Bumpy’s perspective on Aloha movie: Crowe afforded megaphone platform to the Hawaiian rights movement

This BuzzFeed News story by Michelle Broder Van Dyke on the movie ‘Aloha’ is an absolute must read to understand Bumpy’s perspective on the movie ‘Aloha’ and Cameron Crowe’s relation with Bumpy and the village of Puuhonua o Waimanalo.

While controversy over the film’s title and racial aspects of casting have overshadowed other aspects of the movie, Bumpy notes the “megaphone platform Crowe had afforded the Hawaiian rights movement.”

Crowe gave Kanahele room within the script to mention the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893.

“My time with Bumpy made me want to reference his struggle,” Crowe said in his email.

In Aloha, Kanahele wears his own shirt, which reads “Hawaiian by birth” on the front, and “American by force” on the back.

For Kanahele, the shirt means that to avoid violence, Hawaiians have to accept — to an extent — the past: “We are forced to do the things we don’t want to do for the sake of peace.”

That said, he’s proud of Aloha, “because we can say we are under military occupation — and that’s the truth.”