There are certain in-jokes among us chronically online film enthusiasts that’ll probably get you strange looks if you crack ’em devoid of context in the real world. Take Zack Snyder’s “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole,” an animated fantasy epic that made $139.7 million at the box office, yet, as the internet’s running gag goes, nobody has actually seen. Then there’s /Film’s own recurring bit of referring to Mark Wahlberg as a hamburger salesman, which is more factual that you may’ve realized. However, if you really want to baffle impress your normie pals with your deep-cut knowledge of niche social media humor, all you need to do is applaud Emma Stone for her representation of the Asian-American community.
To clarify for all you fine folks who’ve no idea what I’m talking about — this now nine-year-old punchline involving the “Superbad” veteran was birthed by Cameron Crowe’s controversial bomb “Aloha.” On the surface, admittedly, the “Almost Famous” filmmaker’s 2015 rom-com sounds innocuous enough. The plot centers on Brian Gilcrest (Bradley Cooper), a disgraced military contractor who returns to his former stomping grounds in Hawaii, only to strike up a romance with a younger, chipper Air Force pilot (Stone). As she happily explains to those around her in the film, though, Stone’s character, Allison Ng, is one-quarter Hawaiian and one-quarter Chinese, which Stone herself is … not.
Coming out the same year that #OscarsSoWhite took off, Crowe’s film quickly became the poster child for casual Hollywood whitewashing in certain circles online, and not undeservedly so. Still, with FlixPatrol reporting “Aloha” has become the second-most-streamed film on Netflix over the last two days in the U.S. (just behind Lee Daniels’ demonic possession thriller “The Deliverance” in the top spot), it seems all those people watching this flick for the first time are about to discover what the rest of us already know: Stone’s casting is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this movie’s mess.
Netflix subscribers are saying Aloha to Cameron Crowe’s infamous rom-com
Now, obviously, there are many real-life multiracial individuals who, like Allison in “Aloha,” may not appear to be of mixed racial heritage. In a 2015 post on his blog responding to the ensuing whitewashing criticisms of Stone’s casting, Crowe revealed the character was even inspired by “a real-life, red-headed [Hawaiian] local” who went around introducing herself the way Allison does. Be that as it may, the filmmaker offered “a heart-felt apology to all who felt this was an odd or misguided casting choice,” and Stone herself has apologized on several occasions, even going viral for shouting “I’m sorry!” when Sandra Oh cracked wise about her casting at the 2019 Golden Globes ceremony.
Beyond that, “Aloha” is kind of a fascinating misfire across the board. The movie is packed with shaggy subplots involving Brian catching up with his now-married ex-girlfriend (a wasted Rachel McAdams) and Bill Murray playing a skeevy, eccentric billionaire who’s eager to launch a private weaponized satellite for dubious reasons, forcing Brian to choose between what’s best for the Hawaiian natives and his own selfish interests. Emails made public by the 2014 Sony hack have revealed that things were just as chaotic behind the scenes during filming and post-production, as it became increasingly clear that Crowe’s script had all sorts of tonal and story issues and just wasn’t coming together, rewrites be damned. Even isolated by itself, the romance between Brian and Allison is a potpourri of Cameron’s worst clichés as a storyteller (including, yes, that one).
Nearly a decade later, “Aloha” has yet to undergo the sort of reevaluation that other rom-coms of yore have received after years of the genre having all but vanished from theaters (prior to the recent success of “Anyone But You,” naturally). I’m skeptical that will change thanks to its arrival on Netflix, but time will tell. As for Stone? She’s won a pair of Oscars and been collaborating with wonderful weirdos like Yorgos Lanthimos and Julio Torres of late. She’s doing just fine.
