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Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson introduces a performance from best original song nominee “How Far I’ll Go” from “Moana” at the 2017 Oscars. He’s set to star in “The King,” a major motion picture about Kamehameha the Great.
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There are plenty of stories about Native Hawaiians to tell, but it’s no surprise that Hollywood would show intense interest in the biggest, most bankable one: the story of Kamehameha the Great.
Warner Bros./New Line Cinema plans to make “The King,” a major motion picture starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the uniter of the Hawaiian Islands.
Johnson isn’t Hawaiian — he’s half-Samoan, half African-American — but he fills the seats and has a proper respect for Hawaiian culture, having lived here as a teen. He’s also been good for the local film industry: He shot Disney’s “Jungle Cruise” on Kauai earlier this year; before that, it was “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” around Oahu and north of Hilo.
But casting aside, the producers of this epic should keep in mind that with money and power comes responsibility, especially to the Native Hawaiian people, whose cultural and political heritage have been reduced to coconut bras, mai tais and Aloha Poke Co.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that Native Hawaiians — whether activists, historians or the quiet majority — will take a keen, proprietary interest in what millions of moviegoers are told about Hawaiians when they still controlled their own country and their own fate.
Johnson and his employers would do well to listen with respect, and strive to get the story straight.