But fans of the beloved animated film are questioning the company's choice to cast Agudong for the role based on her ethnicity and skin complexion. Lilo and her family are Pacific Islanders of Hawaiian descent.
Lilo and Nani are both Native Hawaiian and they are not characterized with harmful stereotypes and instead subvert some of them. When Lilo is first introduced, she stops on her way to her hula class to take pictures of white tourists.
Lilo Pelekai. Lilo Pelekai (/ˈliːloʊ/ LEE-loh) (literally, "lost" in Hawaiian) is one of the two title characters of the franchise. She is a young Native Hawaiian girl who lives on the island of Kauaʻi with her older sister Nani and her extended family of alien visitors marooned on Earth.
While it is the company's first princess of Polynesian descent, it is not the first time Disney has ventured to represent Polynesian culture on-screen: the 2002 film Lilo & Stitch features sisters Lilo and Nani, who are of Indigenous Hawaiian descent as two of the central characters.
REACTING TO THE NEW LIVE ACTION LILO AND STITCH CAST!!!! | Autumn Monique
Is Lilo autistic?
While there appears to be no evidence that creators Chris Sanders and Dean Deblois intentionally made Lilo autistic, it is a widely accepted theory among fans—especially for those who are on the spectrum or believe themselves to be—that her neurodivergence is at least implied, much in the same way that other Disney ...
Although Moana is from the fictional island Motunui some 3,000 years ago, the story and culture of Moana is based on the very real heritage and history of Polynesian islands such as Hawaii, Samoa, Tonga, and Tahiti.
Maia Kealoha as Lilo Pelekai, a six-year-old Native Hawaiian girl "who loves hula, surfing, and wildlife, with a special affinity for all things 'gross.'" She's very imaginative yet rebellious, which gets her into trouble often and ostracizes her from her classmates, who consider her a "weirdie".
David Kawena is Nani's boyfriend. David is a great surfer. Like Nani, he also has trouble finding employment. He is also one of the only four recurring human characters (the other three being Victoria, Cobra Bubbles, and later Mertle) aside from Lilo's family, who is aware of the aliens and experiments.
Hundreds of fans began to call for Disney to “recast Nani next” in reference to the whitewashing and colorism accusations that sparked in response to actress Sydney Agudong's casting. “Good. Now recast Nani immediately," wrote on fan on Twitter on April 21. “And give us the dark skinned Hawaiian beauty we all desire.”
The target was an overweight person, something Lilo distinctly remembers, and now she takes the same pictures as a way of remaining close to her deceased father."
Carrere praised directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois for putting in the effort to depict Hawaiian culture accurately, saying the filmmakers "really did their homework." "It was so connected to the local culture and respectful of what it's like to truly grow up in Hawaii," she said.
Although Moana is from the fictional island Motunui some 3,000 years ago, the story and culture of Moana is based on the very real heritage and history of Polynesian islands such as Hawaii, Samoa, Tonga, and Tahiti. In fact, once you start looking for ties to Polynesian culture in Moana, it's hard to stop!
A genetically engineered, extraterrestrial life-form resembling a blue koala, he is the more prominent of the franchise's two title protagonists, the other being his human adopter and best friend Lilo Pelekai.
Ani Pelekai is Lilo Pelekai's daughter and Nani's niece seen in Stitch! She looks exactly like her mother when she was her age to the point that Stitch fully believed she was Lilo until her mother appeared.
A running gag in Lilo & Stitch: The Series features Pleakley cooking Thanksgiving dinner, which he believes happens once a month. Ironically, despite disguising himself as a human woman, he hates his first name "Wendy", which is typically a female human name.
A photograph of Lilo, Nani, and their parents, with Stitch in a separate photo underneath it. Makuakane and Makuahine Pelekai were characters mentioned in Lilo & Stitch as the late parents of Lilo.
Keoni Jameson (voiced by Shaun Fleming) is a young, laid-back boy on whom Lilo has a crush. Lilo constantly tries to vie for his affections. He had a crush on Pleakley, whom he knows as Lilo's 'aunt', in the episode "Hunkahunka", but in "Nosy" he stated that he only had the crush for that one week.
Sanders stated in TikTok comments that it was the production crew of Lilo & Stitch: The Series who conceptualized (and named) the fictional semi-consistent Tantalog language by basing it on Sanders' (gibberish) alien lines as the voice of Stitch in the original Lilo & Stitch film.
The film's story revolves around two individuals: an orphaned Hawaiian girl named Lilo Pelekai, who is raised by her older sister Nani after their parents' deaths, and the extraterrestrial creature Experiment 626, who is adopted by Lilo as her "dog" and renamed "Stitch".
Māui is a character from Māori and Polynesian mythology. Though the stories about him do sometimes differ, he is consistently depicted as a clever, talented trickster. He's a demi-god, and he has supernatural powers, but still looks human. According to legend, Māui was a premature baby.
Polynesia is characterized by a small amount of land spread over a very large portion of the mid- and southern Pacific Ocean. It comprises approximately 300,000 to 310,000 square kilometres (117,000 to 118,000 sq mi) of land, of which more than 270,000 km2 (103,000 sq mi) are within New Zealand.
