Why 'Aloha' also means 'forget it!'

Emma Stone in Aloha is not the only one shedding tears.

ALOHA, the latest motion picture written and directed by Cameron Crowe and released last weekend, is a bad movie. B-a-a-a-d!

But for a bad movie, it is sure getting a lot - I mean A LOT - of ink. Most of the press has not been the sort that would induce people to spend $20 to see it in a theater with Dolby sound and wide screen.

Much of the criticism centers around the casting of Emma Stone as Allison Ng, a hapa (quarter Chinese, quarter Hawaiian, half Swedish}. I love Emma Stone. I think she's one of the best young actresses around, but asking the audience to suspend their disbelief and accept her in this role is a tough, tough task.

In his defense, Crowe posted a statement on his website in response to the criticism:

"I have heard your words and your disappointment, and I offer you a heart-felt apology to all who felt this was an odd or misguided casting choice. As far back as 2007, Captain Allison Ng was written to be a super-proud ¼ Hawaiian who was frustrated that, by all outward appearances, she looked nothing like one. A half-Chinese father was meant to show the surprising mix of cultures often prevalent in Hawaii. Extremely proud of her unlikely heritage, she feels personally compelled to over-explain every chance she gets. The character was based on a real-life, red-headed local who did just that."

I don't want to appear to defend him, but Crowe has fallen into the same trap that so many other Hollywood decision makers fall into when casting roles meant for minority or people of mixed heritage. They always opt for the familiar. And since most of these producers, writers and agents are white, they pick the people who look like them even when new data  indicates that the American movie-going public is undergoing a steady demographic shift towards audiences of color.

Crowe notes in his apology that that he and his crew are "extremely proud" to present Oahu, its people and the film community with "many jobs" over the four months they worked there. But despite "tireless research" conducted by Stone and others, Crowe writes that he is "the one to blame" for any controversy and upset his casting decision might have caused. 

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The Media Action Network for Asian Americans issued this statement:

“Caucasians only make up 30 percent of the population [of Hawaii], but from watching this film, you’d think they made up 99 percent. This comes in a long line of films (‘The Descendants,’ ’50 First Dates,’ ‘Blue Crush,’ ‘Pearl Harbor’) that uses Hawaii for its exotic backdrop but goes out of its way to exclude the very people who live there,” MANAA founder and president Guy Aoki said in a press release. “It’s an insult to the diverse culture and fabric of Hawaii. [The native Hawaiians featured in the film] didn’t even have names. How can you educate your audience to the ‘rich history’ of Hawaii by using mostly white people and excluding the majority of the people who live there and who helped build that history — APIs?”

Crowe tried to temper the cultural discussion by including a lot of references to the Hawaiian culture in his movie but often times, they seem disjointed and out of place in a movie focused on the main characters - all white.

In a somewhat unprecedented move to counter the harsh criticism, Sony Pictures released the first eight minutes of the motion picture to allow the public decide for itself whether Aloha is a bad movie or not. Here it is below:

Even the film's title came under fire. Janet Mock, a native Hawaiian, explains on her MSNBC Shift show So Popular!

"Most who invoke the term aloha do not know its true meaning. Aloha actually comes from two Hawaiian words: Alo – which means the front of a person, the part of our bodies that we share and take in people. And Ha, which is our breath. When we are in each other's presence with the front of our bodies, we are exchanging the breath of life. That's aloha. 

"When writer-director Cameron Crowe uses the language of a marginalized, indigenous people whose land, culture and sovereignty have been stripped from them, he contributes to a long tradition of reducing native Hawaiians to his own limited imaginings — and this is dangerous."

Of course, Emma Stone is a big box-office draw. Her fans will go see the movie no matter what we write here. However, it's not like there isn't any actresses of mixed-Asian heritage who could have played the role of Ng: Olivia Munn, Kristen Kruek, Vanessa Hudgens, Maggie Q come to mind as big-name actresses; and the next tier of actresses there are dozens more.

Crowe said he spent years of research for his movie with many trips to the island state. At least he got some tax write-offs. Save your money.

Some good may come out of this cinematic fiasco. 

“I am grateful for the dialogue. And from the many voices, loud and small, I have learned something very inspiring,” said Crowe. “So many of us are hungry for stories with more racial diversity, more truth in representation, and I am anxious to help tell those stories in the future.” Let's hope so.

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