“It’s not performance, it’s not informative and it’s not useful.”
The film follows a recently sober woman, played by Kate Hudson, who becomes the guardian of her half-sister, Music, who is autistic. Music is played by Sia’s longtime collaborator, dancer Maddie Ziegler.
Once the trailer was released in November, it received a major setback for throwing a physical, neurotypical actor (Ziegler) to play someone with autism:
@Sia @leslieodomjr @maddieziegler This is totally unacceptable and there are no excuses, you need to know better than to allow the body and neurotypes the disabled community. It’s incredibly offensive, as is the outrage of the character. Sick. And not even captions. Do not release it.
Sia responds to the setback, saying: ‘I was actually trying to work with a beautiful young girl, non-verbally on the spectrum, and she found it unpleasant and stressful. That’s why I threw Maddie. ‘
A few people shouted at Sia, saying, “We all said we could do it on short notice. These excuses are just that – excuses. The fact is, no effort has been made to include anyone who is actually autistic. is not.” Sia replied:
Earlier this month, another setback occurred after a scene was leaked, indicating that Ziegler’s character is being held in a slump:
@Sia A strangely strange ‘love letter’ to promote restrictions that literally killed autistic people …
Sia finally deleted her Twitter account after this spate of setbacks.
Now that the controversial film has been released, reviews from critics, the autism community and others are out, and that’s not good.
One person mentioned the offensive portrayal of the film’s self-stimulating behavior, or ‘mood’.
I’ve said a lot about how awful this movie is and how disgusting sia is to make it, but it’s really shit. I’ve always been self-conscious of the way I move my hands to music when I’m calming down or trying to stay calm, and it makes me feel like a freak. https://t.co/htYWkqSyej
the way sia’s film portrays “autistic mood” literally looks like bullies at school driving the joke with autistic people. it is not representation, it is not informative and it is not useful. It’s disgusting. she claims she taught herself about autism, it’s clear she did not
This person had a few words to describe the movie:
I’m so glad to see threads about Sia’s “Music” go viral. It’s just a nasty, shitty, skilled, garbage movie, and people need to know it. I doubt it will do much in the long run: disability / autism representative (this conversation has happened so much …), but I’m taking it for now.
But yes, in general the film was poorly received:
Oh my god, “Music” is SO FUCKING BAD. She thought THIS was a ‘love letter’? She thought THIS was a voice for the voiceless? ‘I feel physically ill, I’m on the verge of tears. Is this REALLY how the world sees us? Fuck Sia and her disgusting fucking “autism” movie. Fok.
@ThatRangeThoGRZ / Twitter: @ThatRangeThoGRZ
I’m disappointed. Disgusting really. Of course, she did not do research on autism at all, nor did she think, maybe I should have someone who is autistic play for it. It was a terrible representation of autism. The Sia movie, music, is trash. https://t.co/ohNcHEXeOZ
And according to reviewer website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 17% rating so far, which is considered ‘rotten’.
Vertical Entertainment / Thanks to Everett Collection / Rotten Tomatoes / Via rottentomatoes.com
Although Sia’s Twitter is still disabled, we’ll keep an eye on her when she comes back and addresses the criticism and then updates you.
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