The Descendants could have been a satirical look at how Hawai’i has fallen into the hands of the undeserving.  It could have been an attempt to show how the white man has stolen lands that once belonged to kanaka maolis and how, in spite of the self-absorbed, unconscious lives they lead, they’ve propagated more speedily than the rats, wild boars, and weasels that were cargoed by non-natives to the islands hundreds of years ago.  It could have been a condemnation of how the islands and its native people have withered away at the hands of the callous, privileged “caretaking” of the islands by white people.

But it’s not.

As a native Hawai’ian, or kanaka maoli, I watched The Descendants as I watched Gone With the Wind.  I didn’t see the Southern saga as a sweeping romantic epic.  I saw it as a pointed look at the South’s ridiculousness in holding onto their racist riches and values as change sweeps the territory.  I’m sure it was not meant to be that.  I’m sure a minority of viewers watch the film this way.  But I have to say, Scarlett’s woes made me laugh.

In The Descendants, George Clooney plays Matt King, who descended from the last of King Kamehameha’s bloodline.  As such, he’s in control of a large parcel of land on the island of Kaua’i.  He alone holds the power to sell the land to developers and make his enormous family (with miniscule Hawai’ian blood or values) rich.

A shot of the well-manicured land used to depict the family’s plot was telling; the filmmakers couldn’t find a suitable stand-in for the fictional piece of land because very little undeveloped land actually exists on the islands, thanks to the greed of foreigners.

Kahoolawe, an island sacred to the kanaka maoli, was used as a bombing range by the U.S.  Molokai was where lepers were sent.  And yet those who destroyed the land hold all the power, as we are reminded by the narrator, whom Clooney plays.

Instead of delving into how his decision affects the people of Hawai’i — a cautionary plea from a native neighbor goes unheard — we spend time with King/Clooney’s dying wife, who was too stupid to listen to the driver of a speedboat about conditions in the water and hit her head.  With her in a coma, Matt seeks absolution for ignoring her and their two troubled children.  One is a teenage drunk, one is a bully.  And when King finds out his wife was cheating on him, he stalks the cheater.

How much more white trash can you get?  But this is Hollywood melodrama, told from the perspective of a Hollywood star we all love.  No matter King’s failings, we’ll look the other way such that we never question what the f— he and his family are doing on the islands in the first place.

One of the many King cousins — not a single brown-eyed Pacific Islander among them — drives around with a bobbling hula girl on his dashboard.  Sure, they take their shoes off when they enter the house, use a slight pidgin accent and toss in a few Hawai’ian words, but their actions all seem only to approximate the culture.  The islands and its culture are just a commodity to market and appropriate.

But that’s not the evident message.

Here the islands are where beach bums go to smoke weed and soak in the sun all day.  And everyone’s okay with that.

At the film’s end, King summarizes that for whatever reason, the family were born Hawai’ian and entrusted with making the decision about how to develop the land.  He may be referring specifically to the parcel of land in question, but thematically he’s referring to the responsibility one has over someone else’s life.  You see, he has pulled the plug on his wife; we know he’s talking about his wife.  And his children, whom he has finally taken responsibility for.  Not the island.  Not the Hawai’ian people.

The wife’s death could have been a metaphor for the dying of a culture.  But it’s not.

The book on which the movie is based was written by a woman with native Hawai’ian blood.  I haven’t read the book and am not sure what her intentions were.  But in scanning the book’s reviews, I see no mention of indictment.  No mention of metaphorical admonishment.  If it was present in the storytelling, the reviewers didn’t seem to notice it.

Who could see paradise in the destruction of something precious?  Blind eyes beget Academy Awards, no matter what appropriation or racebending occurs in the moviemaking.

Different eyes see different things.

–Ken Choy

Related posts: