‘Lilo & Stitch’ live action draws controversy over ‘colorist’ castings
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Now that the kids who grew up with “Lilo & Stitch” are young adults, many are looking on with apprehension, fearing that a forthcoming live-action remake of their introduction to Hawaiian life and culture will water down the film’s cultural focus. Some believe several of the studio’s casting choices reek of colorism, discrimination against people with dark skin.
After news media revealed the cast that would portray several beloved characters in the live-action version, many fans recoiled as some of the darker-skinned animated characters were replaced with lighter-skinned actors. They’re weighing whether the new iteration is even worth watching, already discouraged by the pervasive issue of colorism in Hollywood.
Disney has reportedly cast actor Kaipo Dudoit, whose “deep complexion” fans say resembles the animated counterpart of his role as Nani’s love interest, David, according to the Hollywood Reporter. But news of the hiring came about only after backlash arose from earlier reports that Kahiau Machado, who social media commenters said looked “light-skinned” in his headshot, would take on the role and after fans discovered a Spotify playlist Machado created with a racial slur in its title. (Disney didn’t respond to a request for comment.) The recast of David spurred fans to renew calls to also change actors for the role of Nani, after it was reported that actress Sydney Agudong, who critics of the casting have described as “light-skinned,” was chosen to play Lilo’s older sister.
“There is a conversation to be had about colorism in TV and film, especially when it comes to casting our communities,” 25-year-old actress Lily Hiʻilani Okimura, who’s Native Hawaiian, said in a TikTok. “Casting directors will always go for White-presenting or Asian-presenting Native Hawaiian people as opposed to darker skin, curlier hair, more Indigenous-looking Hawaiian people.”
Through the 2000s movie and its three sequels, fans first fell in love with Lilo, a lonely Hawaiian girl raised by her older sister, Nani, after their parents’ deaths. Lilo finds friendship in her newly adopted pet Stitch, who’s an alien experiment that escaped his extraterrestrial creator, Jumba. While citizens of Stitch’s homeland attempt to recapture the rogue creature, Lilo and Stitch learn the true meaning of “ohana,” the Hawaiian term for family.
“I was really hoping that they’d do the proper research, make the right calls, and put a lot of effort into finding people to portray it,” said Isaiah Cox, 23, a student at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Cox grew up watching the original movie with his aunts and cousins. “This would have been an opportunity to shed light on a community that’s not often portrayed.”
Fans of the critically acclaimed 2002 film feel that casting characters with lighter skin waters down the central conflict the characters face in the movie’s Hawaiian town. They’ve argued that the actors set to portray the islanders should be dark-skinned Native Hawaiians to stay true to the appearance and culture of the original characters. Otherwise, the casting decisions, Okimura said, feel like Disney is taking “several steps back” from its goal to celebrate the communities depicted.
The colorism in Nani’s casting is an A+ example of the reasoning behind ppl calling me the N word whenever I speak on Hawaiian issues. Proximity to ytness is so easily digested.
Dark-skinned Hawaiians exist & mainstream representation would be so beneficial to all of us.
— onimasai 🤍 (@lmnhzd) April 14, 2023
The heartwarming tale introduced many kids to luaus and “Aloha oe,” which means “Farewell to you,” and provided on-screen representation for children with deeper complexions, but it was only as adults that many viewers recognized how the detrimental effects of racism and colorism affected the storyline.
“Some of it was very touristy depictions,” Okimura said in an interview with The Washington Post. “But on note of that, they also depict our problems with overtourism, crowdedness of our islands and environmental issues … [and] separation of Indigenous families.”
The story is undergirded by how Hawaii’s culture has been commodified, a lingering effect of the U.S. government’s annexation and economic imperialism of the islands, which is seen in Nani and David’s job at a luau where they serve food and perform for visitors. The fictional town’s battle with tourism is especially evident in a deleted scene where Lilo tricks tourists into leaving the beach after they exoticized her and crowded the coast. “If you lived here, you’d understand,” Lilo says to a social worker after the visitors have fled.
As a Native Hawaiian, I'd like Disney to stop displacing us homeless Hawaiians with a $144 mil resort for rich foreigners in collaboration with the illegal US occupation that is poisoning our water. Also, that's blatant colorism. pic.twitter.com/5btL59M7uo
— Silver Spook (@SilverSpookGuy) April 14, 2023
Donavyn Hightower, a 23-year-old from Houston who related to Lilo as someone with dark skin and who was raised in a single-parent home, said she’s deliberately chosen not to vacation in Hawaii because of the toll Indigenous Hawaiians say tourism takes on their community’s resources: “I’m sure it’s heartbreaking for them to constantly lose land that is sacred to them to tourists.”
The island story also showed Nani and David losing their jobs with little justification, which “Lilo & Stitch” lovers also believe is in part due to racial discrimination. Chase Washington of Crofton, Md., said that their skin tone might have made them more expendable in the eyes of their bosses, who wanted to please mostly White guests.
“If Nani were light-skinned and conventionally attractive from a White or European perspective, she would not have had as hard of a time keeping the job at the luau,” he said. “Lilo and Nani are having to deal with tourism and all of these different societal systems that are making it harder for them to support themselves, and making it harder for them to navigate what is and what should be their home.”
Because of the casting of Nani with noticeably lighter skin, “Lilo & Stitch” watchers worry the live action will lose sight of the original movie’s meaning and lack context for the small family’s struggles.
The “Lilo & Stitch” live action joins a long list of recent movies that have been scrutinized for colorism, excluding people with dark skin from stories about them. Washington Heights, N.Y., is home to a large Dominican community, yet the movie musical “In the Heights,” set in the same place, lacked Afro-Latino cast members. And while Elizabeth Olsen was cast as the Scarlet Witch in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Scarlet Witch in comics is of Romani and Jewish heritage. Similar backlash has erupted when actors chosen don’t have the same sexual orientation or disability as the characters they’re portraying.
“White people and lighter-skinned people have been prolific and put in the forefront of cinema since its inception,” Cox said. “We are at a time where marginalized groups deserve to have their stories told and be portrayed by people who look like them.”
Although Agudong was born in Hawaii, Indigenous Hawaiians have said that the decision to cast her is a disservice to Native Hawaiians with darker skin, curvier bodies and wider noses, features that aren’t often shown and celebrated on-screen the way they were in the original movie.
“Proximity to ytness is so easily digested,” Hawaiian Oni Connor tweeted in reaction to the “Lilo & Stitch” casting. “Dark-skinned Hawaiians exist & mainstream representation would be so beneficial to all of us.”
Some people have defended the casting on social media by comparing it to Halle Bailey as Ariel in the live action “The Little Mermaid,” but the situations are different, Hightower said. The characters in “Lilo & Stitch” are based on the real-life customs and culture of Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, rather than a mythical creature that isn’t tied to an ethnicity.
Okimura hopes that Disney moves forward with a focus on authenticity, for the sake of people who are underrepresented in TV and films: “It’s important to have Native Hawaiian actors and actresses in this movie because this was the first [animated] film that Disney made that is about Native Hawaiian people. … I really do hope that they recast Nani. I hope that they go a step further and actually have Native Hawaiian directors and screenwriters and designers in the film.”
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