![]() "Lilo & Stitch," produced by the same Disney team that made " Mulan," is a toothy fantasy about an alien monster that accidentally finds itself adopted as the pet of a little girl in Hawaii. How could I possibly be right when $54 million said I was wrong? How could human taste be a better barometer of movie quality than the success of a marketing campaign? Prediction: This weekend, more parents and their children will dutifully file into the idiotic wasteland of "Scooby-Doo" than will see the inspired delights of "Lilo & Stitch." That will be a shame. Take the kids to "Lilo & Stitch." I could see from the man's eyes that he was rejecting my advice. Take my word, I said I do this for a living. But, I said, there is a much better animated family film opening this weekend, named "Lilo & Stitch," that your kids are sure to like much more than "Scooby-Doo," and you will enjoy it, too. Yes, I said, because they've heard of nothing else all week. On Monday a man on an elevator asked me what I thought about "Scooby-Doo." I said it was a very bad movie. Lilo's anger and Nani's frustration is only the symptom of a larger structure, like community, that abandons its neglected children to fend for themselves in a world already precarious to them.If "Scooby-Doo" grossed $54 million in its first weekend, then if there is justice in the world, "Lilo & Stitch" will gross $200 million. Normalizing children to deal with their anxieties & pain on their own only deflects from those who add to that grief. Or Lilo having to look outside of this planet for a single bond to grasp. If only it were that easy, Nani wouldn’t have had to sacrifice her childhood to care for her sister. It characterizes grief as an isolated incident meant to be handled within, with no connection to the outside world. Governmental and communal structures impose an unfair paradox that children will never resolve in the wake of loss. Nani works several jobs to provide for Lilo. Whether it’s Lilo at six or Nani at 19, expectations become suffocating, often overwhelming. Lilo & Stitch, on a deeper level, becomes a disturbing commentary of the burden imposed on children. Whether it’s the social worker Cobra Bubbles, voiced by Ving Rhames, hoping to take Lilo away from Nani, or the other little girls in Lilo’s dance class bullying Lilo for her eccentric personality, structures of power reinforce their symptoms of trauma. Nevertheless, the same external powers only become an obstacle in their path to healing. Healing can only occur through the outside forces that Nani and Lilo try to rely on to survive. Viewers, especially children, understand that traumatic experiences don’t exist in a vacuum. Lilo & Stitch redefines trauma’s misconception as an exclusively internal experience and unveils its outward continuation. ![]() Chris Sanders’ and Dean DeBlois’ animated film Lilo and Stitch unravels the precarious nature of trauma in the lives of two young sisters, forced to grow up faster than most. After losing both parents in a car accident, Lilo is left in the care of her older sister Nani. For six-year-old Lilo, voiced by Daveigh Chase and her 19-year-old sister Nani, voiced by Tia Carrere, it’s the one tragedy they never saw coming. ![]() Overcoming the death of one parent is never easy, let alone both of them.
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