Sia says she is on the spectrum

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After revealing earlier this year that she was diagnosed with ASD, Sia spoke about Music in an interview with Zane Lowe. "It took me 20 years to make that movie. I wrote the music and wrote the film with my friend, and it took me 20 years of thinking about it and then five, six years to make it and then edit it. And then I got into a stupid Twitter spat with somebody autistic," she began.

Sia then said that the online storm led to her being diagnosed with autism: "Kathy Griffin, one of my friends, said to me, ‘I think you're autistic.’ And so I went and I had a neuropsych eval, and it took 18 hours over the course of like five, six days. And it turned out that I’m a level 2 autistic."

When Zane then said that Sia's own autism was likely why she was drawn to the movie's "subject matter," Sia replied, "What was extra funny was someone said, 'I should have gotten Maddie's part, these are the parts I miss out on that I should get.' I just wrote back, like an a***hole, 'Maybe you're not a very good actor.'"

When it came to people accusing her of being "ableist" for her response, Sia told Zane, "Actually, I think it's the opposite of ableist. I think I just treated her like I would treat anybody on the internet."

"Of course, when it comes out that I was just speaking to a peer, oh the irony! It was so interesting," she continued, going on to attribute the online "negativity" to QAnon, Reddit, and algorithms. "I thought it was my fans and that they hated me, that they had turned against me. But actually, it was people pretending to be my fans that turned against me."

Zane then affirmed that "the movie will forever exist" and said that people will view it differently with "time." Sia agreed and said, "I think it will have a little renaissance, that would be really nice."

Here's the thing: Sia and Zane chalking criticism of Music to Twitter nonsense over Sia's own neurodivergence feels willfully ignorant at best. Regardless of whether or not Sia responded to an autistic actor like an "a***hole," it doesn't change the fact that a neurotypical actor played a role that numerous people, professional critics included, deemed offensive, stereotypical, and even harmful.

The movie performed poorly because it’s a musical, a minority interest unless it’s a big name actor or story like Les Misérables.

ND advocates lie they hated the movie because it depicted more severe forms of autism and because these people are ableist they don’t want these people shown.

Superpowers only thank you

There have been lots of movies and shows depicting autistic people before this movie release and since ( some discussed here ) and there have been no such arguments about actor hiring.

Ironically the new Snow White movie decided not to hire dwalfs for the part as they thought it would be discriminatory

The fact that it's a horrible movie and doesn't depict anybody accurately, isn't it?

It was never going to be a hit movie, Sia is not that big a star. Not many people into musicals

I've not seen it but benefit of the doubt, its a crap movie, so what many movies are crap why pick on this one?.

The night clerk (features verbal autistic main character played by NT) barely mentioned, where is the outrage at Tye Sheridan or director Michael Cristofer for using a NT, interesting no one cares why is that i wonder.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tye_Sheridan

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7979142/

Honestly, I feel like this is a huge cop out, given that she already proved that she's not an ally to us because of that "Music" movie. I feel like she could be self-diagnosing.