Sure thing, I’ll try to be brief!
So let’s take a look at Lilo and Stitch’s setup. It’s actually a great premise - a kid who thinks the world is set against her, an older sister who’s at her wit’s end trying to care for the kid completely on her own…This scenario happens a lot in real life, where the kid feels as though nothing is in her favor and life itself is unfair. Her ideals aren’t matching up with reality.
The kid and her sister - Lilo and Nani - have a REALLY bad fight, and Lilo shuts herself in her room in a tantrum. Later, Nani finds Lilo wishing for an “angel” to come and save her from this horrible situation she’s in.
Now, here’s where the movie starts to do what it shouldn’t do. Let’s take a look at Lilo.
Lilo isn’t just the bullied weird kid. She’s a brat. Her first instinct when somebody says something she doesn’t like is to get violent… and it may seem funny on the screen, but this sort of behavior is NOT funny in real life; and if you think it is, there is a real problem there. Lilo is horrendously ungrateful for everything Nani sacrifices for her, and gets bitter and spiteful when she’s called on it, so much so that the child throws a tantrum. Poor Nani is left STILL trying to pick up the slack, STILL trying to fix things in Lilo’s destructive wake, and Lilo honestly doesn’t care.
Lilo is of the mindset that it’s Nani’s job to clean up after her messes, and takes that entirely for granted. And the message of the movie, “family means nobody gets left behind,” underscores this and even says that it IS the family’s job to fix its members’ messes… without holding that family member responsible or accountable.
The natural result of that message is a wonderfully horrific movie called The Godfather. I highly recommend it if you haven’t actually ever watched it; it is not a fun movie but it is very eye-opening.
So when Lilo wishes for somebody to arrive to fix all her problems again, somebody who’d reinforce the behaviors that she likes, regardless of how bad those behaviors are for everyone around her… well, she gets what she asked for. She gets Stitch.
Now, Stitch is a monster. Stitch is - and SHOULD be - the physical manifestation of Lilo’s bitterness, self-indulgence, and tendency to lash out at anything that’s set against her. Of COURSE she’d like this little beast. And the movie portrays him as a little beast! …sort of. He should be even more of a monster than the movie claims. It is not Stitch’s narrative role, in this kind of story, to be sympathetic. He needs to be the ultimate result of allowing your kid to become a little monster. Nani continues to indulge Lilo when she should be putting her foot down, and the result is that the household invites in the worst kind of monster there is - one that everyone in the house created together.
Where the story SHOULD go from here is that Lilo and Stitch have a grand old time together, wreaking further havoc on Nani’s life (and the lives of everyone around them)… until finally that havoc actually affects Lilo’s life, and she cannot avoid the repercussions. Her indulgence in allowing this little monster to destroy everything has brought things to a very, very bad place.
Lilo should try to confront Stitch, and Stitch should not care in the slightest, echoing how Lilo responded to when Nani finally tried to confront her… and now the reality of what’s happened should sink in for Lilo, so her only remaining option would be to abandon Stitch, to get rid of the monster. Only at this point would Stitch also start to realize that he’s done this to himself.
Things should then get bad in the plot from here. As is commonly said, acknowledging the problem is only the first step to fixing it. Lilo and Nani are left in pretty much a broken home, where Nani has no idea what to do, Lilo has destroyed Nani’s life, and yet Lilo doesn’t want to accept that the problem was of her own doing (if she did accept it, she wouldn’t have tried to act like it wasn’t a part of her - she wouldn’t have symbolically removed Stitch).
Stitch is up in space or whatever, being brought back to the research lab or something. There, however, he learns of something terrible that’s going to happen to Nani and Lilo, and all the people that put up with his nonsense for so long back down on Earth. What exactly this terrible thing that’s going to happen is doesn’t matter - what matters is the theme, the moral being shown. Stitch tries to ignore it, because “hey, it’s not my problem,” but can’t shake the guilt that begins to eat at him… and at the last second, Stitch changes his mind, makes the RIGHT decision, and arrives to rescue Lilo and Nani in the nick of time.
This would be the first GOOD thing that Stitch has ever done, something entirely selfless for the benefit of another person. Think of how much stronger a message that would be, then, when after the day is saved, Stitch is welcomed back into the family, and things are finally starting to look up for the three of them. It would be a story of personal growth, of how to face your own demons and how to treat your loved ones with the respect they honestly deserve, how to show gratitude when somebody makes a sacrifice for you!
But instead, we get “you should love and take care of your family no matter how they abuse you and take you for granted.” What a HORRIBLE message!
Now, the spiel from my recent stream actually went on from here, and @kaleidraws would be able to speak more knowledgeably about it, but basically the way she put it is: from the depiction of Hawaiian culture in the film, “the person/people who made the movie clearly had no first-hand experience in the era they were depicting, and instead were projecting what they thought it was like based on their own biases and intended messages.” Hawaiian culture from Lilo & Stitch’s time period was, in reality, very much opposite to the way Lilo & Stitch glamorized it… but you won’t hear people talking about that.
At any rate, it’s no wonder people like this movie - it’s so incredibly indulgent and reinforces the notion that a person doesn’t need to be responsible for themself, because somebody else will fix every problem they ever have… what a blissfully irresponsible message.
Watch out for people who get offended at this sort of critique, and who react highly negatively when somebody insults something they like - it often means they’ve attached too much of their identity to that thing, and feel personally called out when somebody points out that it’s a bad message!
^ I shouldn’t have said this.
The point of this response should have been to explain my perspective and opinion on a movie, not to make a qualitative judgement of people who like the film, and it was presumptuous of me to do that. There’s a lot about the film to like - the music is wonderful, the animation is lovely, and there’s a whole slew of other reasons to admire it. Everyone has things from their childhood that they’re fond of, which left a lasting impact on them. Of course people are gonna go “whoa, wait a second” when somebody basically insults it and them for liking that thing.
It was really uncool of me, and I’m sorry.
I’m still not a fan of the movie myself, for all the reasons I mentioned above. I don’t think it’s a helpful message to teach kids - even as young as Lilo - that they don’t need to take responsibility for what they say or do, or that it’s all right to lash out as long as you’ve got a reason for being hurt and upset. But I shouldn’t have insulted people over it, and again, while it wasn’t my intention, that’s exactly what I did.
I’m gonna keep this in mind for the future - it’s foolish to fall back on insults when what I really care about is sharing my passion for storytelling and analysis thereof. Thank you guys for your patience and understanding - I won’t make the same mistake again.
(Side note: @kaleidraws did a wonderful bit of analysis on the Hawaiian culture side of things here.)
