Sia says sorry to autism community for controversial film Music

the "some viewers may find it distressing" criticism was mainly about how a movie about autistic people is inaccessible to autistic people. there was also a scene where an autistic person having a meltdown was pinned/attacked in a way that often causes severe harm in real life situations because people do it without prior consent of the person who is melting down, and do it incorrectly.

the other criticism was how a movie about autistic people originally had an autistic actor playing the role, but when the environment distressed them, instead of adapting the environment and making it more accessible, Sia hired someone who was not autistic. There are quite a few autistic actors who could have filled that role and autistic actors are often discriminated against, so the goal should have been to help represent them more in media.

and the same goes for black people. if these kinds of characters were always portrayed by others who weren't like them (see: blackface) representing them with people who were like them and letting black actors be represented in media was be a good thing.

As to the moronic assertion that only actors with lived experience may ever play the role being cast that comes across as more than a touch regressive (ironic considering it comes from the "progressive" crowd) Afterall, by their "logic" autistic people are now banned from playing any role that isnt explicitly of an autistic person. Blacks cant play white roles and vice versa, gays are shut out of the industry outside of the odd gay character and so on.

I don't think the logic being used here is that "only if you are X should you be allowed to play a character who is X". People who make this sort of criticism would usually say that the role of an autistic person should ideally be played by an autistic actor; but they wouldn't go in reverse and say that the role of a neurotypical person should only be played by a neurotypical actor. Similarly for transgender people, disabled people etc.

The idea is to increase the acting opportunities of people in various minority groups who are typically underrepresented on the screen; the kind of people who might find it difficult to be considered for the role of a person who doesn't share their particular characteristic. So supposedly, at least the roles of people who do share their characteristic should be reserved for them; otherwise how else will they find work?


I don't personally agree with this line of reasoning. I'm just pointing out that it's used specifically for these sorts of underrepresented minority groups. So it doesn't follow that a gay actor can only play a gay role etc.

I dont disagree that certain groups could do with better representation but, as you noted, the line of reasoning here is questionable. Aside from being grossly hypocritical it comes across as rather demeaning for those it targets where it explicitly says that they're unhiriable if it wasnt for a box ticking exercise.
I'm not arguing against hiring minorities (although i find the line that theyre being actively excluded somewhat questionable) merely that such characteristics shouldnt serve as an immutable factor in the hiring process. It being somewhat oxymoronic to try and combat discrimination with discrimination.

Then again, my main gripe here is with the Twitter trolls who think they deserve some form of a say in this and have resorted to harassing the people involved in the production and implicitly saying that the person chosen to act this role is undeserving of it. It's a remarkable spectacle of irony, double think and rank hypocrisy.

That doesnt seem like an overly good reason to object to a film, given many films feature similar and comparable scenes from EST to torture and beyond. Just because its an unpleasant method is hardly a reason to ban its artistic portrayal.

That makes the decision to overlook an autistic actor vaguely questionable but given 'lived experience' is of little use in such a role im afraid i still dont see the issue here.
As to representing them for the sake of it, why might one ask? Whilst it might be nice to have someone of (insert whichever group here) playing more roles hiring them solely on that basis is less an equitable outcome as opposed to a condescending way to humour people in my book. People should be hired on their skills, not whether theyre black/white/disabled/mentally unwell etc. etc.

As much as one is loathe to have to bring up the double standards argument it does rather boil down to that. The masses of whiney twitter mobs tend to get incredibly uppity if half the cast arent converted to blacks, as it were (take the example of trying to retroactively make Hermione black). If we were to do this the other way around though, well, im sure you can guess the reaction that would ensue if a director said "no blacks are allowed to play this role".

Now, my issue isnt about hiring minorities or people with disabilities, by all means hire as many as you want. The issue i take is, aside from the double standards, that this seems like a cheap way to appease the "progressive" crowd at the expense of meritocracy. Call it 'colour blind' (or whatever inane and nonsensical term these cretins use now) but i really dont get the issue with hiring people on talent as opposed to trying to load movies with as many minority groups as possible. Take the furor last year over casting a normal person to play a transsexual in some movie another (i cant recall the exact example), it escapes me as to why people think it is not only wrong but 'offensive and violent repression' to do anything but take a literal interpretation of the cast but only in one specific direction. Hiring a straight "cis" person to play a gay transsexual is considered horrific and akin to naziism whilst doing that in reverse is good? Colour me confused.

You just moved the goalpost. It started as "people are complaining about this movie on twitter" and now you've described it as "wanting to ban artistic expression". I am defending the people who have the right to criticize a movie for seeming performative, not banning artistic expression. Don't attack positions I do not have.

You think that people should be hired for their skills, and one of those skills is being able to portray an autistic character more realistically. I'm not autistic and I don't know enough about the differences between how the character was portrayed and what autistic people's experiences are like, but you could always look for autistic people who are talking about it if you want to understand that better.

And the reason why representation is important is that statistically if you are exposed to characters in media who you can form parasocial relationships with, you are less likely to be bigoted against that group. (In the same way having a diverse friend group can make you less bigoted). This goes back to my point about accurate portrayal. if the only autistic character you can relate to is a neurotypical interpretation of autism, it's not going to be that helpful.
This is why it is good to represent groups that face more discrimination and are underrepresented in media like trans people and disabled people. No one is saying that it is "offensive and violent repression" they are criticizing a movie's decisions and saying the way it advocates for autistic people seems performative.

Lastly, as a non-Autistic individual your really don't have the right to be saying how Autistics should be represented or played by. You are not Autistic and not part of the monority.

This seems to suggest that people should only be able to tell stories directly related their innate traits, so Autistics can only tell autistic stories, Indians can only tell Indian stories.

We would lose a huge amounts of creative freedom because you want to put people in neat little boxes of what they can and can't do.

Imagine the troubles of trying to do historical dramas where, for example, the only people qualified to play the Nazis are all in their late 80's or dead.
The idea that actors can only play parts that they have lived experience of is utterly preposterous. Its therefor not surprising that a certain, unnamed, group of intellectually subnormal activists have latched onto such a bizare notion in the same way that a Peta activist will chain itself to a farm gate to protest about pest control. It has the same unmistakable stench as the pseudo-academic "disciplines" like critical race/gender/sex/fat theory (well all of the bizarre ones)

How on Earth are you comparing Nazis to Autistics?? You are comparing extremists to everyday individuals. This is not in reference to a historical drama, this is the current day.

It's not as simple of 'this one thing that I have affects this small bit of me', it affects your entire perception of the world. Non-Autistics will never understand our perception of the world, as we will never completely understand theres. I have never seen a non-Autistic individual play an Autistic person well and highly doubt I will ever.

Have you ever seen an Autistic play a non-Autistic well?

Have you ever seen an Autistic play a non-Autistic well?

Hardly.
Er which position have i "attacked" as opposed to rebutting.

Heathen forfend people be hired on their talent as opposed to qualities they have no say over?
I would point out that just because you don't know how to play an autistic character doesnt mean other actors are similarily limited.. just because someone has not experienced it doesnt mean they cant simply read up on the issue... As i said, if you only hire actors on the basis that they must be representative of the role and have lived experience few movies would ever be made again. Never mind the fact that it is, by definition, discriminatory for all concerned.

I never said it wasnt a good idea having a diverse range of people in the media. Merely that diversity for the sake of it is pointless. Not to mention films do not exist to advance a political and social ideology. Entertainment//propaganda and that.
Why wouldnt it be? Just as n American actor can play a European/African/Asian person in a movie there is no particular requirement for lived experience. It might make it slightly easier for them to act the part but it is extremely far from prerequisite.

In what way is hiring autistic people, or transexuals for that matter, for the sake of it not 'performative' as you put it? As to them being 'underrepresented', given thats trans are a tiny minority in the first place (and few movies actually need feature someone simply for the fact that they dislike their biology) would you mind expanding on your insinuation that there is some form of requirement to artificially scatter more of them throughout the entertainment industry? Aside from a box ticking exercise of course.

Happens all the time. I bet you wouldn't even know, because it's not always completely obvious when somebody is Autistic. Some Autistic people learn to mask their traits in front of others. It doesn't mean being Autistic affects them less (masking is exhausting), but it does mean that in a lot of cases an observer wouldn't even know they are Autistic.

So let's ask, why does this work one way, but not the other?

Well, quite simply, it's experiences and ways of thinking. Apologies in advance here, because I'm bad at wording things. Autistic people will often grow up surrounded by NTs (neurotypicals), who think in what is considered to be a "normal" way. Autistic brains work differently to non-Autistic ones, but this usually comes out in mannerisms that are seen as "weird" by NTs. As a result, a lot of Autistic people will be taught from a young age "you shouldn't do this", and "this is what you should be doing/thinking/feeling etc.". After years of this, some Autistic people are able to "get it", and understand how they're "supposed" to act and think (according to non-Autistics). They are able to "think" like a NT in a sense, but this doesn't make them any less Autistic. Their brain still functions in its alternative way, but they've learned to suppress that and think and act how society tells them is normal. Is this a good thing? No. It's exhausting and isn't giving the Autistic person freedom to be themselves. But it does mean that it can be difficult, if not impossible, to tell that the person is Autistic unless you really know them. This is why an Autistic person can play a non-Autistic well.

Now, let's flip the scenario. A non-Autistic person wants to play an Autistic person. Why can't they do this well? Again, it's down to experience. I mentioned before that some Autistic people are able to mask, a lot of that due to growing up around NT people and being told how they are "supposed to be". Simply, a NT person wouldn't have grown up being taught to act in a way that is generally seen as the way Autistic people act (which is a bad thing in the first place, since ASD affects everyone differently. No 2 Autistic people are the same with how their condition affects them, so this is literally impossible). Because of this, non-Autistic people don't have this different way of thinking that Autistic people do, and aren't able to develop/"learn" it either. They also haven't experienced life the way Autistic people have, being told "you shouldn't be doing that", "this is how you should be", "you don't fit in here", and being called "weird" just for acting in the way that their brain naturally does.