I was just discussing this with my b the other day. A complex mess of things has contributed to contemporary identity culture in the West that presents fandom/consumption as identity. And there are a swathe of people who decry it...by presenting the media object as a BAD identity https://twitter.com/SquigglyDigg/status/1248572043345326082

A significant element of this is a lack of good critique. And the essay presented her is *not* good critique. It is a highly specified reaction to a character that is explained via an attempt at linking it to wider genre concerns in children's media.

Which, as it happens, is one of my areas alongside early childhood development. So. The issue with the critique is...well look there are a lot. I'll tackle a few.

One: children's media is not limited to moral lessons. Not now, not ever, and it shouldn't be. The drive towards...

...that is very much a function of history and colonial views of children, education, morality, and entertainment. It's a drive that has undermined a lot of creativity. It also backfires so much. Just SO MUCH.

Tacking a moral lesson onto a story makes it more legit...

...but does not change the narrative weight and focus. See: 25 min of an episode taken up with increasing bad behaviour that is morally wrapped up with a lesson being seen as 'better' than a more morally complex presentation because it has a 'clearer' lesson.

Now this is possibly an argument you could make for Lilo & Stitch but I don't think it works, because narratively we see consequences for Lilo's behaviour, and Stitch's, from smaller ones to bigger and more complex ones (the attempt to apologise to the girls, and connect with...

...them that is rejected because Lilo does not perform girlhood correctly, with a very classed representation of that included)

(It broke my heart the first time I saw it, I was the girl with the shitty doll getting rejected for it and feeling bad for the doll)

Another aspect is that the normalising tendency of children's media is often not prompted by the emotional health of a child - it is 100% about policing, enforcing, and punishing any non-normative behaviour. Lilo is *weird* and that's her primary sin, that needs correcting...

...regardless of what that means to her health and well-being. Which is very much where the film deviates from the moral imperative to be normal, and a normal girl, and to behave.

And my background suggests that it is a triumph for that.

Because Lilo is traumatised. She is a suicidal child. Nani is traumatised. The moral ending is one that erases the trauma by returning them to normative models of girlhood and behaviour.

Instead we get them actually expressing and being emotional...

...and being vulnerable with each other. Lilo cobbles together her coping tools, Nani does too, and they reconnect over and over. They beg for help. They face each other with ferocious love. They are demonstrative in a non-normative way.

Lilo's behaviour as a traumatised child is not one Nani can discipline her out of, no matter how hard she tries. The spectre of governmental harm is clear, and the expectation is to discipline Lilo into not being traumatised.

Which, like I said, my background suggests is...

Impossible and wrong and awful. Early childhood development is dependent on attachment for social learning and cohesion, not punishment.

The movie clearly shows that. Which is non-normative modelling for people within a punishment framework.

It does this by positioning Stitch as the ultimate evil, literally created for harm and havoc. Who is transformed by the joyous and open acceptance of Lilo, contrasted with the fear and protectiveness of Nani. Those are his models for love.

He is the concept of the child as a result of original sin, not a tabula rasa, but the 'miniature psychopath' people conceptualise children as. When they are *learning* how to human. He learns, through Lilo AND Nani how to connect. Not punish, but connect.

Boundaries are not punishment. Withdrawal of connection IS. Nani constantly reaffirms not just that love and connection, but acceptance. Records, buying Lilo film, physical connection, in what is actually the generally accepted method of caring for traumatised children.

This critique is one that tries to engage with children's media, and caring for children, and trauma, and parenting, and childhood development. But does so without any actual basis in those things beyond the normative model they judge the film from.

Now I cannot talk to the Hawaiian rep, I'm not even from the US. I'd be interested in seeing that critique, as I've only seen praise for it, and a lot of research in my area only vaguely touches on First Nations care models (and mostly Australian ones).

Also, can I just mention the way that bigger bodies are portrayed in this film is fucking revolutionary - from Lilo's photography, to Nani's physique, to Jumba and the hula teacher, to Lilo LOOKING like a little girl? So much positive, loving, nurturing rep.