Back in November, we covered the trailer of Sia’s upcoming movie, Music, following its explosive controversy. Then, the artist’s main response to criticism was telling audiences, “you can’t criticize me until you watch the movie.” So we watched it. Two weeks earlier, however, the Golden Globes announced that they nominated the film for two awards. Unfortunately after watching the film, it is easy to see why the award ceremony applauded this century-old story about what abled people think of autism.
The movie is about a young woman, Zu (Kate Hudson), who must take care of her non-verbal half-sister Music (Maddie Ziegler) after their grandmother dies, and gets help from their neighbor Ebo (Leslie Odom Jr.). Maddie Ziegler, who plays the lead role of a non-verbal autistic girl, is neurotypical. This was the main topic of the controversy that took place upon the release of the trailer. As with any disability, autistic characters should only be portrayed by autistic actors. Neurotypical actors don’t have experience being autistic, and when they try to imitate autistic body language, facial expressions, and stimming, it’s never authentic and always comes out looking more like a caricature of autistic people than a representation of them. This is part of the reason why the movie is so incredibly insulting. It’s impossible for a neurotypical actress to portray an autistic character without making a mockery of them, and this movie is most certainly no exception to that rule.
Music has been classified as a musical which is quite a generous description. A musical, whether a movie or a theater production, usually involves the use of musical numbers to tell a story, and a good musical can do this without really interrupting the flow of the story too much, but the way Music does this is odd, to say the least.
The music numbers could be stand-alone music videos, and they’re usually, with a few exceptions, not sung by any of the characters. It’s almost like Sia combined the structure of a well-written musical with the confessionals of The Office and then mixed in the colors of a pack of neon highlighters. The alleged purpose of these musical numbers that have been sprinkled into a movie with an already confusing and incoherent plot is to explain what’s going on in Music’s mind, which I find so strange. Autistic person here, and I am, in fact, capable of coherent thought. Even more surprisingly, I never have music videos with bright colors, weird costumes, and music sung by someone else playing in my head. And not only are these music numbers random, confusing, and frankly insulting, but many of them can actually prevent autistic people from being able to watch the movie.
The opening scene of the movie features Music in a costume with lightning bolts, stimming and dancing in an orange room with flashing lights. At the time this piece has been posted, there is no warning before the movie about these flashing light sequences, that not only can trigger migraines and seizures in some people but are also incredibly visually overwhelming to those who are autistic and/or have sensory processing issues.
It took me two minutes to watch a 20-second clip because I had to keep pausing it, closing my eyes for a few moments, and trying again. This is yet another reminder that despite what Sia may have claimed, autistic people’s advice was not taken into consideration or kept in mind. The scene is also notable for Ziegler’s performance, as the stimming is done in such a way that it is a caricature of autistic people’s stims and body language. And while she is attempting to emulate the movements of an autistic person, the issue is that, as Twitter user @autisticats explains, “we do those things naturally. Maddie Ziegler does not.” However, this isn’t even the most harmful or dangerous scene in the movie.
That designation would go to a scene in a park, where Music becomes overwhelmed and is pushed into a meltdown, and Zu responds by restraining her by lying on her.
I couldn’t help but think of the many autistic children who have died exactly from that. Just over a month ago, a teenager named Eric Parsa was killed by the police by this exact technique. Prone restraint is an incredibly dangerous and sometimes deadly form of restraint, and the movie’s promotion of it will undoubtedly lead to its increased use. Its use seems to be based on a misunderstanding of how deep pressure helps autistic people. When it is consensual and done safely, it can be successful, but prone restraint, especially done as shown in Music, fulfills neither of these qualifications.
Twitter user @AKwritesnow, an autistic occupational therapist and writer, explained in a Twitter thread that “deep pressure provided with consent is therapeutic. Without consent, it’s a violation and only makes things worse. It terrifies us into submission.” Following the scene being released, many Twitter users expressed their outrage that an ineffective and deadly method of handling an autistic person’s meltdowns is being promoted in the movie. Sia responded by apologizing and deleting her Twitter account, but not before promising to remove every restraint scene. However, this promise turned out to be a lie. Music was released on January 14th in Australia and on February 12th in the United States and at the time this piece is being posted, the scenes remain in the movie with no warning. In hindsight, perhaps Sia deleting her Twitter account, which she had previously used to unabashedly attack autistic people who criticized the movie trailer, before her movie even came out wasn’t such a good sign.
The criticism of the movie hasn’t even been taken seriously by anyone involved. In an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, Kate Hudson referred to the controversy as a “conversation” and claimed that the movie was made with “love and sensitivity” and that she feels terrible when anyone feels “left out.” What she’s missing here is that not only are we being left out, but that we’re being written off, dismissed as “haters,” condescended to, and not just talked but screamed over. Sia’s Music has also been criticized by almost every major autism organization, including Autism Speaks, which despite being thanked in the credits, tweeted in November that they hadn’t been involved in the film’s production in a clear attempt to distance themselves from it.
However, despite all of these criticisms, the movie was still nominated for two Golden Globes awards: one for Best Motion Picture, Musical, or Comedy, and one for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical, or Comedy. These nominations were a slap in the face to the autistic community, which has been campaigning since the trailer was released for the movie to be pulled from theaters. Twitter user @BeingCharisBlog started the hashtag campaign #NoGoldenGlobeForMusic, which hundreds of autistic people and caregivers have used to protest the nominations. There’s currently a petition on Change.org calling for the Golden Globes to rescind the nomination, which at the time of writing this article has over 106,000 signatures and can be found here.
While I never expected Music to be any better than the trailer and Sia’s early comments indicated, I was not prepared for how nauseating and truly horrifying the movie was going to be. It’s a mockery of the autistic people she claims to care for, and beyond that, she is putting them in danger because she couldn’t be bothered to do proper research on meltdowns, deep pressure, and prone restraint. And while the movie is absolutely horrific, it’s also quite indicative of the attitudes towards disabled and especially autistic people in not just the film industry but also in society. The entire movie revolves around a neurotypical person whose character development comes from her autistic half-sister. Music is a “love letter,” yes, but not to autistic people as Sia claims it to be.
It’s a love letter to neurotypical people who know someone who is autistic and centers themselves. My friends are not special or good people just for being friends with me. My family isn’t special because they deal with the “burden” of my existence. The purpose of my existence is not to help someone else’s character development or to remind others of how “lucky” they are to be abled and neurotypical. I am the main character of my own story.
