The Last Movie You Watched

[Rev. Rye]

Okay, on the whole controversy with Music, the controversy is much bigger than just "ZOMG! THEY CAST A NEUROTYPICAL GIRL TO PLAY AN AUTISTIC GIRL! DOUBLEPLUSUNGOOD! DOUBLEPLUSUNMOVIE!" I haven't seen it yet, but I do fully intend to watch it when I can for the Deep Hurting Project. Personally, I have autism, I don't believe it's necessarily bad for a neurotypical person to play someone on the spectrum per se. But I believe that if you go that route, and given that, from what I can recall, Sia wanted to do so all along, since as far back as I can find on Wikipedia's history pages, Maddie Ziegler seems to have been ALWAYS intended for that role, you need to have others who actually are on the spectrum working as consultants to make sure they get it right. And, frankly, I'm not convinced that was the case



Not only am I on the Spectrum, but I've known many others who were (on the higher and lower-functioning ends of the spectrum). And looking at these mannerisms Maddie Ziegler is putting into her dance, frankly, I'm not seeing any of them reflected in it. What I see are two things: 1) the schoolyard bullies who taunted me for being weird for reasons they almost certainly couldn't comprehend, and 2) the Upper-Class Twit of the Year skit from Monty Python.



Of course that one gets a pass from me since that's more about making fun of rich idiots so insulated in their own little worlds they can barely function outside of it, which I think is a worthy goal. When they're doing the exact same shit in what's supposed to be a legitimate drama about autism, it's little short of galling. To be fair, I don't exactly fault Ziegler for this, since there was apparently one point in filming where she broke down in tears because she was afraid what she was doing could be seen as making fun of autistic people. Also, I can't help but notice the flashing lights in that music number, and while I personally don't have photosensitive epilepsy, many on the spectrum do. I'm not even going to touch on the fact that she's a white girl wearing bronzer and headphones that look like cornrows.

Also, did the version you watched include a scene where Music has a meltdown and Zu and Ebo try to calm her by pinning her to the ground? Just for the record, in  real life, that shit is DEADLY. And when I say deadly, I mean that very literally. Here's one case of a boy who died as a direct result of that method. To be fair, Sia couldn't possibly have known about that particular case when it was being shot, since it happened during post-production. But then again, Corey Foster and Faith Finley were two other cases who died the same exact way long before filming started. To be fair, she said she was going to remove that scene, but apparently that didn't happen. 

And, for the record, I actually tend to be a bit more lenient on portrayals of autism in media specifically because I know autism is a stupefyingly broad spectrum that can cover every extreme from the profoundly impaired to even physicists whose contributions to the discipline rival Einstein's, but shit like this is hard to defend, and it doesn't look like when I actually get around to watching it, there'll be some details that totally redeem and justify it, especially since, even if you take out all the shit I talked about, it seems to just be one of those "wild young adult has to learn responsibility by taking care of a disadvantaged/disabled kid and everybody's supposed to be inspired by the story of overcoming it all even if the kid in question has so little  personality they may as well be a housepet" movies.

And speaking of the Deep Hurting Project, I'm off to supplement my recent review of Gallowwalkers with a takedown of Dorbees: Making Decisions.