Music, a non-verbal autistic character played by Maddie Ziegler

The film Music by Sia features a character named Music who is a young, non-verbal woman with Autism. Music played by actor Maddie Ziegler does not live with the disability of non-verbal autism in real life. 

Similar to the situation presented in Atypical there is an element of this invisibility disability that makes it hard for actors with this disability to take on this role. It is challenging to work with individuals with Autism in any sort of workspace, but acting requires a special set of skills. This does mean that individuals with Autism cannot be actors, but it is hard for them to work within the schedule set by directors for the making of the show because they need more breaks and time to complete the tasks required by actors. Beyond the question of the capability of actors to perform, viewers are longing for authenticity of characters with Autism on screen.

The major critics of the film “Music by Sia”, claim that Music “misrepresents autistic people” (source). A major criticism is that Maddie who plays Music does the role in a way that shows how non-autistic individuals think about Autism and does not show how individuals with Autism live their daily life. Some of the comments that Music makes in the show that demonstrate this are “I’m happy” and “I’m sad”. An issue with these comments is that it gives the ideas that individuals with Autism have simplistic emotions and that is the only way they can express them. Yet, this is simply not true because individuals with Autism have the same amount of complex emotions as those without this indivisibility disability. A major difference is that individuals with Autism have difficulty expressing their complex emotions in conversation, but they are capable of it.

Some viewers with Autism commented that Maddie Ziegler’s performance was so poor that a broken clock at least has the time correct twice a day, and she didn’t even have the mindset correct once a day. Upon reflecting on this comment I feel that the major failure of the show is the lack of connection with professionals or individuals with Autism. If we compare how this movie feels to be more of a failure than Keir Gilchrist’s acting of Sam Garder, it would be important to consider the preparation of the actors. There is no information online indicating that the movie “Music by Sia” hired experts of the Autism Spectrum or offered any books for actor Maddie Ziegler to work with in order to get into the mindset of the character Music. 

The debate over Sia, the director, casting Maddie Ziegler to play the role of music on screen was exploited on Twitter around the time of its release. Upon much back and forth, Sia announced in one of her comments “‘I actually tried working with a beautiful young girl non-verbal on the spectrum and she found it unpleasant and stressful’” (source

. Many actors on the Autism Spectrum responded to this comment saying “‘Several autistic actors, myself included, responded to these tweets. We all said we could have acted in it on short notice. These excuses are just that—excuses. The fact of the matter is zero effort was made to include anyone who is actually autistic’” (source

). Therefore it appears for this particular case there was not a shortage of actors with ASD willing and able to do the role, even on short notice, but rather the choice of Sia not to put forth the effort to work with them. In my personal opinion this is the most problematic element of casting a non-autistic actor in this role, the mere fact that so many with the condition offered to do the role and yet the director choice not to take them up on their offer is what creates the poor representation on screen and lack of supporting actors with the condition.