As Disney’s live-action "Lilo & Stitch" premieres in theaters this Friday, there has been another roller coaster ride of controversy surrounding a local actress playing Lilo’s older sister, Nani.
When the trailer came out last year, some fans of the original 2002 animated film took to social media, commenting on Sydney Agudong’s skin tone, which was darker than in her casting photo.
“This girl shouldn’t have auditioned to play Nani,” a TikTok user said.
“The main reason why the Kanaka Maoli community is a little bit pissed is that we don’t know if Sydney Agudong is Kanaka Maoli,” another TikTok user said.
Agudong, who is from Kaua‘i, has never directly addressed her ethnicity amid criticism. Her team didn’t respond to HPR’s request for an interview.
The blowback stems from not only the lack of Native Hawaiian representation on camera, but also from those with darker skin.
A need for 'original storytellers'
A 2021 report showed that only 44 of the 1,300 films in the last 13 years feature Asian and Pacific Islanders as the lead or co-lead in a movie. Pacific Islanders make up less.
Wai‘anae resident Pualelea Panaewa, a Native Hawaiian, said she wanted to get into acting and filmmaking because she didn’t see enough people who looked like her on screen.
“The fact that I'm grown now and in my early career, and I'm still seeing it as a huge issue, is so disappointing,” she said.
Two pivotal moments that inspired Panaewa to pursue her craft were watching the 2002 New Zealand film "Whale Rider" in middle school and Maori filmmaker Taika Waititi’s speech at the 2020 Oscars.
Waititi dedicated his award to all the Indigenous kids around the world who want to get into creative arts, but it was his statement, “We are the original storytellers,” that stuck with Panaewa.
Panaewa has worked on local film projects such as "Growing Up Local," "When a Flower Blossoms," "Hoʻi," and "The Arrangements." But she said it’s hard for up-and-coming Native Hawaiian actors to get recognized because of the islands' lack of major film opportunities.
When she auditioned for bigger films, she noticed that the room was mostly filled with non-locals and non-people of color. She emphasized that there is enough local talent in Hawaiʻi's acting and filmmaking pool.
“We are out there, and we are capable of doing these things,” she said. “It’s just that some people in those positions of power don’t want us to do that.”
A historical problem
HPR has reached out to Native Hawaiian actors and filmmakers. Some couldn’t be reached, while others declined to be interviewed out of fear of being blacklisted from future film projects in Hollywood.
One Native Hawaiian filmmaker who didn’t want to be named said the industry still views Pacific Islanders as Asian.
Hollywood has historically excluded Indigenous voices in movies, especially when it comes to Pacific Islander stories. The consequences of that include whitewashing, hypersexualization, stereotypes, and colorism, according to Randizia Crisostomo, who specializes in Indigenous politics and is teaching a class on moving images in Oceania at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.
“Brownness and Indigeneity were always one actively removed,” she said, adding that Pacific Islanders and other people of color were often capitalized on in the film industry when it was most convenient.
Throughout the 20th century, Pacific islanders were rarely the protagonists in Hollywood films. Most earlier Hollywood films included blackface and brownface, in which white actors darkened their skin with makeup to portray a person of color stereotypically.
“The camera is designed for the Western gaze,” Crisostomo said.
Early 1900s films depicted Pacific Islanders as antagonists, lacking intellect, or as barbaric.
The 1932 film "Bird of Paradise" portrayed hypersexualized Pacific Islander women needing to be saved by the white male protagonist. The Mexican actress Dolores del Río yelled in gibberish to appropriate the Hawaiian language, using only "aloha" and "maikaʻi" as recognizable words.
The 2015 film "Aloha" was also controversial, starring Emma Stone as Allison Ng, who is supposed to be Native Hawaiian and Asian.
“When it comes to Indigenous male bodies, they’re always presented within a war frame on film. This hypermasculine figure conforms to being angry or savage,” Crisostomo said. “When it comes to an Indigenous woman’s body, why is it that Indigenous women are portrayed as these damsels in distress who have to run to the warrior to be saved?”
Long way to go
While the film industry has seen an uptick in ethnic representation, the casting issue in "Lilo & Stitch" is nuanced, especially regarding supporting people from Hawaiʻi.
“There’s a tendency to make the conversation very binary,” said Tuiaʻana Scanlan, president of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 665, the union representing behind-the-scenes crew in the entertainment industry.
He said there is a need for more Native Hawaiian representation on screen, but "Lilo & Stitch" is fictional.
“I want to say that the criticism, while I can hear one side of it, on the other hand, I don’t want to take away from the idea that a multiracial person could be portrayed as Nani,” he said.
Scanlan also said that Native Hawaiian actors shouldn’t be limited to playing solely Native Hawaiian roles.
“I would love to see more Native Hawaiians cast in roles that aren't necessarily about them being a Native Hawaiian,” he said. “It could be doctor no. 1, the scientist, or the politician in a movie or a TV show. I think representation surpasses just the fact that we have a casting call for Native Hawaiians.”
The live-action "Lilo & Stitch" did cast Native Hawaiian actor Kaipo Dudoit as David, and Native Hawaiian actress Maia Kealoha as Lilo.
The upcoming Apple TV+ miniseries "Chief of War," starring Native Hawaiian actor Jason Momoa, also received criticism for some Māori cast members playing Native Hawaiian roles.
“'Chief of War' only filmed here (Hawaiʻi) for two weeks and then went off to Aotearoa (New Zealand) and employed many Maori people,” Scanlan said. "There's some conflict in there for me, in that a storied chapter of our history was not produced here.”
“Then we have another thing that is complete fiction, like the live-action 'Lilo & Stitch' that may not have had a Native Hawaiian directly cast for this role that we're speaking about,” he continued.
Pualelea Panaewa is part of the International Cultural Arts Network program, a nonprofit that aims to elevate, educate, and empower diversity, with a focus on Pacific Islanders in Hawaiʻi’s TV and film industry. The program was created in 2023 after the "Chief of War" criticism, according to Panaewa.
Panaewa wants more Native Hawaiians to enter the film industry to uplift Indigenous storytelling. “I want our stories to be told by us and, first and foremost, for us,” she said.
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