Sia under fire for casting Maddie Ziegler as autistic teen in movie YouTube: SiaAustralian singer and songwriter Sia is facing intense backlash from critics after casting popular TikTok creator Maddie Ziegler as an autistic teenager in her upcoming film \u201cMusic.\u201d Sia is a well-known name in the world of pop music; hailed for such hits as \u2018Chandelier\u2019 and \u2018Titanium,\u2019 Sia has become a huge sensation in the industry, and now, she\u2019s taking her talents to the silver screen. Sia has written and directed her very own feature film, named \u201cMusic,\u201d which features an autistic character by the same name and her half-sister, Zu. Despite her excitement around the project (which also stars Kate Hudson), it seems that Sia is instead being met with a wave criticism for her decision to cast Maddie Ziegler for the role of the movie\u2019s autistic teen. Ziegler is a huge star on TikTok, who boasts over 19 million followers on the viral video app. It\u2019s not her follower count that has critics talking, though; instead, it\u2019s the fact that Ziegler is a non-autistic person playing the role of an autistic character. Many commenters have taken issue with the casting, feeling that only autistic people should play the role of an autistic person, even noting that many autistic actors would have happily filled the role on short-notice. \u201cI love Maddie Ziegler, don\u2019t get me wrong,\u201d one fan said of Sia\u2019s movie. \u201cBut you need to consult actual autistic people and have autistic people play autistic people.\u201d https:\/\/twitter.com\/Sia\/status\/1329723656768024577?s=20 Sia herself has responded to the matter in several posts, claiming that she felt it was \u201cmore compassionate to use Maddie\u201d than an autistic actor and that she \u201cdid try\u201d to cast them for her film. She also stated that she performed three years of research for the movie and had autistic people advising her throughout production. \u201cCasting someone at her level of functioning was cruel, not kind, so I made the executive decision that we would do our best to lovingly represent the community,\u201d she said of the matter, referring to Ziegler\u2019s character. https:\/\/twitter.com\/Sia\/status\/1329738992519147521?s=20 However, others have noted that some of Sia\u2019s responses are less than \u201ccompassionate,\u201d with the star responding to one critic with \u201cMaybe you\u2019re just a bad actor\u201d when they claimed they would have offered to play Ziegler\u2019s part. Although Sia\u2019s \u201cMusic\u201d isn\u2019t set to debut until 2021, although it seems the tone of its release has already been decided among viewers who feel the autistic community has been wholly disrespected by her casting decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sia under fire for casting Maddie Ziegler as autistic teen in movie YouTube: SiaAustralian singer and songwriter Sia is facing intense backlash from critics after casting popular TikTok creator Maddie Ziegler as an autistic teenager in her upcoming film \u201cMusic.\u201d Sia is a well-known name in the world of pop music; hailed for such hits […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}