Another favourite from our childhood. I would say we have all the merchandise because of our 3 year old daughter - but in reality it's more for us! 😅 (Lilly's not seen the film, but she knows who stitch is!)
Some quite interesting morals in this one!
Good and evil are normally very separate and distinct things in Disney films. There are few moral grey areas. Even in films where roles are reversed, such as "Beauty and the Beast", wherein the handsome man Gaston is evil, and the horrible monster of the Beast is good-hearted and tender, the audience quite quickly can identify them into their respective roles. In Lilo and Stitch however, a viewer cannot easily distinguish the alignment of the characters, and they quite often change sides entirely!
So many of the "good" characters have obvious flaws - Nani and Lilo. So many of the "evil" characters turn out to be good - Jumba and Stitch etc. And not because their personality changes - Stitch is still very mischievous - but the audience is encouraged to look at characters from a different perspective.
Do we judge others?
Like Nani, do we judge if they are a model citizen by their parenting or employment. Or like stitch, do we judge people's appearance or behaviour. Or like Lilo, do we judge people for being weird and different - criticising children for acting out, when it's a cry for help.
We shouldn't expect people to change just to fit in.
We don't need to convert people to our faith.
We just need to change our perspective and love people for who they are!
And of course I didn't have time to mention the wonderful motif: "Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten". Wonder message of inclusion that the church could learn from...
Or the themes of sisterhood (not something I'm familiar with!)
And also didn't mention about including another culture as the setting for the film - introducing many children to a diversity of characters not seen elsewhere. In fact, I don't think I've personally watched any other film set in Hawaii ... !
What do you think?
