This year’s Golden Globe nominations were surprising to moviegoers and critics alike. One of the most controversial nominees was Music, which was spearheaded and helmed by award-winning singer Sia. The poorly received musical drama managed to score two noms this week. After the Golden Globe nominations were announced, Sia took to Twitter to apologize before deleting her Twitter account.
Sia had been working on the musical drama since 2015. The film was originally set to star Shia LeBeouf and Maddie Ziegler before LeBeouf was replaced by Kate Hudson. Even before the film’s release, it proved to be controversial with the autistic community over Ziegler’s casting as an autistic teenager despite being neurotypical, as well as the depiction of restraint techniques in certain scenes.
According to Deadline, Sia took to Twitter after Music received two Golden Globe nominations, including Best Picture – Musical/Comedy. She gave a heartfelt apology for the film’s depiction of autism, and then promptly decided to delete her Twitter account. You can read her her now-deleted tweet below:
I’m sorry. I plan to remove the restraint scenes from all future printings. I listened to the wrong people and that is my responsibility, my research was clearly not thorough enough, not wide enough.
Before deleting her Twitter account, Sia mentioned placing a warning before Music. The warning alluded to some controversial scenes in the musical drama. Check out the warning below:
MUSIC in no way condones or recommends the use of restraint on autistic people. There are autistic occupational therapists that specialize in sensory processing who can be consulted to explain safe ways to provide proprioceptive, deep-pressure feedback to help w [sic] meltdown safety.
Through both her tweet and warning, Sia addressed viewers’ concerns around scenes in the musical drama. The singer showed her willingness to hear others' opinions even if she ended up deleting her Twitter account.
Before backlash from the autistic community and leaving Twitter, Sia was seemingly excited about presenting Music to the public. The musical drama marked the singer’s feature-length directorial debut. She even participated in writing the film alongside children’s book author Dallas Clayton. The multiple Grammy nominee co-produced the film along with writing all the film’s music. She found the courage to direct the film after directing a series of music videos featuring one of the film’s stars Maddie Ziegler. Last year, Sia went back and forth with some critics over the film’s depiction of autism.
Outside of the controversies surrounding the film, it has been received poorly by film critics over the concept and casting choices. Unfortunately, Sia’s idea seemingly wasn’t as well as executed as the film she envisioned. Although it did mange to accrue someGolden Globe nominations. Music will be released on premium VOD on Feb. 12.
