: chanting or whatever. But that would have been cool to hear.
Speaker 2: That been so cool. Yeah, Well the rest of that
Speaker 2: quote was that, so this is Chris Sanders talking where
Speaker 2: he's like, we went to a music store and tried
Speaker 2: to find Hawaiian CDs uh and then he goes on
Speaker 2: to say we found out that like that, there were
Speaker 2: so few because the parameters are very clear as to
Speaker 2: what you can and can't do with this music. We
Speaker 2: wanted to orchestrate this music. We wanted to take these
Speaker 2: Hawaiian themes and make them movie scale, and that's a
Speaker 2: bit of a no no. And then Alan Silvestri says,
Speaker 2: we wanted to bring in this more traditional Hawaiian influence
Speaker 2: to some of the songs, and we discovered there is
Speaker 2: a very deep sacred aspect to real traditional Hawaiian music.
Speaker 2: It's a very cared for tradition from Hawaii. And it's like,
Speaker 2: so if these are things that you discover after you've
Speaker 2: decided to set the movie in a certain place and
Speaker 2: depict a certain culture, like that means you're out of
Speaker 2: your element.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's nothing, there's nothing wrong with like knowing that
Speaker 4: you don't know everything and that it's okay to allocate
Speaker 4: like certain duties or like have other people like help
Speaker 4: with it, because guarantee there would have been like a
Speaker 4: lot of kumuhula here or like you know, Hawaiian music
Speaker 4: practitioners and women like yeah, we'll tell you what songs
Speaker 4: you can use, what you can't use and all that
Speaker 4: because they've worked on films before, they've worked in TVs,
Speaker 4: like they they know what is like Kapu forbidden or
Speaker 4: Noah more free.
Speaker 3: And it's all the more frustrating to know that that
Speaker 3: is still actively happening. I don't I don't know much
Speaker 3: about what the situation is with music composition for the
Speaker 3: live action, but it's like the problems are still the same, Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it yeah, it's it's it's really frustrating, and especially
Speaker 3: to hear in the especially in the twenty years later
Speaker 3: oral history that it's like, Yeah, I just wish that
Speaker 3: it's like, I don't know, there's like a defensive nature
Speaker 3: to the way that the talking and it could have
Speaker 3: just like the sentence can.
Speaker 2: Just end it.
Speaker 3: We didn't really have a right to tell this story,
Speaker 3: and maybe even an expression of have you reflected on that,
Speaker 3: how would you do it differently?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: Like that can be instructive, but they just sort of are,
Speaker 3: like it felt more defensive than reflective, which is always
Speaker 3: sort of like a frustrating thing to come up against.
Speaker 2: Right, Can we talk about the characters? Yeah, I love
Speaker 2: them Lelo and Nanni. I mean just from a representation standpoint,
Speaker 2: and I'm curious to hear your thoughts, of course, Lily.
Speaker 2: But I think there's like interesting things happening in this
Speaker 2: movie where you know, you have indigenous characters living in
Speaker 2: the modern world and dealing with everyday issues, which shouldn't
Speaker 2: be that rare of a thing. But so many movies
Speaker 2: about Native people are set in the past, and of
Speaker 2: course those stories are important too, but I think that
Speaker 2: contributes to a tendency that I think a lot of
Speaker 2: non native people have where they just don't really know
Speaker 2: anything about the lives and experiences of Native people, or
Speaker 2: even worse that they are not even really sure that
Speaker 2: Native people exist like in the US special.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they talk about us like we're part of the past.
Speaker 4: And what's even worse is when I hear a lot
Speaker 4: of non native Hawaiian people say like, well, you guys
Speaker 4: are mixed, so you're you guys are not pure Native Hawaiian,
Speaker 4: so you guys don't count. And I'm like, that's a
Speaker 4: very colonizer mindset because a Native Hawaiians never cared about
Speaker 4: blood quantum or even like phenotypes, about what you look like.
Speaker 4: It's about genealogy and how connected you are with the culture.
Speaker 4: Are even our elite are like royal members didn't care
Speaker 4: about blood quantum. The next Queen of Hawaii would have
Speaker 4: been Princess cut you Aleney, who is half Hawaiian and
Speaker 4: half Scottish, and they're not like, you can't be the
Speaker 4: queen because you're only half. And then we had Prince
Speaker 4: Kuhio who created the Hawaiian Homesteads Act where he wanted
Speaker 4: to give like land to Native Hawaiians and at first
Speaker 4: he didn't set a blood quantum because he didn't want to.
Speaker 4: It's just it passes down in your family. But of
Speaker 4: course the US government was like, you need to put
Speaker 4: a blood quantum, so he thought of like the lowest
Speaker 4: one possible. He was like, okay, one and a thirty
Speaker 4: second then and they said that's too low, so they
Speaker 4: basically forced him to go half Hawaiian. So like, even then,
Speaker 4: I wouldn't be I'm not qualified to apply for homestead
Speaker 4: land because I not enough. But again, like we don't
Speaker 4: care about blood quantum. It's it's a colonizer mindset. So
Speaker 4: I've had conversations with non Hawaiian people who say, like, well,
Speaker 4: you guys are only mixed, so you guys aren't even
Speaker 4: considered native Hawaiian.
Speaker 2: I'm like, ridiculous.
Speaker 4: You don't know our lives and how we connect with
Speaker 4: our culture. Culture is more deeper than that. If we
Speaker 4: just start telling people that they can't learn their language
Speaker 4: or their culture because they don't look a certain way
Speaker 4: or because their percentage is too low, then you would
Speaker 4: see a bunch of cultures going extinct today because people
Speaker 4: are people are going to mix. People are going to
Speaker 4: be mixed in the future, whether people like it or not.
Speaker 4: But culture gets passed down.
Speaker 2: It's almost like blaming people for being colonized.
Speaker 4: Like it's like, yeah, like my aunts, I didn't choose
Speaker 4: first of all. I mean, I didn't choose to be
Speaker 4: mixed fall So I love that I can come from
Speaker 4: different cultures and that they're all part of me. I'm
Speaker 4: not only this much Hawaiian or I'm not only this
Speaker 4: much Korean or this much Filipino. I am Hawaiian and
Speaker 4: Korean and Filipino and this and that and whatnot. And
Speaker 4: that's that's how we think here. And I mean, I'm
Speaker 4: married to a Japanese man and our kids are probably
Speaker 4: going to be like more Japanese, but like how I
Speaker 4: raise them is still going to be Hawaiian. They're still
Speaker 4: going to live here, They're still going to be of me.
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: So yeah, like there should be no punitive aspect to
Speaker 3: who you are, Like that's just yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like I'm sorry, it's my right arm Hawaiian then,
Speaker 4: and I think like my pinky toe is Irish or
Speaker 4: something like. It's yeah, if you think about it that way,
Speaker 4: it's silly. It's like it's all of you. Your ancestors
Speaker 4: live through you fully, and you are the representation of
Speaker 4: your ancestors. So don't say that you're only this much
Speaker 4: or only this much. You are that much and you're
Speaker 4: still that, You're still you. Yeah. Other than that, yeah, representation.
Speaker 4: I think they're beautifully animated. I love how they look,
Speaker 4: and you know, I feel like they really much represent
Speaker 4: real people who live here. I remember one time I
Speaker 4: was watching Lelo and Stitch with like my friends in
Speaker 4: high school, and there was a scene where like when
Speaker 4: Nanny's trying to find Lilo and then she almost gets
Speaker 4: run over by cobra bubbles and she was like, what
Speaker 4: do you go? You stupid and then like kicks the
Speaker 4: car and my friends kind of looked at me, they
Speaker 4: are like, you are so like that. I'm like, what me,
Speaker 4: I don't have anger issues? I kind of do, but
Speaker 4: I love that. It's like, how, you know, yeah, we're
Speaker 4: very It's kind of a running joke here about like
Speaker 4: how Hawaiian women are, like Polynesian women are very scary
Speaker 4: and like hot headed, but like not in like a
Speaker 4: negative way, like but like as in they're powerful, don't
Speaker 4: mess with them sort of way. And I am proud
Speaker 4: to reclaim that my husband knows don't mess with me.
Speaker 4: People know don't mess with me.
Speaker 3: I love and with Nanni's character. I mean, it's so
Speaker 3: I really love how she's written and how she's performed
Speaker 3: in spite of everything we've talked about so far, because
Speaker 3: it's like she is. It's so weird because in moments,
Speaker 3: like there's some moments where we were like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: she's nineteen, and I feel like that comes through in
Speaker 3: certain moments where she's doing everything she can to protect Lilo.
Speaker 3: She has to said Leo, oh my god.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Not Leroy, No, not Leroy and Stitch inferior, but Nanni's character.
Speaker 3: I mean Lelo and Nanni. It's kind of like it's
Speaker 3: I don't want to have it be a contest because
Speaker 3: they're both so wonderful in such different ways. But like Nanni,
Speaker 3: I feel like it's one of the more complex Disney
Speaker 3: characters that we encounter period because we're like watching her navigate,
Speaker 3: not only her and I feel like this didn't resonate
Speaker 3: for me when I was a kid, because I was
Speaker 3: so like, it's the Lelo show, baby, because you see
Speaker 3: Lelo active mourning her parents, who it seems has died
Speaker 3: fairly recently. Yeah, and that also ties into why she's
Speaker 3: not fitting in at school at this time because Nanni says,
Speaker 3: they don't know what to say, like they don't know
Speaker 3: how to communicate with her, and.
Speaker 4: Yeah, kids give me mean, oh my god, like.
Speaker 2: They Myrtle alert.
Speaker 3: Yeah see it with.
Speaker 4: Myrtle Myrtle and her little mean girl minions.
Speaker 2: Sorry I brought opinions again.
Speaker 3: Yes, but but I mean, but Nanni is also having
Speaker 3: to deal with this loss. But she can't even really
Speaker 3: she doesn't have time to grapple with that grief because
Speaker 3: she has to navigate this abrupt switch from sibling to parent.
Speaker 3: And I feel like it's just done so well where
Speaker 3: their sibling moments are so sibling, and then you see
Speaker 3: like Nanni almost have to like remind herself of like,
Speaker 3: oh no, I have to be a parent now.
Speaker 4: And she's so nurturing, like she is so loving, and
Speaker 4: just the sacrifices she has to make, Like when I
Speaker 4: was rewatching it with my husband, I pointed out, like
Speaker 4: she has like surfing trophies in the bag. She was
Speaker 4: like a professional surfer and she had to give all
Speaker 4: of that up so she can take care of her sister. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and it's just yeah, just imagine being like a nineteen
Speaker 4: year old, you know, just kind of living your life,
Speaker 4: like you have a six year old sister whatever. Your
Speaker 4: parents are taking care of her, but you know, you're
Speaker 4: like at that age where you're more independent and you
Speaker 4: do things, and then all of a sudden, now you
Speaker 4: have to like drop everything and take care of your
Speaker 4: kid's sister because there's no other adult that can take
Speaker 4: care of them, which is kind of sad to think about,
Speaker 4: Like they don't have like aunties or uncles that can
Speaker 4: like help, or grandparents or anything, kind of showing like
Speaker 4: how small their family is. But yeah, and like her
Speaker 4: just kind of being the only one who understands le
Speaker 4: Lo as well, Like how we mentioned earlier with like
Speaker 4: her wanting to name Stitch Stitch and then the lady
Speaker 4: tried to tell her that's not real name Nanny, Like
Speaker 4: you know, she protects her also, like when Nanny gets
Speaker 4: fired from the LUO and Lelo was like concerned that
Speaker 4: it was her fault, but then Nanny was like, oh no,
Speaker 4: the manager is part of the evil vampires that wanted
Speaker 4: me to join their legion. I'm like she does so
Speaker 4: much for li Lo and protects.
Speaker 2: Her, and which also shows that they're like it's so
Speaker 2: clear that they're sisters because they both have these like
Speaker 2: weird little like they're they're goofy, they're silly, they like,
Speaker 2: they're very creative, they have like a very active imaginations.
Speaker 3: And then was like I knew it.
Speaker 2: I love Oh, such a good joke.
Speaker 4: It's like, yeah, it reminds me of like my relationship
Speaker 4: with my sisters too, Like we'll be fighting and we'll
Speaker 4: be hating each other's guts, but then when one of
Speaker 4: us is in trouble, we drop everything to be there
Speaker 4: for each other. So really depicting that, you know, sister
Speaker 4: relationship very well. And yeah, and just also shedding light
Speaker 4: on a lot of issues that we face in our
Speaker 4: community with you know, over tourism, environmental damages, separating Indigenous
Speaker 4: children from their homes, the foster care system, the whole.
Speaker 4: Like again like cobra bubbles approaching us like an American
Speaker 4: government official.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, a lot of weird pros. It's I guess
Speaker 3: that's something that hit weird for me is that cobra bubbles.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess it feels very two thousand and
Speaker 3: two also, but like how cobra bubbles and and I
Speaker 3: guess the Russian scientist alien they get to be a
Speaker 3: part of the family at the end, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: I feel like they haven't really earned it. I don't know,
Speaker 3: I don't know if I would want them around, But
Speaker 3: I mean, especially Cobra Bubbles, who is like this representation
Speaker 3: not just of the CIA, it turns out one of
Speaker 3: the most easily hated organizations on the planet, but all
Speaker 3: so the fact that he represents the foster care system
Speaker 3: and is still treated pretty like more than neutrallly, like
Speaker 3: under sympathetically in the end, even though he was about
Speaker 3: to like take her a separate in an indigenous family permanently,
Speaker 3: and you I mean not that this is like an
Speaker 3: accurate way that a social worker would spend their day,
Speaker 3: but the fact that he clearly had time and resources
Speaker 3: to help them and instead use the same time and
Speaker 3: resources to separate them, which I know is something that happens,
Speaker 3: but if you're going to like portray that, I feel
Speaker 3: like it should be with the appropriate amount of criticism.
Speaker 3: But instead they're like, and then he just sort of
Speaker 3: kept coming over and hanging out, and You're like, I
Speaker 3: don't know, yeah, I mean, he seems I loving rams,
Speaker 3: but it just was weird, right. It seemed like he
Speaker 3: was framed as a as a villain, not the villain necessarily,
Speaker 3: but like as a an antagonistic force throughout the movie.
Speaker 3: But he gets that redemption at the end out of
Speaker 3: nowhere for no reason, which yeah, I didn't understand why.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like it would have been nice if he could
Speaker 4: have acknowledged something like, wow, none of this was your fall.
Speaker 4: It was literally aliens just coming in and like making
Speaker 4: it more difficult for you, which I think it's a
Speaker 4: pretty I was talking about this with my husband, a
Speaker 4: very interesting like kind of symbolism of just like indigenous
Speaker 4: issues where we often get blamed for our problems, like
Speaker 4: for poverty, homelessness, unemployment and all that, but not knowing
Speaker 4: just kind of the deeper issues in society, which is
Speaker 4: like capitalism, which is white supremacy, you know, settler colonialism,
Speaker 4: and when you look at how Viti over half of
Speaker 4: the homeless population is Native Hawaiians and we would often
Speaker 4: get blamed for it. It's like, oh, well, they're just
Speaker 4: lazy or they just don't try hard enough, or they
Speaker 4: want to spend all their money on drugs or whatever, like, well, no,
Speaker 4: it's because you forced an American style of government and
Speaker 4: American way of living on an indigenous nation that has
Speaker 4: been living fine for years prior. But yeah, but it
Speaker 4: would have been interesting for I don't know, gone to
Speaker 4: and Cobra to be like, hey, we're sorry for one
Speaker 4: messing things up, but to also jumping to conclusions for
Speaker 4: things that were entirely out of your reach, not your faulty,
Speaker 4: love stitch, but it was kind of his fault. But yeah,
Speaker 4: he apologized, he did, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but yeah, I did think it was interesting how
Speaker 3: much is brought up, because there are issues that I've
Speaker 3: never seen in Disney movies or really much kids media
Speaker 3: in general, brought up in this movie. And so it's like,
Speaker 3: because it's happening, I guess, I mean, you would want
Speaker 3: a stronger commentary on it. And I feel like it
Speaker 3: would completely fit within the formula of what these movies are,
Speaker 3: and it would fit within the story and it would
Speaker 3: sort of serve I think, everyone better.
Speaker 2: But I don't know, And I think the movie strikes
Speaker 2: a nice balance of characters dealing with adversity, dealing with
Speaker 2: the effects of systemic issues that again are not at
Speaker 2: all their fault, particularly related to class and colonialism, but
Speaker 2: also seeing the main characters experience joy and love and
Speaker 2: happiness and just like that nice balance of like acknowledging,
Speaker 2: you know, injustices and systemic issues that bipoc people often
Speaker 2: deal with, but not like skewing so far into that
Speaker 2: where it becomes like tragedy porn, which a lot of
Speaker 2: movies go into that territory when it comes to stories
Speaker 2: about marginalized people.
Speaker 4: So yeah, and I love the moments where they have
Speaker 4: joy is always tied back to Hawaiian culture, like with
Speaker 4: hula and surfing and singing Hawaiian music. Yeah, just those
Speaker 4: things that really ground us and connect us as people
Speaker 4: to our ancestors and just kind of remind us like
Speaker 4: who we are and where we are and what our
Speaker 4: purpose is. Yeah, Like when Lilo was scared that she
Speaker 4: might not dance hula after she punched myrtle, like she
Speaker 4: was like so remorseful, like hula is, especially knowing that
Speaker 4: her mom was a hula dancer as well. So that's
Speaker 4: how she connects to her mother is through hula dancing. Yeah.
Speaker 4: In Hawaiian culture, it's like very patriarchal. A lot of
Speaker 4: the cultures passed down from the mother's side.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess going back to the sister relationship,
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know. I also think it's like
Speaker 3: very it's very rare to see sister relationships focused on
Speaker 3: in kids media, especially kids media of this time. We
Speaker 3: joke on the show all the time that ultimately every
Speaker 3: movie is somehow about fathers and sons. It's still basically true.
Speaker 3: I hear that that's what the New Mario movie is
Speaker 3: about somehow, which was like, oh my god, oh I
Speaker 3: haven't seen it. But someone was like, it's about fathers
Speaker 3: and sons. I was like, I guess, of course it is.
Speaker 3: It should just be about plumbers and plumbers. But anyways,
Speaker 3: but this movie I think meaningfully diverted from that. Again,
Speaker 3: not the original plan of the movie. The original plan
Speaker 3: of this movie was Stitch and a Little Boy in Kansas,
Speaker 3: but early I think, before the setting of the movie
Speaker 3: was switched. The gender of the child was switched, which
Speaker 3: again was unusual because I feel like we get with
Speaker 3: unless unless there's examples I'm not thinking of off the
Speaker 3: top of my head. You see, like teenage girls often
Speaker 3: and they're almost always white, and if they're not white,
Speaker 3: they're usually heavily sexualized in the Disney Princess kind of space.
Speaker 3: But you don't see just like kids who are girls
Speaker 3: very often. And I love that Leelo is such she's
Speaker 3: just like the most kid to ever kid. She's such
Speaker 3: a goofball and she's like so I don't know, she's
Speaker 3: like such a in some moments, she's such an open wound,
Speaker 3: but she's just like so emotionally like I just I
Speaker 3: just love her so much. And I like that they
Speaker 3: just feel very authentic to like how old they are
Speaker 3: and how they relate with each other, and their sisterhood
Speaker 3: drives this story and I feel like that's really rare
Speaker 3: and beautiful.
Speaker 4: People try to say that Frozen was the first film
Speaker 4: that depicted like sister relationships, Like no, it's Leland and Stitch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go back thirteen years.
Speaker 3: Obviously very biased, but like Frozen is not doing what
Speaker 3: Leelo and Stitch is doing or what Leelo and Nannie
Speaker 3: are doing, rather like it's just not that it's a contest,
Speaker 3: but it is. That is true, But Lula's ditch the
Speaker 3: movie did win. I wanted to talk character design in particular.
Speaker 3: There's one scene where it's the scene where Leelo comes
Speaker 3: in after having fed pudged the fish a peanut butter sandwich.
Speaker 3: And so she comes into the rehearsal and there are
Speaker 3: the four other small girls that she's trying to be
Speaker 3: friends with, and then there are five like teenage or
Speaker 3: young adult Native Hawaiian women who are all seemingly the
Speaker 3: same exact design.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with slightly.
Speaker 3: Different skin tone and hair color slash length. But I
Speaker 3: was like, that was pretty lazy, right, That's there's no
Speaker 3: body diversity in that group of women at all.
Speaker 2: Definitely not And I found that to be I was
Speaker 2: noticing little things like that throughout the movie. Oftentimes, unless
Speaker 2: there was an elderly Native woman, a lot of the
Speaker 2: Native Hawaiian characters who are like, you know that kind
Speaker 2: of like twenty ish years old, all seemed to have
Speaker 2: almost the same exact It's like they designed Nanny and
Speaker 2: then they just sort of like copy paste, copy pasted.
Speaker 4: I also want to make a comment on the hula
Speaker 4: attire that the Kai like the little girls wear. I
Speaker 4: will just say, no way would they be able to
Speaker 4: wear like a small tube top that shows their mid drift.
Speaker 4: That is not I would say like what the older
Speaker 4: women wear was a little bit more accurate, because like
Speaker 4: it's like covering their mid drift, but especially because when
Speaker 4: you're doing like Cohico traditional style, like you don't show
Speaker 4: your stomach. But yeah, I just thought, like, Okay, what
Speaker 4: the girls little girls are wearing is very kind of
Speaker 4: a white person's perspective, like touristy like postcard with the
Speaker 4: hula girl there. I'm like, that's not what we wear.
Speaker 4: Like the tea leaves, the tea leave skirts were good,
Speaker 4: and like also like they're they're lepol the head lay
Speaker 4: and like they're kind of the bracelets and the anklets.
Speaker 4: But yeah, at the red tube top. I know it's
Speaker 4: an iconic look for her character, but I'm like, never
Speaker 4: seen a child wear something like that.
Speaker 3: Probably for the best, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I do agree, But I also kind of knows,
Speaker 4: like in general, like nowadays, like I think when Disney
Speaker 4: makes like a lot of different characters, they do better
Speaker 4: at like kind of diversifying the faces. But I've just
Speaker 4: noticed like older Disney films like they would kind of
Speaker 4: use like the same face model for a lot of things,
Speaker 4: like the the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio has like the
Speaker 4: same face as Snow White.
Speaker 2: So yes, they actually they like recycled a lot of
Speaker 2: animation just because it, like, I mean, I get why
Speaker 2: like animation, especially when it was like hand.
Speaker 3: Drawn, which this movie is. I think that this is
Speaker 3: like the last major Disney movie to be almost completely
Speaker 3: two D animation. Dork, so I'm like, and the backgrounds
Speaker 3: were watercolors. Water color never happens and it's so beautiful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Princess and the Frog was a few years later,
Speaker 2: and yeah, I think there was like the last one
Speaker 2: in that kind of traditional the TWD and then then
Speaker 2: Entangled came after with.
Speaker 4: The three D. But yeah, it would have been nice
Speaker 4: to like see because when you go to like a helal,
Speaker 4: when you go to like a hula school, like, there
Speaker 4: are many different kinds of dancers there. Not all of
Speaker 4: them are Native Hawaiian as well, because anyone can dance
Speaker 4: hula as long as you just learn it properly. But yeah,
Speaker 4: you get plenty kind of dancers there, and if you
Speaker 4: watch like Marry Monarch as well, you see the performers
Speaker 4: not all of them look the same. Like you have
Speaker 4: very different looking dancers. But even just for Native wines
Speaker 4: in general, we come in different shades and appearances and
Speaker 4: different facial features, especially because like I said, a lot
Speaker 4: of us are mixed, so some of us will look
Speaker 4: more Asian, some of us will look a little bit
Speaker 4: more like white, some of us will look more Hawaiian. Whatever.
Speaker 4: That's kind of the beauty of it being here. It's
Speaker 4: just how unique and diverse it is. But yeah, they
Speaker 4: really set copy paste on the face.
Speaker 3: It's like egregious, and I'm like, yeah, I know what
Speaker 3: you're saying. It's like, yeah, they do that on like
Speaker 3: a lot of animated movies, where it's like, I think
Speaker 3: this movie was fairly low budget for how compared to
Speaker 3: it is, and they made it entirely in Florida, which
Speaker 3: can have been fun. Well Florida, oh boy, Yeah, they
Speaker 3: didn't even like they outsourced that. I saw like a
Speaker 3: lot of internal This was like the part of the
Speaker 3: oral history that isn't super relevant to our show, but
Speaker 3: I was like interested in it where they're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: we think the only reason this movie is good is
Speaker 3: because we didn't have to make it in California, so
Speaker 3: kind of no one was paying attention and like we
Speaker 3: were sort of left to our own. We were like
Speaker 3: marooned in Orlando, which sounds miserable, but I guess it.
Speaker 3: I guess it sort of worked out again, You're like,
Speaker 3: why were we not in Hawaii but they were, in
Speaker 3: fact in Orlando.
Speaker 2: Yeah, whoops. But yeah, just going back to the character
Speaker 2: design a little bit. I do appreciate that that Nanny
Speaker 2: and lie Low, and particularly Nanni because she has you know,
Speaker 2: she's an adult, that she's not designed like so many
Speaker 2: of the other Disney female characters of the past. We
Speaker 2: touched on this a little bit already, but you know,
Speaker 2: you have so many Disney princesses like Jasmine and Ariel
Speaker 2: and you know, so many others who were just like
Speaker 2: designed to be unrealistically thin.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, like their waist is the same size as
Speaker 4: their neck their.
Speaker 2: Neck, yeah, and like you mentioned Jamie, like so often
Speaker 2: hyper sexualized. So Nanni was not designed that way. And
Speaker 2: that was like a deliberate effort on the part of
Speaker 2: I guess to give the director, the co director, Chris Sanders,
Speaker 2: a little bit of credit. This is a quote from
Speaker 2: Pam Coates, who's the senior vice president of creative Development
Speaker 2: at Disney. She says, quote, I remember Chris Sanders when
Speaker 2: he was drawing Nanny. He asked our production supervisor to
Speaker 2: pose for him. Can you pose? Because I want to
Speaker 2: draw your legs on Nanny, which also is maybe a
Speaker 2: weird request. But anyway, she said, Chris just went there
Speaker 2: as opposed to having.
Speaker 3: Two weird for animation. But it depends on who's doing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and yeah, it depends on I guess the tone
Speaker 2: that you're asking with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've worked in animation and sometimes you're like, well,
Speaker 3: not for you, but sometimes you're like yeah, sure, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So she goes on to say, Chris just went
Speaker 2: there as opposed to having to have conversations about, hey,
Speaker 2: can you make a woman look like real women? So
Speaker 2: it seems like Chris Anders just instinctive was just like,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna like design a character who looks like a
Speaker 2: human and not like a Barbie doll kind of thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I love like her. I love her big
Speaker 4: calves because that is a very common trait among Pacific
Speaker 4: Islander women as well. We're not skinny, and a lot
Speaker 4: of my Native Hawaiian friends and just Pacific Islander friends
Speaker 4: in general, we talk about like how when we saw Nanny,
Speaker 4: we like, we're like, oh my gosh, she's so beautiful.
Speaker 4: She looks like us, Like we actually felt beautiful because
Speaker 4: you know, growing up we were insecure about how we looked,
Speaker 4: especially me. I went to like a predominantly like white school,
Speaker 4: especially like East Asian school as well, and all the
Speaker 4: girls there were tiny and skinny and short, and I
Speaker 4: was like this tall, curvier, brown Hawaiian girl, and I
Speaker 4: always felt like I was ugly and why couldn't I
Speaker 4: look like them? So just having that representation, which they
Speaker 4: also did the same with Muana as well, I really
Speaker 4: appreciate how they animated her to be actually proportioned and
Speaker 4: not have like a tiny neck and tiny waist and like,
Speaker 4: I don't know, risks that look like they can like
Speaker 4: snap off any moment of yeah, and just depicting like
Speaker 4: how they look like. And it makes sense because Nanny
Speaker 4: is a surfer. You know, she's not she's gonna be strong,
Speaker 4: you know if you've seen the women's surfers here and
Speaker 4: have II like they're they're strong, you know, they're muscular.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like and and the bar is still on
Speaker 3: the floor for stuff like that, but I really like
Speaker 3: it does. It makes a huge difference. And I'm very
Speaker 3: glad that they just drew it's so wild to still
Speaker 3: to be like and they drew people to look like people,
Speaker 3: but it's still just barely done.
Speaker 2: It's like when a movie feels like a movie.
Speaker 3: Yes, and that, and then also the way that Nanny
Speaker 3: is dressed I felt was more intentional than other than
Speaker 3: other women Disney movies where we do I mean we
Speaker 3: see her. I think the most like the quote unquote,
Speaker 3: like the most sort of like revealing outfit she's in
Speaker 3: is when she's working at the resort.
Speaker 4: Which makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, does the resort that caters to mostly white Yeah, vacations.
Speaker 4: They're very sexualized. They're even like the dancers again, like
Speaker 4: I said, like they would wear like the tiny little
Speaker 4: coconut bras or tiny little songs for their outfits, which
Speaker 4: I'm like, first of all, coconut bras are not from Haaii,
Speaker 4: that is not Hawaiian, but they still put them in
Speaker 4: that anyways. But yeah, I really liked how she's dressed,
Speaker 4: you know, in like shorts and a T shirt and
Speaker 4: like boots, like she's active and knowing how hot it
Speaker 4: gets here. It's like, yeah, I don't expect her to
Speaker 4: wear like long sleeve you know, anything, because no one does.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm wearing it now, but it's cold in
Speaker 4: my house. But like yeah, I'm wearing shorts though, but yeah,
Speaker 4: it's very common. But yeah, like you said, like with
Speaker 4: the exception of the the Luau uniform, like everything else
Speaker 4: she wears is like pretty. It's it's nice seeing that
Speaker 4: you're not like focused on her middriff or like her
Speaker 4: i don't know, clavicles or something like the other characters
Speaker 4: like Princess Jasmine. You have to remember she's like supposed
Speaker 4: to be fifteen in that film, which.
Speaker 3: The way, yeah, we still have not gotten justice for
Speaker 3: Princess Jasmine and that. But also the fact that she
Speaker 3: is like she dresses in a way that is like logical,
Speaker 3: it makes sense, and that her body not constantly being
Speaker 3: fixated on doesn't preclude her from a romantic storyline, because
Speaker 3: I feel like that's another thing that if there is
Speaker 3: a in really and in live action rianimation, if like
Speaker 3: usually a woman's body is not if the sexiness of
Speaker 3: a woman's body is not had, like your eye isn't
Speaker 3: constantly drawn to it, that's not a character that's going
Speaker 3: to have a romantic dressed or a romantic plot line.
Speaker 3: But Nanni, I like I think that again, it's like
Speaker 3: and we can talk about the relationship as well we should.
Speaker 3: But like the I appreciated that where it's like she
Speaker 3: is quote unquote a normal girl in that like she
Speaker 3: dresses in a way that makes sense, she's a job,
Speaker 3: she has a lot of shit going on in her life,
Speaker 3: and I I mean, I think that there were maybe
Speaker 3: more interesting lines to fill out Nanni's story outside of
Speaker 3: just kind of going straight to love interest. Like you're saying, Lily,
Speaker 3: she has her surfing career. She is also actively warning
Speaker 3: her parents. I think it would have made a lot
Speaker 3: of sense to give Nanni a friend and someone to
Speaker 3: talk to and confide in, but David also sort of
Speaker 3: fills that role. It seems like, I don't know, let's
Speaker 3: talk about that relationship because I'm like biased because I
Speaker 3: love data, but you know, let's talk about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I appreciated how that unfold for the most part,
Speaker 2: where he is like, first and foremost a friend and
Speaker 2: yes he does have a crush on Nanny, but but.
Speaker 3: They talk on the phone at night. It's cute.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they like he's supportive, he seems to respect her
Speaker 2: boundaries when he says like, hey, what are you doing
Speaker 2: later and she's like, now, it's not a good time.
Speaker 2: I have a lot on my plate, and he doesn't
Speaker 2: try to push it. It doesn't seem like he holds
Speaker 2: it against her that she can't date him right now. Anything.
Speaker 4: He tries to help her, like he's you know, he
Speaker 4: finds a job for her, and he like you know,
Speaker 4: helps her with taking care of Leelo as well, because
Speaker 4: that's you know, like her priority is taking care of
Speaker 4: her sister, and it takes a village to raise a kid.
Speaker 4: So I think him just also like acting like kind
Speaker 4: of like another adult and guardian figure in her life
Speaker 4: is really helping nanny. And yeah, and he's doing this
Speaker 4: because he genuinely like cares cares for her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he does make it seems to be a joke
Speaker 2: where after he's found her job, he says something like,
Speaker 2: you can just date me and we'll call it even.
Speaker 2: And it's not the best joke. And if someone said
Speaker 2: that to me, I would probably feel uncomfortable if especially
Speaker 2: if I didn't want to date them. But he's never
Speaker 2: like predatory, which is like, wow, the bar is so
Speaker 2: low for men's behavior, But it's.
Speaker 4: A good thing. She likes his button, fancy his bar.
Speaker 3: No, and he does know that, so it felt more teasy,
Speaker 3: But still your Yeah, not the best line, but in general,
Speaker 3: I loved the relationship and I like that he. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm always pro like, let's give her like a female friend,
Speaker 3: Let's give her a best friend to like bounce it
Speaker 3: off of, especially because it's like, not only are you
Speaker 3: going through a lot, you're also nineteen and that's such
Speaker 3: a critical friend time. But but I mean I like
Speaker 3: that David, like you're saying Kulan like he is a
Speaker 3: really good friend to her, and then it's like we're
Speaker 3: seeing it turn into something more. And then they go
Speaker 3: on a million vacations at the end of the movie,
Speaker 3: and you're like, whoo, that's so nice.
Speaker 2: Here's my the I think you could if if you
Speaker 2: wanted to read it that because it didn't even occur
Speaker 2: to me that they got together on my first viewing,
Speaker 2: because you.
Speaker 3: May I was like biased. I was like, whoo, I
Speaker 3: love that they're together.
Speaker 2: Now, well, you only really see it in the like
Speaker 2: still images there. Maybe I'd like stop the movie too soon,
Speaker 2: and like as soon as the credit started.
Speaker 4: I think in the other films in the series they
Speaker 4: kind of established their relationship more.
Speaker 2: Okay, right, that makes sense. Yeah, because I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I guess they do get together, because at first I
Speaker 2: had written in my notes like, oh, you know, he's
Speaker 2: like kind of presented as this possible love interest, but
Speaker 2: it never culminates, which is like, you know, something that
Speaker 2: I appreciate seeing as far as because I mean, in
Speaker 2: most things where that's set up, it's definitely gonna culminate.
Speaker 2: In like a head or love story, you need.
Speaker 4: To have the kiss at the end as the car
Speaker 4: which rolls away.
Speaker 2: Exactly, which doesn't happen in this movie. And again the
Speaker 2: only indication that they got together, but also maybe they
Speaker 2: just go on a bunch of friendly vacations. I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's not the most clear.
Speaker 3: But they're making out on vacation, and you know it fine. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I appreciate Lila's like I read the diary.
Speaker 2: I know, at the very least, I appreciated that their relationship,
Speaker 2: whether it be platonic or romantic or some combination of
Speaker 2: the two, that it doesn't like overpower the story the
Speaker 2: way that like a lot of hetero love interest narratives
Speaker 2: will like, especially for Disney movies, like that's the core
Speaker 2: focus of the story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean, and that's because we've been We've
Speaker 3: been betrayed by so many movies in the past that
Speaker 3: are about one thing for most of the movie, and
Speaker 3: then in the last twenty minutes, all of a sudden
Speaker 3: is about a relationship that you barely care about.
Speaker 4: And this is a little Mermaid.
Speaker 3: Yes, And it's like in this one, at least the
Speaker 3: movie knows it's about Lelo and Nanny and Leelo and
Speaker 3: Stitch and it stays there, which yeah, I was perfectly
Speaker 3: happy with. And I love Leelo and Stitch. I love Stitch.
Speaker 3: I love how we talked about this a little earlier.
Speaker 3: But how Stitch, it's so like it's just so I
Speaker 3: didn't recognize this when I was a kid. I was
Speaker 3: just like he he blue dog funny. But but how
Speaker 3: by knowing Stitch, Lelo is able to see herself in
Speaker 3: a different way and like she's able to interact with
Speaker 3: Stitch the way Nanni interacts with her, And she's frustrated
Speaker 3: with Stitch in the same way that Nanni's frustrated with her,
Speaker 3: but can come to him with a lot of empathy.
Speaker 4: Is this how I act like right.
Speaker 3: And and that she always I don't know, I'm just
Speaker 3: like best kid ever where even when Stitch is like
Speaker 3: tearing apart that weird. Like I did a Picasso joke
Speaker 3: where she's like, that's from my blue period and I'm like, yeah.
Speaker 4: Joel's I love that. When she immediately puts the lay
Speaker 4: on Stitch, he like calms down and just kind of
Speaker 4: I'm like, that is such a cool cultural tidbit to
Speaker 4: put in there. Like lays do have like that calming
Speaker 4: factor on them, and you give lay to people for
Speaker 4: like a reason. It's like typically when you make it
Speaker 4: or you like buy it that's been handmade, and you
Speaker 4: give it to someone that you care about and you
Speaker 4: want to give them that aloha. So I kind of
Speaker 4: liked that. It's like this rampaging like alien that's destroying everything.
Speaker 4: He puts on a fresh flower lay and then he's
Speaker 4: just so calm. I'm like, dang, the power of the lay.
Speaker 4: My cool was right.
Speaker 3: They're so like they're so good together, and I yeah,
Speaker 3: and I love we were like referencing this early. But
Speaker 3: so much of how Stitch learns to appreciate lelo is
Speaker 3: through her sharing her culture with him. I just love
Speaker 3: their relationship. It's very sweet and that he does unlike
Speaker 3: most male characters throughout movies and also history. He does
Speaker 3: apologize when he realizes that he has messed with the
Speaker 3: family and wants to make it right. I like that
Speaker 3: he and Nanny even get a moment together.
Speaker 4: Okay, she like, waks, I love.
Speaker 3: I know you can't talk, and then he says one
Speaker 3: word and then she freaks out something. It's so great.
Speaker 4: She was like, we had a weird relationship. I still
Speaker 4: don't know how to feel about you, but you rescued
Speaker 4: my sister, so I guess we're okay. Just don't But
Speaker 4: it's kind of cute because I remember also in the
Speaker 4: kind of the ending sequence of the movie, when you
Speaker 4: know they're adjusting to their new life in the new house, which,
Speaker 4: by the way, that new house is beautiful, is definitely
Speaker 4: worth like two million dollars in our standards. I'm like,
Speaker 4: how did how does she afford that? Hopefully the aliens
Speaker 4: help pay for it, but.
Speaker 2: The property tax is alone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, He's like doing the laundry and then he puts
Speaker 4: on I think, like a bikini talk care and just
Speaker 4: starts like going around as a superman, and she's looking
Speaker 4: down at him, like what are you doing. I'm like,
Speaker 4: She's like, I have another damn child, I have to
Speaker 4: take care of.
Speaker 2: It's great.
Speaker 3: Cleilo and Stitch are the best best friends in all
Speaker 3: of movies.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite jokes in the movie is when
Speaker 2: Nanny is saying, oh, the thing's creepy. I won't be
Speaker 2: able to sleep knowing it's loose in the house, and
Speaker 2: then Leelo says, you're loose in the house all the time,
Speaker 2: and I sleep just fine. Oh that's great. Does anyone
Speaker 2: have anything else they want to talk about?
Speaker 3: This is a very goofy observation, but I was thinking
Speaker 3: about movies that because they're not a lot of movies
Speaker 3: that feature adoption or the foster care system. And this
Speaker 3: is the worst comparison of all time, But because we
Speaker 3: just covered it on the show, there are parallels between
Speaker 3: meg Leelan, Stitch, and Megan. It's just true. It's just true.
Speaker 3: But Stitch is fortunately he's rehabilitated. He doesn't go full Megan.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure he doesn't kill anyway.
Speaker 4: Is Megan that movie about that robot girl that danceing
Speaker 4: and yes, yes.
Speaker 2: Yes, the TikTok robot Girl. Stitch and Meghan have basically
Speaker 2: the exact opposite arc where like Megan starts off like
Speaker 2: creepy but not super threatening, but then she gets scarier
Speaker 2: and scarier and more murdery as she goes, whereas Stitch
Speaker 2: starts out very destructive and then becomes less and less
Speaker 2: so by the end.
Speaker 3: Yes, I could talk about Leelu and Stitch's friendship and
Speaker 3: how beautiful it is forever. I love the scene where
Speaker 3: Stitch shows I don't know. It's like the idea of
Speaker 3: showing yourself to someone and like trusting them enough to
Speaker 3: show yourself, and Stitches like, here's my alien stuff in
Speaker 3: all my extra arms and she's like what, and then
Speaker 3: later she's like, I love you. It's just because all
Speaker 3: she wants is to be accepted and that's what Stitch wants.
Speaker 4: And she doesn't care that he's an alien. She just
Speaker 4: cared that he like lied to her about it. It
Speaker 4: just shows like just how accepting she is and she
Speaker 4: doesn't care. I want to talk about the A Little
Speaker 4: Oi scene where Nunny is singing that to lil I.
Speaker 4: Every single time I rewatched this film, I know that
Speaker 4: scene is about to come up, I know what's going
Speaker 4: to happen, and I still cry every time. I'm like
Speaker 4: an emotional little ball of just like sadness and all that.
Speaker 4: Like right as like Stitch is walking up the stairs
Speaker 4: and the ducks are coming out, I was like, oh God,
Speaker 4: here comes the water works. And then she has to
Speaker 4: like tell her sister that I can't take care of
Speaker 4: you anymore, and you're probably going to be taken away
Speaker 4: to like a family, whether it be on this island
Speaker 4: or who knows, she might have to go to like
Speaker 4: a different island because you know, foster kids get moved
Speaker 4: around so much. And just her singing like a lotta
Speaker 4: oi to her, like just the symbolism because first that
Speaker 4: song was written by Queen Lilli o'koleni. She was a composer.
Speaker 4: She's composed many songs, especially when she was under house
Speaker 4: arrest after the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. She was
Speaker 4: writing songs in the basement of the Lani Palace. She
Speaker 4: first wrote alho Oi as a song for her like
Speaker 4: lover and stuff and just dedicated to him and like
Speaker 4: moments where they would be together riding horses in the
Speaker 4: country and all that. But then the song gets recontextualized
Speaker 4: during the overthrow and the forced American annexation assimilation, and
Speaker 4: then later statehood. It gets recontextualized for Lilli Okoleni saying
Speaker 4: farewell to her kingdom, and then in this movie it
Speaker 4: gets recontextualized of her say that farewell to you alohoa
Speaker 4: way like farewell to you until we meet again, and God,
Speaker 4: it's just so sad and it just makes me think,
Speaker 4: I think Lilo knows kind of what's going on, because
Speaker 4: that's how they communicate, is through their culture. And I
Speaker 4: just loved that touch they put there because that is
Speaker 4: kind of the purpose. That is the purpose of our hula.
Speaker 4: That's the purpose of our music is to like, it's communication,
Speaker 4: it's oral traditions and storytelling. We have olo no ao
Speaker 4: like Hawaiian proverbs. That's how a lot of us, like
Speaker 4: we communicate with each other. She doesn't straight up tell
Speaker 4: her like you're being taken away from me, it's she
Speaker 4: just sings that to her, and I think that just
Speaker 4: clearly tells the message. And I was surprised that Stitch
Speaker 4: to it too. I was like, Oh, has he been reading.
Speaker 2: The Queen's book?
Speaker 4: Does he does.
Speaker 2: With the brain of a supercomputer?
Speaker 4: He is a super Yeah, he probably does. Yeah, But
Speaker 4: it's just every time I watch that scene, I cry,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, I know it's coming up, but why
Speaker 4: do I keep crying?
Speaker 2: That's the beauty of cinema.
Speaker 3: I also I read that or maybe it was in
Speaker 3: the documentary, but that was allegedly that was Tia Carrera's
Speaker 3: idea to put that song there, because she and her
Speaker 3: grandmother used to sing it together, and that that place
Speaker 3: in a way that you're like, oh, it's a Disney movie.
Speaker 3: Of course they were going to do that. They were
Speaker 3: going to put some like weird original song in there.
Speaker 3: And then when Tia Carrera read the script this like
Speaker 3: came out years later. She was like, well, I think
Speaker 3: this would actually fit much better, and this is a
Speaker 3: song I would sing with my grandmother. And then when
Speaker 3: she was in the recording booths, she called her grandma
Speaker 3: to make sure she was getting the words right, and
Speaker 3: it was just like a family moment. That was very sweet.
Speaker 4: I'm glad that they let her do that. I'm surprised
Speaker 4: they weren't like, now, we are the Disney overlords. We
Speaker 4: choose what goes on. You can't now, but good choice
Speaker 4: on them, because I can't imagine any other song put
Speaker 4: in there. And she does a beutiful job she's an
Speaker 4: amazing singer.
Speaker 2: And yeah, definitely the last thing I wanted to touch
Speaker 2: on real quick, kind of back to the conversation about
Speaker 2: bodies was related to Lelo's photography collection, because she seems
Speaker 2: to take pictures of white people who are in Hawaii
Speaker 2: on vacation, as if to say, like, these outsiders are
Speaker 2: coming to my home, like treating my home as a
Speaker 2: tourist spot, probably not respecting the culture or the land.
Speaker 2: Because there are so many accounts of that happening unfortunately,
Speaker 2: So that's all very valid, but there is this like
Speaker 2: fat shamy element to it because it seems like all
Speaker 2: the people she takes photos of are fat. It's not
Speaker 2: directly said in the movie, but the implication feels like
Speaker 2: it's shaming these people for various things, including their bodies
Speaker 2: and their size. But other than that, there weren't any
Speaker 2: like well, I guess there's one other. I felt kind
Speaker 2: of ageist tropes being used with a character who only
Speaker 2: shows up in a really quick scene, Missus, because she's
Speaker 2: an old woman who is portrayed as being like oblivious,
Speaker 2: she doesn't really understand what's going on around her, who,
Speaker 2: by the way, is voiced by Amy Hill. Who he
Speaker 2: talked about recently on the fifty first Dates episode. Because
Speaker 2: she plays Sue, She's also been cast in the live
Speaker 2: action remake.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I think she's playing Tou Tou or something.
Speaker 2: Yes, who is the grandmother of David according to early
Speaker 2: journal Wikipedia, so.
Speaker 4: They kind of have new characters in there. Yeah, I
Speaker 4: can understand the criticism of Missus hasse Gaua's depiction. I
Speaker 4: will say though, like I know a lot of Missus
Speaker 4: hasse Gauas and a lot of people here know, like
Speaker 4: we all have that one like old Grandma or Auntie
Speaker 4: and her family that you have to kind of yell
Speaker 4: at them because they can't hear what you're saying. And
Speaker 4: so I mean from again, from my perspective, just born
Speaker 4: and raised here, growing up here, I saw it as like, oh,
Speaker 4: that's funny because we all know that one Auntie who's
Speaker 4: like that, and it's kind of like more endearing. But
Speaker 4: I can also see the criticism of just like her
Speaker 4: kind of being like the butt of the joke because
Speaker 4: you know, because you know who knows she's you know,
Speaker 4: these even though they can't hear very well, you know,
Speaker 4: they have a lot of experience and a lot of
Speaker 4: knowledge in them. And yeah, I do feel that because
Speaker 4: I always laughed.
Speaker 2: At her scene.
Speaker 4: She's like, what, I can't talk, I'm waiting for the application.
Speaker 4: Oh that's my that's my ad in the newspaper. It's like, yes,
Speaker 4: that's why I'm here.
Speaker 2: It is funny, but yeah, yeah, it's open to interpretation perhaps, Yeah, but.
Speaker 3: Does this is kind of this? I love that this
Speaker 3: is a no brainer. Does this maybe pass the Bechdel test?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yes, like for I think the better. I mean, I
Speaker 3: guess that the main passes are between nney and and Lilo,
Speaker 3: but there's plenty of conversations between I mean even they
Speaker 3: don't have to be positive interactions. It passes between Myrtle
Speaker 3: and Leelo. It passes between I'm trying to think of
Speaker 3: other combinations that there might.
Speaker 4: I guess Sunny and that beautiful lifeguard when she was
Speaker 4: trying to get the job. Yes, yes, yes, yeah they would.
Speaker 4: They would have been good friends. I think they do
Speaker 4: have interactions in like the series or some I have
Speaker 4: to rewatch the series.
Speaker 3: But I haven't watched it forever, but I loved it.
Speaker 3: It was like after School Staple, the only other main
Speaker 3: character who's a who's not a man in the story
Speaker 3: is the person in charge of space.
Speaker 2: Oh, the Grand councilwoman.
Speaker 3: And I also just wanted to shout out every I
Speaker 3: see this on Twitter every so often, just images of
Speaker 3: Plekly disguised on Earth, because normally they're like disguised as
Speaker 3: a like hetero turist married couple and Pleckly, you know,
Speaker 3: uses he hymn pronouns, but is dressed in drag for
Speaker 3: those scenes, and he goes viral pretty often being you know,
Speaker 3: being praised as an icon. And I just wanted to
Speaker 3: shout out and agree with that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he knows that he's a baddie. He's gonna rock
Speaker 4: that out. He's like, gone to You're not not was
Speaker 4: his name again? Not gone to.
Speaker 3: Jama.
Speaker 4: Look at me mixing up the names. But I'm like,
Speaker 4: he's like, Drama, you are not wearing that dress. It
Speaker 4: looks better on me. You wear the mustache, you wear
Speaker 4: the old dad hat. You're gonna be that I'm going
Speaker 4: to be the star.
Speaker 3: And it seems like I'm like, Wow, I think that
Speaker 3: they're kind of together by the end of the movie,
Speaker 3: although jump On must pay for his crimes, but yes,
Speaker 3: but also I just I love when characters are in
Speaker 3: are in drag or just like not wearing gender nonconforming clothing,
Speaker 3: and it's not like super like what is happening, Like
Speaker 3: that's just a part of the story and that's I
Speaker 3: think what it holds up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the other characters like don't care at all. They're
Speaker 4: just like okay, they're they're.
Speaker 2: They're they're like you do you exactly plekly.
Speaker 3: I love it and pletely is going to do pletely
Speaker 3: whether you like it or not.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, So our nipple scale, where we rate the movie
Speaker 2: on a scale of zero two five nipples based on
Speaker 2: examining the film through an intersectional feminist lens, I will
Speaker 2: give this four nipples. I'm taking a little bit off
Speaker 2: for mostly just like the kind of behind the scenes things,
Speaker 2: like the kind of missteps in casting, the insistence of
Speaker 2: all of these white men who are like, yeah, I
Speaker 2: acknowledge that this is not my story to tell, but
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do it anyway.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the fact that those same I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: pretty sure that like all these guys are still alive,
Speaker 3: kicking and working, and like if you did feel genuine
Speaker 3: like it was wrong of me to take that project
Speaker 3: on or even take that project on solo without being
Speaker 3: more inclusive. Then you would think that would be the
Speaker 3: sort of person you would want to speak out against
Speaker 3: another white guy directing the newly lowed Stitch, like demonstrate
Speaker 3: it with your actions and not just like trying to
Speaker 3: sound good in an interview. I hate that, Genni.
Speaker 2: Okay, people are so bad at holding themselves accountable.
Speaker 3: They're liars anyways.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, there was just and it does
Speaker 2: seem like the filmmakers did a fair amount of research
Speaker 2: and wanted to be careful about representing the people and
Speaker 2: the culture authentically, and it seems by and large they
Speaker 2: were successful. You know, Lily, you pointed out some things
Speaker 2: that did not feel authentic, or that felt a bit
Speaker 2: cartoonish or exaggerated or just incorrect in general. So as complicated,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, they put in some effort, but
Speaker 2: not enough, because if they actually put in the right
Speaker 2: amount of effort, they would have relinquished creative control and
Speaker 2: hired Native Hawaiian directors, screenwriters, composers, costume designers. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: But otherwise, like the movies is lovely. It's featuring characters
Speaker 2: who I love their relationship. I love that they are
Speaker 2: just like such fully fleshed out, distinct characters. The movie examines,
Speaker 2: you know, them dealing with issues that a lot of
Speaker 2: Native Hawaiian people and marginalized people in general deal with,
Speaker 2: while also again like showing the joy and the love
Speaker 2: not just kind of you know, negative struggling aspects of
Speaker 2: their life, but also like the positive, loving parts of
Speaker 2: their lives as well. And so yeah, I'll give it
Speaker 2: four nipples. I will give Tuta, Lilo and Tudor Nanny
Speaker 2: as simple as that.
Speaker 3: I'll meet you at four nipples. I agree with everything
Speaker 3: you're saying. Yeah, I think that this movie made many
Speaker 3: mistakes that I don't mean it just sound like it's
Speaker 3: dismissal by saying like it is extremely of its time,
Speaker 3: and the fact that this movie is doing above average
Speaker 3: in terms of research for being of its time speaks
Speaker 3: poorly of that time time. And I think that it
Speaker 3: is extremely frustrating that I mean necessary, but still frustrating
Speaker 3: that these conversations are so similar to what they were
Speaker 3: in two thousand and two, and that the same poor
Speaker 3: decision making that's like, I mean, just institutionally white supremacist
Speaker 3: driven decision making is still taking place at the same company,
Speaker 3: even though the company seems like they have a supposedly
Speaker 3: vested interest in not fucking up to the extent that
Speaker 3: they seem to constantly fuck up. It's almost like it's disingenuous.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I would love for the new Lulo and Stitch live
Speaker 3: action movie to be good. I guess we'll see what happens. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I guess we'll just leave it at that. But originallylo
Speaker 3: and Stitch, it's it certainly has its issues. I'm very
Speaker 3: I'm so glad you were here, Lily. I like, we're
Speaker 3: huge fans of your work, and I us like we've
Speaker 3: learned so much from you, and I highly recommend all
Speaker 3: of our listeners check out your work as well because
Speaker 3: it's also very funny. I really enjoy it.
Speaker 4: Thank you. I was happy to hear that your viewers
Speaker 4: wanted me on this podcast. I was like, oh wow,
Speaker 4: that's so cool.
Speaker 3: People know me number one suggestion truly, and we're krusty
Speaker 3: and we're not on TikTok very much, so we were like,
Speaker 3: oh great, and then we found your work and we're like, well, like,
Speaker 3: you're just.
Speaker 4: Zing always on TikTok. I don't know how I'm getting
Speaker 4: my Masters. With the amount of time I spent on it,
Speaker 4: I had to like I had to like put my
Speaker 4: phone down and just be like, Nope, got to do
Speaker 4: my thesis. You can scro You'll have plenty, You'll have
Speaker 4: the rest of your life after you graduate to scroll
Speaker 4: on TikTok.
Speaker 3: It's that's the beauty of it can confirm. But but yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean I but but I'll give it four because
Speaker 3: there are things that this boofy does that still really
Speaker 3: I think resonate the focus on sisterhood, prioritizing we didn't
Speaker 3: really talk about this, but prioritizing like a young girl
Speaker 3: like figuring out how she sees herself. And I love
Speaker 3: that she. The two relationships are with a sister and
Speaker 3: then a friend.
Speaker 2: I just love them, both of whom are very supportive
Speaker 2: in the way that Leelo wants to express herself exactly.
Speaker 3: You're like, this is a beautiful family. Okay, So I'm
Speaker 3: not crying, and I'm going to give two nipples to
Speaker 3: Lilo because she's just the MVP, and then I'll give
Speaker 3: one to Nanny and one to stitch nice Lily.
Speaker 2: How about you.
Speaker 4: I agree with you, guys. I give four chee cheese
Speaker 4: to Lilo and Stitch as well. And yeah, I'll give
Speaker 4: one to Lilo, one to Nanny, one to missus Hasegau,
Speaker 4: and give one to David because we all need a David.
Speaker 4: We all need that supportive friend.
Speaker 2: Fancy hair.
Speaker 3: Yes, maybe we all have that supportive a friend with
Speaker 3: good butt and good hair. What a beautiful thing, Jamie,
Speaker 3: I'm right here. Oh sorry that that Caitlin is that
Speaker 3: friend for me. And that's why I'm going to tell
Speaker 3: you on the show. I'm in love with you.
Speaker 2: Right, I keep forgetting that they get together at the
Speaker 2: end anyway, So who knows, Jamie, anything could happen like
Speaker 2: never say never. Well, Lily, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: joining us. This has been an absolute treat. Come back
Speaker 2: anytime for any movie you'd like to discuss. Yeah, bring
Speaker 2: us far movies A yeah, and where can people follow
Speaker 2: you online? Check out your work?
Speaker 4: You guys can find me on TikTok at. He E
Speaker 4: Lily Lunney. So that's h I I l I l
Speaker 4: y l A n I. So it's like a combination
Speaker 4: of my Hawaiian name he E Lenny and my English
Speaker 4: name Lily. So he E Lily Lenny. My friend Crystal
Speaker 4: came up with that, so I just kind of went
Speaker 4: along with it. I think it's cute. I'm also on
Speaker 4: Instagram at Eluney Lily because I don't know why didn't that,
Speaker 4: but yeah, I'm very active on those two social media accounts. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so you can find me on there. And also if
Speaker 4: you want to see some of my acting work, look
Speaker 4: up the University of Haama Hawaii Theater program Kahala Hanakayaka.
Speaker 4: There's a couple of YouTube videos of some Hawaii theater
Speaker 4: shows that I did. It's one of them is called
Speaker 4: hey leo Aloha h e l e oh aloha, and
Speaker 4: then there's whole Oilina so h okina oh i l
Speaker 4: i n a Yes I can spell. So yeah, where
Speaker 4: you can see some of my acting work, and you
Speaker 4: can also watch theater made by native Hawaiians for native
Speaker 4: Hawaiians also in our language.
Speaker 2: Yeah amazing, And we'll link that stuff as well on
Speaker 2: our social media and stuff so that people can easily
Speaker 2: find it. And yeah, you can find us on Instagram
Speaker 2: and Twitter at Bechdel Cast I almost said my own name,
Speaker 2: oops at Bechdel Cast. And you can subscribe to our
Speaker 2: Matreon at Patreon dot com slash Bechdel Cast, where you
Speaker 2: get two bonus episodes every single month, plus access to
Speaker 2: the back catalog of over one hundred bonus episodes. This
Speaker 2: month is May, so we have done Back to the
Speaker 2: Future and Office Space because those were my birthday month picks.
Speaker 3: And that's why I had Megan on the brain, because
Speaker 3: we did Megan and Life Size in April with dolls
Speaker 3: that are doing too much month. It's what I'm calling you,
Speaker 3: Lifeline life Size is so good. Yes, And you can
Speaker 3: get our merch over at tea public dot com slash
Speaker 3: the Bechdel Cast. And with that, let's get in the
Speaker 3: space tic tac and uh and and something something blessed
Speaker 3: off got a blass that's mean.
Speaker 2: Wow, amazing, dismount. Thank you.
Speaker 4: I'm sick, Bye bye, Helloha