Sia’s ‘Music’ Perpetuates Dangerous Stereotypes on Mental Health
Music furthers the proof that Hollywood does not care about proper autistic representation
In Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder, actor Tugg Speedman (played by Stiller) starred in a film called Simple Jack, in which he portrayed a mentally challenged protagonist in the hopes of winning an Oscar. The “film” was lambasted by critics, as Simple Jack’s neurotypical portrayal was filled with ableist stereotypes. However, this was satire—a parody. Offensive, yes, but a parody nonetheless, which exposed how Hollywood doesn’t care about neurotypical actors offending the autistic community if the film in question contains an A-lister as its star.
In Sia’s feature directorial debut, Music, every stereotype satirized in Tropic Thunder is used to create an allegedly “serious” portrayal of mental health. Maddie Ziegler stars as the titular character, who, after her grandmother unexpectedly dies, is taken by the care of her sister, Zu (Kate Hudson), a drug dealer looking for a way out of the life and a ticket to “paradise.” She meets Ebo (Leslie Odom Jr.), Music’s next-door neighbor, who helps her whenever he can and slowly fall in love.
While the film’s story is incredibly paint-by-numbers, it also isn’t terrible. If it was directed by someone who understood how to portray mental health on-screen, it could’ve worked. However, Sia’s portrayal of autism is incredibly derogatory; it propagates dangerous stereotypes on mental health, making the film a sickening, ill-conceived piece of trash-heap.
There hasn’t been a movie that was this dangerous for mental health representation since Harmony Korine’s Julien-Donkey-Boy, which turned a severe disorder like schizophrenia into a strange phenomenon to be mocked at. Sia does the same thing with autism. For her, the disease is nothing but an attraction or, in this case, an excuse to promote her songs through flashy musical numbers. She portrays Music as an emotionally unstable “Simple Jack,” containing all of the bug-eyes, teeth gnawing, and uncomfortable sounds you’d get to perpetuate ableist stereotypes.
When she starts throwing a “temper tantrum,” the best idea to calm her down (according to Sia) is by restraining her to the floor until she cannot do anything, which Odom Jr.’s Ebo explains how can calm someone down. Forget all of the horrible facial and expressive stereotypes that dumbs-down autism to the point where an audience might think the protagonist is a “retard” Music’s use of restraint is, bar none, the film’s most dangerous element. Restraint is an abusive practice that has killed multiple children, and Sia has the audacity to laud it as the ONLY technique that can be used to calm down someone with mental disorders. They even have to “explain” it to the audience so it can be accepted without them ever questioning it.
Sia has said that “MUSIC in no way condones or recommends the use of restraint on autistic people,” however, by dumbing-down restraint to the audience as a practice to calm someone down, she is silently condoning it. If Sia was truly sincere and caring about autistic individuals, she wouldn’t have perpetuated her film with dangerous stereotypes and practices, so it can be used as an excuse for her to promote her new songs and musical numbers. Music’s interior state is communicated through her musical numbers. While they contain incredibly vivid colors and a real sense of care in the costume department, they are completely bogged down by terrible editing, à la Bohemian Rhapsody, and superficially communicates clichéd ideas on autism.
It also doesn’t help that the entire story involving Kate Hudson’s Zu is terribly pedantic and poorly written — her entire personality is self-absorbed and narcissistic. She doesn’t care about anybody (including Music) but herself and her self-destruction. When she finds great at everything, she obviously pushes him away and…reconciles at the end—nothing new and original there. Aside from representing hurtful stereotypes on autistic people, Sia also perpetuates terribly racist stereotypes on her sole black side-protagonist, referred to by many critics as a “magical negro”, whose sole purpose is to make sure the white protagonist succeeds at the end. Ebo has his own [clichéd] problems, suffering from HIV and hiding his condition to Zu and Music, but they are never properly developed or written in a truly compelling fashion. It’s all stereotypes and clichés for Sia, once again, used only as an excuse for her to promote her music.
Music is not only a terribly conceived and written movie about a white, neurotypical protagonist’s struggles to get out of a drug dealer’s life and cope with a mentally challenged person but deliberately turns mental illness into a spectacle to be mocked at so that Sia can boast her “awareness” of autistic people through her musical numbers. Many individuals told me not to watch it, but I cannot talk about it properly without having seen it. You can denounce its problems and bad representation all you want, but the only way to know how truly dangerous of a film Music is would be by sitting down in front of the TV and taking the time to watch it.
Having experienced Sia’s ineptitudes at filmmaking to portray abusive practices and offensive stereotypes instead of raising awareness and making something truly worthwhile, I can safely say that Music deserves every ounce of criticism it is getting. I should’ve listened to my friends, so I will say this: do not watch it. Do not encourage it. And, most importantly, do not encourage and/or listen to Sia anymore. That’s all.
