dressed in a pink top, white rhinestone-accented blue
jeans and her trademark faux flower tucked over her left
ear, made good on her mission of spreading the mes-
sage of Hawaii to the world. She named “Lilo & Stitch”
as her choice, mentioning “‘ohana is family and that’s
what Hawaii is all about. (Harada, “Jasmine”)
I chose the above quotation to illustrate the ways in which the mar-
keting of the Lilo & Stitch enterprise has been made possible by
local Hawaiians’ complicity in selling Hawaii to the mainland. In
an economy that remains one typical of colonized countries,
Hawaii is overly dependant upon attracting mainland tourists and
their dollars. As Paul Lyons points out, this is a project with
increasingly diminished returns; the more Hawaii sells itself as an
object of passion and desire—an untouched paradise to be experi-
enced by jaded sophisticates, the less it is able to maintain its illu-
sion of purity. He writes:
if what tourists re-cognize (when perception approach-
es preconception) as ‘front’ appears to be cliché, they
nonetheless believe it has a connection to a hidden
reality; they approach this engagement by being guided
‘behind’ touristic fronts, with an implied hierarchy
arranged around the difficulty of escape from the ‘pack-
aged.’ (48)
This desire for an ever more authentic experience that seeks to
avoid the position of tourist characterizes the atmosphere in which
the decision to place Lilo & Stitch in Hawaii was made. As I men-
tioned earlier, the original plan was to set the story in Kansas.
However, one of the writers, Chris Saunders, vacationed in Kauai,
was introduced to the concept of ohana by a tour guide, and
rewrote the story from there (Harada, “Lilo”). Later, he attempted
to pass on his experience with the “authentic” to members of the
press, as reported in the Honolulu Advertiser:
DeBlois and Sanders were in the Islands in December
for an international DVD kickoff for ‘Lilo & Stitch,’
bringing about 20 reporters to Hawai’i for the launch.
‘We wanted the media to experience some of the
authentic
Hawaii we did, so there was little of the hotel
lu’au stuff and more off-the-beaten path kind of things,
including traditional hula done at the Volcanoes
National Park,’ DeBlois said. (Harada, “Creators,” italics
mine).
Similarly, the primary illustrator, Andreas Deja, spent a few weeks
in Kauai attempting to get a feel for the setting. He describes his
desire for a “more authentic” experience of Hawaii in an interview
with Animation World Magazine:
People had this idea I might want to check into a local
school that teaches Hawaiian tradition and language.
48
WORKS AND DAYS
We had this Hawaiian tour guide who said, “Well, I
don’t know if we’ll be able to get in because they’re
very protective of their heritage.” But I talked to the
teachers a little bit, with the kids looking out of the
door, thinking, “Who’s this person?” I explained that I
worked for Disney and that I worked on these movies
and the kids were all going, “Yeah!”
After I was led in, the kids did drawings for me and I
sketched for them before class. At one point the teacher
said, “The kids would like to greet you now.” I thought
they would all line up and shake my hand or some-
thing. Instead, they stood in front of me and sang the
most beautiful Hawaiian greeting song. Just witnessing
this, I almost became teary-eyed. It was so genuine and
emotional and I felt so privileged. I think that feeling
carried over into the movie characters. There was some-
thing so honest and uncomplicated about the Hawaiian
culture, the way people communicate. (Osmond)
The condescension expressed in the last paragraph is under-
scored by a graphic accompanying this portion of the interview; an
illustration of Lilo dancing hula with her halau has the following
caption: “During a research trip to Hawaii, Deja was impressed by
the honest and uncomplicated way Hawaiians communicate.” I
doubt I need to belabor the ways in which this caption is offen-
sive—it makes no distinctions between Native Hawaiians and res-
idents of the state of Hawaii, it casts “Hawaiians” (sic) as having a
primitive and therefore more pure form of communication, and
lastly has the nerve to call the mass production of such miscon-
ceptions “research.” Deja’s impression that he has, in a quick busi-
ness trip, managed to understand and capture “Hawaiian” culture,
however, is only small part of the problem. If ever confronted with
the ways his actions have contributed to worldwide misconcep-
tions of Hawaii, he might claim, as other writer/promoters before
him have, that Hawaii ought to thank him. That is, according to
Asia/Pacific Studies scholar Rob Wilson, what writers such as
Maugham and Theroux have claimed:
[they] had sanctified a place by using it as a setting;
[they] had done the islands a great favor—made them
seem exotic and interesting. Without ‘sanctification’ by
the cultural capital and mythology of Western writers,
painters, anthropologists, travelers, and film-makers,
these ‘places without history’ in the Pacific do not
exist—that is the mind-boggling claim. (360)
This argument has become so pervasive and absorbed into local
culture that a young woman like Jasmine Trias takes it upon her self
to sell ohana to the world. There may not appear to be much of a
crime involved in this act, but to Native Hawaiian activist Haunani-
Kay Trask this sort of parceling out of Hawaiian culture and lan-
guage for profit is precisely the problem:
Desser
49
predictably, theft of Native status parallels the resur-
gence of racism against our indigenous people. Part of
this racism can be seen in the cheap misuse by the
tourist industry and local politicians of Hawaiian cul-
tural values like aloha. (168)
The explicit ways in which the tourist industry and local politicians
capitalized on the opportunity to sell Hawaii can be found in the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
and the Honolulu Advertiser’s descriptions
of the Hawaii Tourism Authority and the Hawaii Visitors &
Convention Bureau’s deal makings with Disney. The HVCB, which
markets Hawaii on a $45 million-a-year contract under the aus-
pices of the HTA, reached what was termed an unprecedented
agreement with Disney. Initially the contract was to involve a 3.9
million dollar payment over three years to Disney, which in return
would help Hawaii market itself through TV promotions, DVD
inserts on the Hawaiian islands, a Lilo & Stitch “Island Favorites”
album, interactive games, a film score CD, and a Lilo & Stitch CD
Read-Along with a 24-page multimedia storyteller that can be used
on stereos and computers. Lilo & Stitch characters were to perform
at Disneyland and Disney World, where the company’s Polynesian-
themed restaurants were to be decorated with surfboards carrying
the Lilo & Stitch logo. Other companies involved in the agreement
were Hilton, Hilo Hattie, and Hawaiian, United and Japan airlines.
In fact, Hawaiian Airlines won a Reggie Award for its marketing
campaign as the movie’s exclusive domestic airline partner in
2002:
The Reggie Awards, whose name is derived from “cash
register,” are to marketing promotions what the Oscars
are to movies, rewarding excellence in planning, cre-
ativity, and execution. (Ryan)
However, since the HVCB was under severe scrutiny by the HTA
for possible mismanagement of public funds, the timing was not
optimal for a long-term contract. In the end, the HVCB backed out
of the three year deal with Disney. The 1.7 million dollar payment
of one year’s worth of Disney-sponsored promotion of Hawaii
through Lilo & Stitch products was honored. Although 1.7 million
dollars of public money was spent in promoting Lilo & Stitch, it was
reported by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that:
HVCB and Disney have agreed to keep the terms of
their arrangement confidential from the public, though
the authority will discuss the contract in a closed exec-
utive session. (Ruel )
Ironically, the film and its related products received a fair amount
of credit for their “more accurate” portrayal of life on the islands,
which shows the extent to which the people of Hawaii have
become accustomed to the Hollywood constructions and the
tourist brochures. You begin to believe, as Jasmine Trias apparent-
50
WORKS AND DAYS
ly does, that Hawaii does have the aloha spirit, a message of ohana
to spread to the world, and that it’s better for all involved if we just
keep the tourists entertained. In the words of one resident of
Hawaii, Patrick Nielson of Makakilo: “It was a pretty good inter-
pretation as far as Hawaii goes. It didn’t make us look too stu-
pid…” (Fujimori). This comment may help explain why, two years
after its initial release, I could still find copies of Lilo & Stitch, a
mediocre game even by industry standards, at the local video store.
Although the image may be neither accurate nor flattering, and the
motives of the designer far from pure, few of us can resist seeing
ourselves on the techno-screen.
What Would I Say at Parents’ Education Night?
The ultimate question for me, and for the parents at my imagi-
nary preschool education night, is: would I let my daughter play
this game? The answer is yes. If I forbid my daughter to play Lilo
& Stitch
, she’ll want nothing more than to play it. If I attempt to
protect her from ever hearing or knowing about Lilo & Stitch and
she discovers it on her own, she’ll have no defenses against it.
Better to expose her early and often and to trust that everything else
that she has learned from me will cause her to reach similar con-
clusions about the game’s misrepresentations. I can’t save my
daughter from the selling of Hawaii to mainland tourists or from the
bizarre complicity economic dependence demands of Hawaii res-
idents, nor can I protect her from racist, sexist commentary from
people like Texas Mike any more than I can explain to her why Lilo
whimpers when she is hurt and Stitch doesn’t. What I can do is
watch her confidence soar as she masters the joystick, avoids water
pits and wild boars, cheer her on when the mysterious number-
cruncher informs her she’s got one life left, and in exposing her to
such crazy creations of corporate corruption and cultural theft as
Lilo & Stitch
, hope she’s one kid-consumer who’s got her eye on the
digitized path and her money tucked safely in her pocket.
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