Eddie Aikau Documentary Analysis

The film Hawaiian, The Legend of Eddie Aikau was named this way because Eddie Aikau became a person to look up to in the Hawaiian culture. Eddie Aikau, being a true Hawaiian, worked hard to protect the identity of the whole Hawaiian culture, from surfing to proving how their ancestors found Hawaii. The sport of surfing was beginning to fade in to the image that Californians and Australians were the best surfers. People did not believe that the Polynesians actually found Hawaii, most believe that they stumbled on it upon luck. The ESPN's filmmakers assumed that the audience watching this film would be into surfing so they used his surfing career to hook the audience. If PBS or the History channel were to make a documentary about Eddie it would leave out his exciting surfing career and may very easily lose their audience.