What were you about to do right now?
We are going to look at, Sia's new movie called Music and why it was so terrible that she
wound up deleting her Twitter.
I've wanted to talk about this is talking about this for a while.
I also went into wait until the film came out, not so that I could watch it, but just
so that I could confirm a few things.
And unfortunately, they've all been confirmed.
First of all, who is Sia?
Sia, of course, is the superstar singer known for her songs like, Chandelier and Elastic
Heart, et cetera.
She's currently found herself in some hot water with the disability communities, specifically
autistic people because she released a film called Music and everything went downhill
from there.
But before we get into that, let's get into today's comments shout out from my last video.
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Now let's hop into the video.
The main problem people have with this is that the actress playing the autistic character,
Maddie Ziegler is not at all autistic, nor is she to my understanding, neurodivergent
in any way, it's just a random person pretending to have an extreme disability.
To prepare, Maddie studied documentaries about autism and watched YouTube videos by parents
who recorded their child's episodes.
I'm sure I don't have to say it, but this is what we refer to in the industry as cringe.
What's the best way to learn about a community that you're not a part of?
Literally just talk to them, bruh.
You don't have to treat it like an art project.
Maddie goes on to say, "What I realized during this film is that everyone on the spectrum
is different.
Everyone is unique and beautiful in their own way."
I guess, Maddie.
Obviously people started calling Sia out because they were just kind of not a fan of this whole
thing.
See SIA deleted her Twitter.
So unfortunately I can only really show you article recaps of what happened.
But don't worry, they all here.
It's a shame that someone with such a colossal platform is using it to exclude disabled and
neurodiverse actors from their own narratives.
I've been a longtime fan of your work, so this is really disappointing.
So she said, "I cast 13 neuro-atypical people, three trans folk, and not as effing prostitutes
or drug addicts, but as doctors, singers, and nurses."
She wrote, "Effing sad.
Nobody's even seen the dang movie.
My heart has always been in the right place."
I'm sorry.
Do you expect me to believe that doctors, nurses, and singers are somehow more important
or better than sex workers or addicts?
"This is totally unacceptable and there are no excuses."
Tweeted one user.
"You should know better than to allow able-bodied and neuro-typical people to represent the
disabled community.
It's incredibly offensive as is the infantilization of the character.
Sickened and not even captioned, don't release this."
Imagine releasing something targeted towards representing people with disabilities, but
not doing the bare minimum of making sure that it's accessible.
She tweeted at one point "F the F why don't you watch my film before you judge it?
Fury."
All that was really happening was people were upset and rightfully calling you out over
your movie.
The exchanges only he did up though when Sia cited Autism Speaks as a group that stood
behind her film only to face feedback that many with autism consider that organization
to be the enemy.
Sia said, "Autism Speaks came on board long after the film was finished.
Four years in fact.
I had no idea.
It was such a polarizing group."
Literally, it's not like it's hidden knowledge that autism speaks is bad.
Look at these things that come up.
Autism Speaks eugenics, Autism Speaks problems.
They're not a good organization.
Had she talked to like three or four autistic people, we'd have told her autism speaks is
ableist and wants us fixed or dead.
Fun fact, autism is not something that needs to be cured.
We don't need to make people better by erasing their disabilities.
At the height of the online tension, someone said, "Several autistic actors, myself included.
We all said we could have acted in it on short notice.
Zero effort was made to include anyone who is actually autistic."
And then Sia's response was, "Maybe you're just a bad actor."
This person literally just said, "You're making excuses."
Literally not acknowledging the problem, making any effort to listen to autistic people.
"I've never referred to the primary character as disabled.
Special abilities is what I've always said."
First of all, she said that she did years and years of research.
And then she went ahead and called people with disabilities special.
She said, "Forget the research that I've supposedly done.
What if I was just actually ableist?"
Sia being ableist AF while claiming she meant well is some serious abled savior BS.
Once the film finally came out, they discovered things that were in the film that were even
worse than what was happening in the trailer.
In this review, she also has no chemistry with Leslie Odom Jr.
Who plays a kind immigrant from Ghana named Abo, who selflessly helps Music and utters
upbeat African wisdoms.
The Hamilton actor is stuck with some of the film's most controversial sections.
They had Leslie Odom Jr playing the magical negro and it hurts my soul.
He is too talented, amazing, and jaw-dropping to be doing this.
Using a widely debated method called restraint, he attempts to call Music down during an outburst
by hurling himself on top of her.
"I'm going to crush you now and make you feel safe."
He says.
"You're not hurting her?"
Replies a panicked Kazoo.
"No, I am crushing her with my love."
As an artistic person, I'm very disappointed in Sia.
There are scenes in this movie of restraint, something that is very traumatic to a lot
of autistic people.
Do better.
Nothing about us without us.
After it was revealed that the film included scenes of restraint, which is as people pointed
out, very traumatic and should not be advocated for as some sort of positive method of talking
to or interacting with people with autism.
This is how she reacted.
Sia adds warning label to Music movie, apologizes to autism community on heels of golden globe
nominations.
I love how she apologizes once she's up for an award and not while the people are actually
calling her out and pointing out how ableist it was.
In this description of the scene, it literally says right here, "I'm crushing her with my
love."
How is this not condoning restraint on autistic people?
I feel like Sia did condone it, and then once she got informed that this was bad, she was
like, "Oh, oops.
Let me just pretend this was not condoning it."
I want to go through this thread right here, this is from the Autistic Hats.
"I'm watching Sia's movie in order to write a detailed and chronological review so that
nobody else watches it out of curiosity.
I just want the public to see a few things that speak for themselves, starting with this
image."
Oh gosh, I'm going to be honest.
This physically makes me cringe.
Shout to out this account for putting together this thread, but they literally didn't even
have to go further than this.
The next thing I want the general public to see is this clip from the opening scene.
It has strobing lights, overwhelming visuals and caricature of autistic mannerisms.
Here's a still shot of Maddie Ziegler's face at the beginning of that opening scene.
This performance is a caricature of autistic body language.
It's unsettling and insincere, and is deeply reminiscent of the exaggerated mannerisms
non-autistic people often employ when bullying autistic and developmentally disabled people
for the ways we move.
The fact that Ziegler is not autistic and the fact that her performance is so heavily
exaggerated turns the entire movie into one long display of mockery.
According to this petition, designed to get people to stop the film from releasing, this
film will not have a major impact on history.
Canceling it will express that intolerance to neurodivergence is unacceptable in today's
society.
Sia and her associates have additional avenues for funds, they will survive even if no money
is made from this film.
They're not asking for Sia to be canceled.
Spinning this as a cancel culture debate is ridiculous.
Like I said, Sia's Twitter's gone, she hasn't given out any sort of final response.
We should remember, these aren't simple mistakes.
You don't not know what you're doing.
I think Sia's intentions, despite her claiming that they're awesome, don't matter when the
impact is so visible.
If there's anything we can learn from the situation, I guess it's that if you're planning
on making a film like this, you better be ready to face the music.
Anyway, I'll be here all week folks at 2:00 PM Central Time.
If it's Monday, Wednesday, Friday, that means I'm uploading a new video here.
If it's Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, that means I'm going live over on Twitch.
So basically, what I'm saying is I'll see you tomorrow.
Unless of course tomorrow is Sunday, in which case, just watch this video again.
Okay, bye.
So a lot of you noticed this hanging out in the background of my recent videos.
Yes.
My YouTooz is officially dropping on February 28th.
I designed it myself, obviously and purchasing it supports me directly, but it is limited
edition.
So once it's sold out, that's it.
However, we are doing a giveaway where you can get one of these for free.
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Good luck.