Sia wrote and directed the original musical movie Music, which stars her longtime muse, Maddie Ziegler, as a girl with nonverbal autism. The movie suffered huge amounts of backlash before it even came out, and while Sia tried to defend making a movie about autistic people with bad autistic representation, people were still pissed. Now that it’s been released and completely shat on by critics and viewers alike, Kate Hudson, who appears in the film as the sister of Maddie’s character, has come out to say that everyone is “listening” to the “conversations.” Not sure if it’s a “conversation” as much as people booing and hissing while throwing rotten tomatoes at the movie.
Music is so bad at portraying an authentic view of autism that there’s a whole disclaimer ahead of the movie saying the portrayal of restraining someone during an episode is dangerous. The Twitter account, The Autisticats, also did a thread, detailing all the YIKES moments in Music (SPOILER: There’s a lot!):
The next thing I want the general public to see is this clip from the opening scene.
CW: strobing lights, overwhelming visuals, caricature of autistic mannerisms pic.twitter.com/p8dzP66HFC
— The Autisticats (@autisticats) February 12, 2021
Well, Kate Hudson was ready to open her mouth about the movie and spoke on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Kate got a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical for her role in Music as a “former drug dealer who finds herself responsible for her special-needs sibling who communicates through a device that speaks for her, and who always listens to music via large headphones.” And Kate’s sorry people are upset about the movie, but that they’re “listening” and she’s happy about the “conversation,” and “dialogue” about “representation.” So… she said nothing! via Page Six:
“I think when people see the film, that they will see the amount of love and sensitivity that was put into it… But it is an important conversation to have, not just about this movie, but as a whole — about representation… For me, when I hear that there’s anybody that feels left out I feel terrible… It’s an ongoing and important dialogue to be had, about neurotypical actors portraying neurodivergent characters. It is an important one to have with people with experts and who know how to engage in the conversation. I encourage it, truly. I think that it’s important to say that we are listening.”
Actually, if Kate was listening she would know that people have seen the movie and they still fucking hate it. This movie has a 10% on Rotten Tomatoes. Meaning that it has a lower critics rating than Cats, which has a 19% score. Somehow this movie is worse than Cats. But at least Sia can say there’s no “butthole version” of Music. That’s a win!
Here’s Kate on with Jimmy Kimmel they start talking about Music’s criticism at about 7:00:
Pic: YouTube