Sia has faced backlash · 10:44am Dec 26th, 2020
The trailer for the upcoming film Music, directed by the Australian singer herself, has received 49,000 likes and 41,000 dislikes.
This is because she casted Maddie Ziegler, rather than an autistic actor, to portray the nonverbal autistic protagonist. Most people who are on the spectrum claimed that they felt uncomfortable and disgusted because the portrayal is unrealistic and stereotypical.
Ziegler even admitted that she was on tears because she was worried about offending people with autism, but Sia reassured her.
Here's what I have to say about this controversy. I understand that Sia had good intentions, but her decision to cast Ziegler was poorly thought out. It would've been better if she did more research and casted an actor who actually has autism in order to provide accurate representation.
What about you? Any thoughts about the backlash?
She is in a no win-win situation the way I see it, yes she has very good intentions, but like you said she or someone in her stuff didn't have enough information on the subject, and second, if she did hire someone with autism, people will bash her for taking advantage of them or the person with autism get bashed for terrible acting or something. So she decided to take the blunt instead of the one with autism.
You know people are gonna bash someone for the little things done by someone, or I like to say false white knighting and rampant cancel culture.