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The Media Industry Strikes Out Again With Coverage of New Sia Film
Sia dropped the official trailer for her upcoming movie, Music today about an autistic teen. While the film has gotten praise from her tons of fans and accolades from media outlets, many people are rightfully angered.
The premise of the movie is that Music (Maddie Ziegler) is an Autistic teen who goes to live with her half-sister, Zu (Kate Hudson). Music is non-verbal and the two embark on a journey together as they work to connect.
Ziegler is not disabled — this init of itself is a problem with the movie. Below are some thoughts from #ActuallyAutistic folks who largely are uncomfortable with Ziegler’s portrayal of Autism. Nearly 85% of Autistic adults are unemployed or underemployed, so it’s frustrating to see yet another film portray a disabled person yet not have any disabled people in the movie.
But I won’t dive too deep into that. Instead, I encourage you to follow people like Charis Hill, Liz Bernstein or AspieHuman who explore Autism and representation better than I ever could. And while you’re looking into them, please take some time to learn about “cripping up.” Noor has a fantastic thread about the film and representation of Autism in film and television.
I’ve included some of the tweets with reactions from the disability community below.