Entertainment

Some Native Hawaiians Disapprove of ‘Aloha’ Movie Title

Published

11 years ago

May 26, 2015

In this Saturday, May 16, 2015, file photo, U.S actors Emma Stone, left, and Bradley Cooper pose for photographers at a photo call for the film, “Aloha,” in London. The Sony Pictures romantic comedy, which releases in U.S. theaters on May 29, 2015, is drawing criticism in Hawaii, where it was filmed. Some Native Hawaiians, including the states film commissioner, are taking issue with using a Hawaiian word to title a mainstream Hollywood movie. (Photo by Jonathan Short/Invision/AP, File)

JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER, Associated Press

HONOLULU (AP) — Some Native Hawaiians disapprove of the name of a movie filmed and set in Hawaii, saying that titling it “Aloha” is a disrespectful misappropriation of culture and simplifies a word that’s rich with meaning.

The Cameron Crowe film starring Bradley Cooper, Rachel McAdams and Emma Stone, opens Friday, with a screening in Honolulu three days before. The concerns are based largely on a trailer that depicts a military-themed love-story that appears devoid of a genuine connection to Hawaiian culture.

Sony Pictures did not comment on the concerns, pointing The Associated Press to an online behind-the-scenes piece that shows Stone’s character saying, “this place has a lot of mana,” using a Hawaiian word that can mean power. There are shots of hula and interviews with Dennis “Bumpy” Kanahele, a Native Hawaiian sovereignty activist who appears in the movie.

“If you have a romantic comedy about the military in Hawaii … but a title that says ‘Aloha,’ I can only guess that they’ll bastardize the word,” said Walter Ritte, a Native Hawaiian activist on the island of Molokai. “They’re taking our sacred word … and they’re going to make a lot of money off of it.”

In the Hawaiian language, aloha is not just a greeting or a word to convey love. It has other meanings including, compassion, mercy, grace.

“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,” Janet Mock, a Native Hawaiian, said on her MSNBC Shift show “So Popular!” where she panned the title. “When we are in each other’s presence with the front of our bodies, we are exchanging the breath of life.”

The trailer is an example of “typical Hollywood,” where “Hawaii is the verdant background for white fantasies,” said Ty Kawika Tengan, chair of the ethnic studies department at the University of Hawaii’s Manoa campus.

“It’s been so appropriated in so many different ways — made into a commodity, made into a slogan,” he said of the word aloha. “It gets so divorced from important indigenous Hawaiian context. … It’s romanticized, literally, into a romantic comedy.”

During filming in 2013, the movie was untitled. State Film Commissioner Donne Dawson said if she had known the title, she would have advised against it.

“I certainly would have seen it as an opportunity to counsel them … and then allow them to figure it out for themselves,” she said.

The Hawaii Film Office is a state agency that promotes the industry and administers permits and tax credits. The office must also balance those duties with protecting resources and communities, said Dawson, who is Native Hawaiian.

“We’ve had a century of misrepresentation, of misunderstanding, of miscommunication of who we are,” she said of Hawaii’s role in the movies that dates to 1913. “We have fallen prey to the stereotypical ideas … that people have about Hawaii. It’s not based in truth and it’s not authentic.”

In 1931, another “Aloha” movie told of “a half-caste island girl” who “refuses to follow tradition and marry a fellow islander, instead falling in love with a white man and heir to an American fortune,” according to IMDb.com. There also was “Aloha Summer” in 1988 and “Aloha, Bobby and Rose” in 1975.

The title alone would not have been a basis for denying permits. “It’s not my job to basically tell people what they can do with regard to the creative,” Dawson said. “I can tell them what to do and not do when it comes to filming on public land.”

The producers wanted to film in Waianae, home to a high concentration of Native Hawaiians, for scenes set in Afghanistan. Dawson counseled producers that Waianae residents might have negative feelings about filming on homestead lands.

They chose another location.

Native Hawaiians make up about 21 percent of the state’s population, according to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

Hawaii residents, including Native Hawaiians, worked behind and in front of the camera on the movie, said Brenda Ching, executive director of the Hawaii local of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

The title doesn’t bother all Native Hawaiians.

“If you look at what aloha means, how can it be bad no matter how it’s used?” said TV and radio personality Kimo Kahoano. “I think Hawaii is the best place in the world. And the reason is aloha.”

___

Follow Jennifer Sinco Kelleher at http://www.twitter.com/JenHapa.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Up Next

San Leandro Cherry Festival and Parade Set for June 6

Don't Miss

Some Native Hawaiians Disapprove of ‘Aloha’ Movie Title

Oakland Post

Click to comment

Art

After 10-Year Wait, Fillmore Heritage Center Reopens in San Francisco

After serving as the economic and cultural hub of the Fillmore’s historically Black community for more than a decade, the center’s closure ended what was called the “Rebirth of the Cool,” referring to the neighborhood’s role during the height of Black Jazz in the United States.

Published

25 minutes ago

June 10, 2026

bpusa-syndication

Rev. Amos Brown of Third Baptist Church addresses community members at the Fillmore Heritage Center ribbon cutting. Photo by Linda Parker Pennington.

By Linda Parker Pennington, Special to The Post

Last Saturday morning, the cloudy skies cleared just as the highly anticipated ribbon-cutting ceremony began, marking the reopening of the Fillmore Heritage Center at 1330 Fillmore and Eddy.

The complex – which had once included Yoshi’s Jazz Club, the Lush Life Art Gallery, the Koret Heritage Lobby, a 54-seat microcinema, and the Black-owned 1300 On Fillmore restaurant – shuttered in 2015.

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie announcing the reopening of the Fillmore Heritage Center. Erika Scott, owner of Honey Art Studio, looks on with pride. Photo by Linda Parker Pennington.

“The Fillmore is the most important neighborhood in San Francisco’s history for centering Black culture, music, business, and community, and has shaped this City and influenced the entire country,” said San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie to the gathering of more than 100 community leaders, business owners, and public officials. “This building reflects the deep roots of the Fillmore. Urban renewal left deep scars that are still felt today. This Center celebrates a strong Black community that continues to shape San Francisco. I am proud to join the community as we reopen the Fillmore Heritage Center.”

Although the previous stakeholders will not be returning to the center, spaces are available for nonprofit organizations and ventures, such as Fillmore native Ericka Johnson’s Honey Art Studio.

“This Center will be an economic engine and a thriving venue that shines a light on the Black-owned businesses in this neighborhood and lifts the entire district,” Lurie continued. “Our City is committed to this community for the long term.”

“We’re excited to collaborate with the City to finally reopen these doors,” said Ken Johnson, a videographer and community leader who’d been lobbying for the reopening of the center. “It’s an opportunity to showcase the entrepreneurship and creative spirit of this ‘Harlem of the West’ and the ‘Rebirth of the Cool,’ grounded in our uniquely gifted Fillmore community.”

This month, through its Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the city will begin renting the building’s noncommercial spaces for pop-up events celebrating local talent, arts, and entertainment primarily centered in the Fillmore.

bpusa-syndication

Posts by bpusa-syndication

Arts and Culture

COMMENTARY: Black Music is the Sound of Black Freedom: Let Us Reclaim Both This Juneteenth

Black Music Month started when Black Music Association members Ed Wright, Kenny Gamble and his wife, journalist and radio host Dyanna Williams were able to persuade President Jimmy Carter to establish the observation on June 7, 1979.

Published

23 hours ago

June 9, 2026

Oakland Post

Robert Johnson (1911-1938) is thought of as the godfather of blues music, especially Delta blues. The 29 songs recorded by him during his short life have been of massive inspiration to guitarists and musicians over the last 80 years. Public domain photo.

By Wanda Ravernell

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked – Black music is the sound of our freedom.

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans’ ‘sorrow songs,’ to the fields of Civil War battle where Black soldiers picked up abandoned bugles, to the upright piano played in juke joints on Saturday night and churches come Sunday morning, our ancestors’ innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated ’round the world.

In 2000, Congress made it official. In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama changed the name to African American Music Heritage Month and in 2023, Pres. Joe Biden changed it back to Black Music Month, two years after he declared Juneteenth a national holiday, the result of a movement led by Opal Lee.

Our ancestors battle for freedom over these last 400 years and the music that allowed them expression of their humanity deserved to be honored.

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us…’

Along with the long-known exploitation of Black musicians whose recordings were stolen by record companies, the commercialization of Juneteenth feels like another kind of theft.

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

Emancipation Day was Jan. 1 in Pennsylvania, April 16 in Wash., D.C., May 20 in Florida, and Aug. 8 in Kentucky. But Juneteenth, June 19, has the most renown, known in Texas as the ‘colored peoples’ Fourth of July.’

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.

Yes, church.

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee – the day of freedom – when they had chains on their feet and hands. They ‘testified’ about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.

And they sang.

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute’s Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance recalled this part of Juneteenth with prayers in the languages of the African captives. In the middle of the ceremony, a soloist would lead us in singing “Many Thousand Gone” while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas – two months after the Civil War ended.

“Many Thousand Gone” was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:

“No more auction block for me,

No more, no more

No more auction black for me

Many thousand gone.”

Other verses refer to the ‘pint of salt’ and the ‘driver’s lash,’ the realities of enslavement that they had survived.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us’

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, “the joy inside our pain.” So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs – based on spirituals – that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don’t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.

The power of those songs is showing a resurgence across the South as we battle again for the right to self-determination through the ballot box.

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith. Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.

This Juneteenth, let us reclaim those holy voices expressed in Black music for ourselves. It is our birthright. It can neither be bought nor sold. No more. Never again.

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland’s 11^th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.