How is a human child like an alien from outer space? Perhaps in more ways than you might think! This video dives into Spielberg’s “E.T.” and Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” to examine why and how a child might feel like they’re not from this planet. I also take a look at how movies about childhood intended for broad, mainstream American appeal often have a lot of messy, contradictory themes — but those contradictions can tell us even more about how childhood is imagined within our society.
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Chapters:
00: 00 – Introduction
04: 58 – “You don’t know him”: Elliott and E.T.
35: 48 – “He’s good. I can tell”: Lilo and Stitch
1: 05: 32 – Conclusion
Media discussed:
– E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, dir. Steven Spielberg (1982)
– Lilo & Stitch, dir. Chris Sanders & Dean DeBlois (2002)
References:
– Cheng, E. (2007). Family, Race and Citizenship in Disney’s Lilo and Stitch. In N. Scott (Ed.), Monsters and the Monstrous: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil, pp. 121-132. Brill.
– Hoberman, J. (2006). Laugh, Cry, Believe: Spielbergization and Its Discontents. Virginia Quarterly Review, 83(1).
– King, E. (2025). Stitch: The Creation, The Model Citizen, and The Reality Discovered Through Exile. The Digital Literature Review, 12(6), 84-98.
– Laemmerhirt, I. (2013). From Outer Space to Paradise?
Remapping Hawai’i in Lilo and Stitch. Komparatistik Online, 8, 83-93
– Magistrate, A. (1984). Innocence Unrewarded: A Note on E.T. and the Myth of Adolescence. Science Fiction Studies, 11(2), 223-225.
– Perea, K. (2018). Touching Queerness in Disney Films Dumbo and
Lilo & Stitch. Social Sciences, 7.
– Russell, P.R. (1983). Parallel Romantic Fantasies: Barrie’s “Peter Pan” and Spielberg’s “E.T.: The Extraterrestrial”. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, 8(4), 28-30.