![]() Sometimes eye contact makes me uncomfortable, especially during emotionally charged conversations. They can try to act the challenge of making eye contact, but it’s more likely to be a stiff, stereotypical portrayal, because the reality is that it’s not as simple as Googling autistic traits and copying them. How someone communicates with the world around them is not indicative of their personhood or their right to make choices about their own life, including pursuing acting as a career.Īs an autistic person, I know that no matter how good an actor is, they will never know exactly how it feels to stim by flapping your hand lightly against your leg because you’re overwhelmed or energized at a busy work conference. I should know, I was marked as “low-functioning” by medical professionals when I was diagnosed as a kid and was partially nonverbal growing up. Describing someone as low-functioning and making assumptions about their abilities based on how they communicate is ableist, not kind. The autistic community has been outspoken for years about the need to do away with functioning labels. Sia went on to suggest that casting someone at Music’s “ level of functioning was cruel, not kind,” showing once again how little research she has done on autistic people. When people suggested to Sia that autistic actors should have been considered for the role of Music, Sia replied “ Maybe you’re just a bad actor” to an autistic actor, adding to the prevalent assumption that autistic people are unable to act because we’re not neurotypical, which ignores the incredible diversity of the autistic community. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Superstore’s Garrett is played by Colton Dunn, who isn’t a wheelchair user like his character. This happens across the board with disability. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore) from The Good Doctor, Isadora Smackle (Cecilia Balagot) from Girl Meets World, and Sugar Motta (Vanessa Lengies) from Glee are all portrayed by non-autistic actors. Abed (Danny Pudi) from Community, Sam Gardner (Keir Gilchrist) from Atypical, Dr. Hiring a non-autistic actor to portray a canonically autistic character, or an undiagnosed character who is strongly coded as autistic, is common, but that doesn’t make it acceptable. If she can’t even listen to our community’s criticisms, why should she direct a film about us? But Sia’s choice to react in anger rather than reflect on her role in perpetuating ableism and autistic stereotypes, however well-intentioned, shows that she’s not ready to truly listen to autistic people, even though she says she based Music on one of her friends, had two autistic people advising her on the film, and cast 13 autistic people in the film. In contrast, Anne Hathaway recently apologized for her character’s hands in The Witches after disability advocates spoke out about the implicit ableism and the potential impact on children with limb differences. It’s even more disappointing that Sia has doubled down in response to criticism from autistic and disabled advocates. ![]() Ziegler and Sia are known for frequently working together, but it’s a disappointment to see yet another neurotypical actor playing a neurodivergent role. The film and Sia are currently facing criticism for casting Maddie Ziegler, a non-autistic actress, in the titular role of Music, a nonverbal autistic character who moves in with her recently sober sister (Kate Hudson). ![]() Sia’s upcoming film Music is just another example in a long history of autistic people not being centered in stories about autism. Parents of disabled children often carry more weight as experts on disability than disabled people do, and most film and TV roles for disabled characters cast a nondisabled person to portray them. It’s more than a phrase, it highlights how common it is for disabled people to be excluded from conversations about our own civil rights, healthcare, and media representation. “Nothing about us without us” is a common saying in the disability community that traces back to South African disability rights activists in the 1990s.
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