lia

A poor picture largely shaped by the poor representation of autistic people in movies and TV. Which is why it is very important that our media get their act together and make good representations of autistic people, that reflects truly the complexity and the unique challenges that each individual within the spectrum has to face.

Autism is perhaps one of the most misunderstood and maligned disabilities right now because people are fed garbage about it. We need to change that, but people like Sia are not helping. They think they are but they’re not. They’re just regurgitating the same crap over and over again.

To summarise my point, some of us can appear extremely “normal” to the point that no one not even the individual themselves know that they might have autism (like me). Some of us are non verbal, most of us are probably somewhere in between. It’s time for our media in particular to finally get that it’s called a spectrum for a reason.

((i know scrolling through and reblogging long posts can be annoying sometimes, but if you have the time please read through and reblog because i’m sick and people need to know about this))

this movie is called music and it’s about a supposedly about a nonverbal, austistic girl named music. the problem? music is played by maddie ziegler

maddie is neurotypical (individuals of typical developmental, intellectual, and cognitive abilities,) ie: she is NOT on the spectrum and NOT disabled. so there’s the first issue. but then we get into sia’s response to the whole thing which ends up being worse somehow

people are obviously and rightfully upset with maddie’s casting.

so what was sia’s response to the criticism?

“oh well, we tried”

now i work as a paraprofessional in an elementary school and many of our students are on the spectrum, nonverbal, disabled, or some combination of all three and/or more. sometimes working with students with disabilities can be challenging but the biggest lesson i have learned in the last 3 years is that there are always ways to be ACCOMMODATING because it often is a LOT more difficult for the student who is neurodiverse than the adult who is neurotypical. i have seen tremendous growth when working with students with educational and social disabilities when they are given the appropriate accommodations, patience, and understanding.

the actress sia and this team worked with probably did find the whole situation daunting and stressful, because like the fucking movie says in the trailer, her brain is DIFFERENT FROM OURS. if this movie was really about spreading awareness about disabilities, they would have accommodated to the actress so that she could work stress free and feel safe and if they couldn’t figure out how to do that, they shouldn’t have made the fucking movie at all

sia also manages to criticize sex workers and people struggling from addictions at the same time during her “defense”

let’s see what else?

oh the movie is not accessible

there are no also no fucking captions for a movie supposedly about disabilities

oh and autism speaks is involved too which sia justifies “not knowing how garbage they are” on a MOVIE ABOUT A GIRL WHO IS ON THE SPECTRUM HOW FUCKING STUPID DO YOU HAVE TO BE

this one actress states that she and many other austistic actors said they would be a part of the movie short notice

to which sia had to say this

i’m not trying to be a proponent of cancel culture but this is fucking DISGUSTING. sia is trying to justify her actions with ableist bullshit. she’s upset that people are judging her movie “before they’ve seen it” when it’s CLEARLY NOT WORTH SEEING because like many people have pointed out, this movie is NOT an accurate portrayal of disabilities, not accessible, the people involved clearly didn’t put the effort and time into making something that actually brought any kind of awareness, and all of this boils down to sia and her team being a bunch of ableist who weren’t willing to put in the effort or time.

imagine having such a large platform as these celebrities have and creating an ableist, garbage piece of media that only polarizes and discriminates even further and then acting like you’re the victim in the situation. i’m DISGUSTED, APPALLED, ANGERED, and OUTRAGED and you should too.

people on the spectrum matter, nonverbal people matter, people with disabilities matter, neurodiverse people matter.

Bonus:

REBLOGING THIS WILL SPREAD IT FASTER THAN IF YOU JUST LIKE IT, WHICH MEANS MORE PEOPLES BECOME AWARE.

Thank you and have a good day, DON’T CLICK THE LINKS!!