Sia's Movie, and Why We're So Angry.

Sia's movie 'Music' came out last year, and when it came out, even just before it was released, all hell broke loose on the internet; a war between the autistic community, and Sia and her fans.

'Music' was a movie telling the story of a nonverbal autistic girl being taken care of by her alcoholic sister after their mother passes away. Except that's not really what its about. Its more about the alcoholic sister having some kind of awakening through looking after Music (the name of the autistic girl. Way to make this confusing to write about, Sia.), and also falling in love with some other guy because... well of course.

Sia used the image of music, the poor nonverbal autistic girl who is so clueless (-_- more on that later), to support her saviour complex. Sia has a saviour complex. It's like she doesn't even try to hide it. First she takes Maddie Ziegler in, treats her like a daughter (and also like a friend at the same time? You don't have to look hard to see there's something sketchy going on with their relationship, but that's not what I'm about to go into), "saving" her from the horrific grips of her previous life of being abused by a dance teacher and her life constantly on screen. Dance Mom's is a terrible show that just abused children (though I must admit it is unfortunately addictive. I've fallen down many a rabbit hole), but the fact Sia seems to claim she was the one to "save" Maddie is just, wrong. Even after Sia started working with her, she was still on the show for many years after, and it was her real mother who took the incentive to leave the show.

Anyway Sia will take every opportunity she can to mention how she "saved" Maddie from this that and the other. It's strange to me.

But of course her saviour complex doesn't end there. Then she goes on to make a movie supposedly about autistic people and trots around between interviews with her head held high, feeling like an angel because "she has an affinity for special abilities people". She can't wipe the smug look off her face when she "corrects" the interviewer from 'special needs' to 'special abilities'. And yet when the same interviewer calls Sia's character "an inanimate object like a wig" she nods along and doesn't bother to correct that.

She claims the character is based off of a friend of hers, and yet still doesn't seem to think twice about casting Maddie, her little angel, as the main character. To me its quite clear Sia was expecting Maddie to play this role of the autistic girl and have the public praising her for such a wonderful performance and then go on to praise Sia herself for such wonderful writing.

She couldn't have been more wrong in her predictions.

Maddie did not, in fact, play that role well. At all, it was hard to watch, looking like an obvious caricature of autistic people. And I by no means blame Maddie for this. She was coerced into thinking this was ok and that this was a role she could play. Even when she expressed her concerns, Sia just said "no that won't happen because I know what I'm doing and this is ok." I haven't seen much of Maddie's acting elsewhere but I'm sure its not bad. Its just what happens when you give the role of a disabled person to an abled, neurotypical actor.

And as if Sia's self-centred saviour complex couldn't be any more obvious, she went and wrote herself into her own film, as a famous pop star buying illegal drugs.... so she can send it to less fortunate countries who don't have those medications needed. When I watched the film (and yes I (somehow) sat through the whole thing. Don't worry, I pirated it. I don't do so often but no way was I about to give my money to Sia for this mess of a movie and waste an hour and a half of my life. I just wasted that time without paying.), I couldn't help but roll my eyes when that part came up. It was so obvious to me she just wanted to make herself look like even more of a saviour. It has the same vibes as Lele pons writing a child character calling her pretty in a sketch. Just quite clearly narcissistic.

The worst part of this film by far was the fact that not only did it misrepresent autism, but it caused real danger to the autistic community. Twice in the film, the prone restraint was demonstrated and showcased for the viewers to see. It was described as "crushing you with love". When I first saw this scene in a clip before the films release, I got chills. This restrains has caused the death of so many people around the world. Not just autistics either. Its a common restraint used amongst police officers with hostile people, and it has killed many. It's such a dangerous manoeuvre, and yet Sia showcased it in her film, as if it was an educational moment, as if she was saying "if you know an autistic person and they have a meltdown, this is what you should do". Its so wrong, and the fact this was shown not once, but twice in the film, as if it was an absolutely necessary thing to do. It's disgusting. As a screenwriting student I can tell you, research is critically important when writing films, especially ones set in the real world like this one. And no matter how much research Sia claims to have done, I refuse to believe any of it, because it shouldn't take much research to see how bad the prone restraint is.

Not only that but she worked closely with the infamous Autism Speaks. A charity which anyone who knows anything about autism will know is an Autism hate group, with aims to fund research to find a "cure" for research. Just by watching a few of their advertisements, you can see how horrible this charity is. It promotes the extinction of our kind. It justifies homicidal thoughts and behaviours in parents because autism is "just that hard to deal with". Autism Speaks is a horrible charity, and it takes a short amount of research to find information about the autistic communities disdain towards them and why. Sia claimed to make this film for the autistic community and yet blatantly worked with a charity that advocates for our eradication. It's disgusting.

No matter how much Sia claims to have researched, I can't believe it. She claimed to make this film for the autistic community and yet the film itself was not sensory friendly at all. Quick rapid cut shots, bright colours, loud music. For so many autistic those musical sequences would be overwhelming and discombobulating. It would have taken a simple google search to realise as such.

It's the response, though, that solidified the autistic communities hatred for Sia herself. After many of us started to speak out against the misinformation this film perpetuated, Sia responded in a very defensive, hostile way. She didn't handle this in a responsible way at all. She sent out tweets filled with swears, called autistic people "bad actors" and in general completely ignored our advice. You may think "well you were criticising her work, its natural to be defensive", and while that is true, that is no justification for targeting a whole group of people, and insult them, calling them "bad actors" and ignoring their advice. Again, as a screenwriting student and general creative storyteller, if i've learned anything so far in the one and a half years i've been at university, its that you cannot be defensive or possessive over your creations. You can't plug your ears and ignore any feedback from others. It is your creation and its up to you as to whether you want to act on the feedback, but it should still be listened to and taken seriously, and most importantly, accepted. Majority of the time, especially in a professional environment, people don't criticise your work out of a hatred for you. They want to offer advice on how to improve and make your work as good as it can be. Feedback is the only way you can improve. If its feedback on a creative part of the storytelling, then fine, you can ignore it if its completely different from where you want the story to go, but when people are giving you feedback on a critical part of the story, a critical part of research you missed, a part that could cause harm to a community, you should listen. You should hear that and ask for further advice and explanation, or go off and research further to make sure your work will not be causing harm.

But Sia didn't do that. She ignored our advice. She didn't research.

And now recently she revealed she was admitted to rehab after becoming suicidal and essentially blamed it on all the bad press her movie got. And while I have sympathy, no one deserves to be suicidal, it really rubs me the wrong way and has brought back this anger in so many of us against her. It really sounds like she's trying to blame the autistic community for her mental state. From what I saw at least, most autistics responded in a very calm and constructive way at first. It wasn't until she responded in such insulting and hostile ways that our anger grew. And we had every right to be angry. This movie is dangerous, and Sia ignored that fact out of a possessiveness for her own project. I'm sure it would be hard for anyone to hear that they'll probably have to rewrite a lot of their story, but if its because that story could be actively causing harm and danger to many people, it is 100% worth it.

Its her own possessiveness over her project that has caused her to end up this way. She went into this project with no, from what I know of, training in screenwriting or directing or the film industry in general, and I wouldn't be surprised if she was ignoring advice from those who worked with her from the get-go. Had she taken more advice this film would have probably been a lot more watchable than it became. But instead she treated this project like her child and refused to let anyone tell her how to raise it. A project is not a child. It's a creation, and that means you cannot ignore the advice people give you when trying to help you to improve this creation. Especially the advice of people who have much more experience in that area than you have.

I don't believe in cancel culture, I believe everyone has their own right to decide whether they want to continue to support an artist or public figure or not. I have decided to continue in not supporting Sia. I stopped supporting her the moment I saw her reactions to the feedback people were giving her. And I do not forgive her. I wish her a steady recovery, but I do not forgive her. She actively endangered the community despite their warnings, and I don't think I can forgive that.