Lilo & Stitch: More Than Ohana (Guest Post)

As is usually the case in a small seminary, you tend to end up taking multiple classes with the same people. That's how I got to know Esther Medina. A Georgia native, Esther is finishing up her MA in Media Arts and Worship at Dallas Theological Seminary. She's my current rival for the mantle of worst pool player on campus—that's probably because we end up talking more about our mutual interest in stories and films when we're trying to play than actually focusing on the game. After a handful of these conversations involving Disney's Lilo & Stitch, I wanted Esther to further explore her unique perspective on this particular film. So I was very glad when she agreed to write this piece for the blog. A photographer, writer, coffee addict, and reigning queen of the scratch, you can find and follow Esther on Instagram and Facebook.

Here is her insightful reflection on this underrated modern fairy tale.

Lilo & Stitch: More Than Ohana

by Esther Medina

Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind.

Stitch was introduced to the world in 2002, and the world fell in love with his chaotic nature. Lilo & Stitch does so many things right, even down to the watercolor backgrounds the artists were forced to use for the first time since Dumbo (1941), in efforts to save money. Disney’s original vision for this movie changed when the artists were sent to the Hawaiian Islands, the film’s primary setting, for concept art. Being on the ground and interacting with the people, ohana (the uniquely Hawaiian cultural construct of “family”) became the heart of the film. How could it not? It’s the heart of the people.

The movie centers on Lilo (Daveigh Chase) and Nani Pelekai (Tia Carrere), who are sisters. Cobra Bubbles (Ving Rhames), a social worker, visits the sisters to determine whether Nani qualifies to remain Lilo’s guardian. What he encounters is the messy life of two sisters who have recently lost their parents in an accident. He understands that they are still adjusting to such a terrible transition, and grants some time for Nani to take responsibility as the adult.

After Cobra’s first visit, Nani and Lilo have a yell fest later that night, like any normal siblings. Nani, being the older sister and stepping into her role as adult, brings a peace offering to young Lilo: food. They don’t have a long heart-to-heart, but they do apologize, and the first thing Lilo says is, “We’re a broken family, aren’t we?” Nani bridges the gap with food, like I’ve done plenty of times with my siblings, and they get straight to the root issue by acknowledging that the transition they both have to navigate is a difficult one.

According to psychological studies, anger is a secondary emotion, usually a reaction to some other underlying feeling—in this case, grief. Nani and Lilo are both grieving the loss of their parents and their coping mechanisms reveal themselves in different ways. Nani seems scatterbrained all the time and is easily angered with Lilo. She never expected to have to step into the position of parent at this stage in her life. She prioritizes being a parent to Lilo over being a sister—Lilo even tells Nani she likes her better as a sister. Nani can’t even give herself room for herself. She uses the excuse of having to take care of Lilo to not date David (Jason Scott Lee), though she really likes him. Nor does she allow herself to grieve, because she has to keep it together for herself and for Lilo; if not, she could lose Lilo—something she refuses to do.

Lilo, on the other hand, feels desperately alone. She does what she can to fit in, in her own weird ways. She joins the hula dance group, but comes in late because, as she explains to her instructor, she had to buy peanut butter. Her reason being that she couldn’t in good conscience feed Pudge—a fish who supposedly controls the weather—a tuna sandwich. She carries her doll, like the other girls, but it’s one she’s made herself and looks like a voodoo doll. All of this is Lilo’s attempt at normalcy, but her own anger, stemming from her grief and loneliness, reveals itself when she’s confronted by Mertle Edmonds (Miranda Paige Walls) and the other girls, who only see Lilo’s weirdness. Lilo’s reaction is to fight.

So, in their attempt to find some semblance of normalcy, Nani takes Lilo to adopt a dog.

Enter Stitch (Chris Sanders).

We are introduced to Stitch at the beginning of the film, with the mad alien scientist, Dr. Jumba Jookiba (David Ogden Stiers), on trial by the Galactic Federation for creating illegal experiments in his lab. When Jumba reveals that his latest creation, experiment 626, the experiment Lilo will later name Stitch, is endlessly cunning and indestructible, the Federation orders that Stitch be destroyed. Stitch proves his maker right when he escapes and crashes his spaceship on Kauai, where he is detained as some type of malformed dog.

That’s when Lilo, the weirdest kid on the island, enters the shelter where Stitch is being held. Their mutual quirkiness ensures an instant connection, and she happily chooses Stitch as the “dog” to adopt because, like her, he’s weird. But Lilo soon realizes Stitch’s destructive tendencies. Using Elvis, she tries to teach him to be a model citizen, but things always seem to end with Stitch reverting back to his destructive self. This is what Jumba claims he created Stitch for: destruction.

626 was designed to be a monster, but now there is nothing to destroy. You see, I never gave him a higher purpose. What must it be like to have nothing, not even memories to visit in the middle of the night?

Stitch tries to be “good,” but nothing seems to work. This creates in him his own sense of loneliness, as he realizes that his destructive tendencies stem from his attempts to find a place where he belongs. As he tries to understand these emotions, he is drawn to Hans Christian Andersen’s classic fairy tale, “The Ugly Duckling.” Feeling as though he doesn’t belong with Lilo, he plans to leave, taking “The Ugly Duckling” storybook with him. But Lilo knows he’s about to leave, and we see her own loneliness bubble up again, even as she acknowledges that she can’t force Stitch to stay.

Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind, but if you want to leave you can. I’ll remember you though. I remember everyone that leaves.

As Stitch sits out in the woods that night, alone, he, like the ugly duckling, cries out, “I’m lost!” He doesn’t think he has any other choice but to leave. He’s had nothing, and suddenly all these things he’s never had just fall into his lap: friends, a family. He tries to adapt, he tries to make himself good. But he fails. And so he does the most selfish thing he can, and walks away.

But he and Lilo are connected in ways they do not fully understand. They are not only connected through their eccentricities and mutual weirdness, but also through their pain, and their longings as well. Lilo longs to have back what she’s lost. Stitch longs to have what he’s never had. Both grieve the absence of something—either something lost or something never present in the first place. Wisely, the film never asserts that either one of them can fill the void of the other. Stitch will always have to contend with his destructive nature, and Lilo will never be able to get back all the years with her parents she wishes were still there. But what the two of them can find is redemption.

Stitch finds redemption when Lilo is captured by the alien lawman, Gantu (Kevin Michael Richardson). Stitch’s natural tendency would have been selfish: destroy those seeking to capture him and flee. But he’s learned something—he’s learned that loneliness is often a choice, as much as it is a state of being, that, sometimes, loneliness doesn’t have to be. So he goes outside himself and fights for Lilo—his destructive tendencies and indestructibleness are finally redeemed because they now have a purpose. By stepping outside of himself, he learns he can finally be good, because he has found something that is good. Stitch perfectly sums up his own transformation when he says, at the end of the movie, “This is my family. I found it all on my own. It’s little, and broken. But still good. Yeah, still good.”

Lilo and Nani mirror everyone’s ohana in some way. We grieve together, but separately. We fight with each other, but still know we’re family. We see each other’s idiosyncrasies and find ways of dealing with them because there is a sense of obligation to each other, displayed in all sorts of ways. That is expected from family.

But Lilo and Stitch, on the other hand, display a facet of the familial relationship I would love to find more often in the real world. Both are wounded in some way, yet they come together not out of obligation, but through choice. Lilo and Stitch choose each other.

Don’t leave me, okay?

Okay.

Lilo could have forced Stitch to stay when he wanted to leave because, technically, she paid for him; she owned him. But because she truly cares about Stitch and about his need to find his own place, she knows that she must let him climb out that window. She gives him his space. She doesn’t expect him to stay. She cares too much about him to force him to stay in a place he might not belong. She wants Stitch to stay, not out of obligation, but rather by choice. She wants him to stay because he wants to be there.

There is nothing forcing Stitch to come back to save Lilo from Gantu. After all, the only thing Gantu wants is to destroy him. But Stitch chooses to come back for Lilo because he realizes, despite the brokenness within himself, he can be more than his chaos. His chaos doesn’t disappear, but he can be more. His indestructibleness doesn’t have to be used to destroy, but can be used to save, to rescue—the choice is his, and his alone. And by giving him the choice, Lilo ultimately rescues him from himself, freeing him to in turn rescue her. And together, they start anew. Not undoing the damage that has been done, but having given each other the freedom to make new choices and to build better lives.

Nani remains the scatterbrained sister-parent. Lilo remains the weird little sister. Stitch remains the loveable blue ball of chaos. The trio forming a perfectly broken little family. But this is the family that they have chosen; this is the family they want. And that makes all the difference in the world.

This is my family. I found it all on my own. It’s little, and broken. But still good. Yeah, still good.