After months defending his choice to cast the neurotypical actor Maddie Ziegler as an autistic character in the next film Music and criticizing online critics (including the very people her film tries to represent), Sia, it seems, has changed her mind. Or, now that she has been nominated for an award, she is in damage control overdrive. You decide!
Per Variety, a debuting singer / songwriter / director has announced that she is “listening” and will include a warning at the beginning of Golden Globe nominated film that says: “Music it in no way tolerates or recommends the use of restraint in autistic people. There are autistic occupational therapists who specialize in sensory processing that can be consulted to explain safe ways to provide deep and proprioceptive pressure feedback to help with collapse security. ” Containment and isolation interventions are widely recognized as dangerous and abusive (in 2018, a 13-year-old autistic boy died after being restrained by a member of your school staff).
“I plan to remove the restriction scenes from all future prints. I heard the wrong people and that is my responsibility, my research was clearly not complete enough, it was not broad enough ”, tweeted Sia.
She also tweeted, “I’m sorry.” About an hour after this series of tweets, she deleted her Twitter. If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a noise? If you tweet an apology and then delete your Twitter, is it a real apology? Maybe not, but at least we have blogs to catalog the recipes.