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^^^ You need to do research beyond a simple Google search. I mean extensive research, talking to people with experience, having sensitivity readers, etc.
Neurotypical people should totally include a diverse cast, and shouldn't exclude certain people just because they're "hard to write." Maybe neurotypicals just need to do better.
I think if its something like a film, that's collaborative in nature, absolutely, you need autistic voices in that writer's room. A book, maybe not so much (however if I'm writing characters, I include marginalized groups, but I don't write marginalized experiences. Like one of my main characters is philipino and ace, but I'm not gonna make the whole thing a story about his identity. As a white allo person, that just makes no sense.)
If we're talking about Sia specifically, I really don't think the problem everyone has in this situation was that she didn't have any autistics writers. It's how she claimed to be writing a story for autistic people, while just creating more bad autistic representation, and how she handled the situation when people called her out on this. Which I guess does stem back to the fact that she didn't have any autistic people in her creative team
Heard Leslie Odom jr was in that abd terrible which nakes me sad.
Autistic person here. It depends.
I'm honestly kind of disgusted by the whole Sia thing. I haven't watched the movie, but I've seen multiple people (neurotypical and autistic) review it. I don't think that there's anything inherently wrong with a neurotypical person writing a story about neurodivergent people, or even playing one. For example, I think that Eddie Redmayne does a really good job playing Newt Scamander, and he's said that he played him as autistic.
But Sia's movie did Not do that. She did so little research that she didn't even know that Autism Speaks was "controversial" (which is a very, very generous way to put "fucking repulsive piece of shit") organization. I've heard mixed things on if she actually hired an autistic actor for the role; some people say she intended for Music to be played by Maddie Ziegler the whole time and lied about the autistic actress in the first place. But being generous and saying she even existed, the story is that she left the film because the sets and lights and such were so overwhelming.
And then Sia replaced her with a neurotypical actress.
Instead of making the set of her autism movie more comfortable for autistic people to be on.
It's like hiring an actress who's in a wheelchair for a film about disabled people but not doing shit backstage so she can have room to move and then hiring an able-bodied actress instead of adding ramps.
And then when autistic actors basically said "hey, I'll do the film if you want even though this is short-notice", Sia ignored them and when an autistic actor on Twitter pointed this out to her, Sia's response was "maybe you're just not a good actor". Keep it classy, hon.
Sia's movie also promotes "restraint" as a way to help autistic people during a meltdown, which is honestly vile. Restraining an autistic person on the ground like they're fucking resisting arrest and holding them there until they're "calm" is a very harmful maneuver that has killed autistic people, and Sia's movie uses it twice on Music without anyone pointing out this harm. She said that she'd take the scenes out or add a warning about how it's unsafe and shouldn't be done, but she did neither (although I think now she has added a warning, but it's too little too late).
I'm not really someone who's shaken easily, but the "summer days" dance sequence where Sia has Maddie Ziegler do this caricature of autistic people honestly made me feel sick to my stomach. Ziegler herself apparently broke down crying on set and said she felt like she was making fun of autistic people and Sia reassured her that she wasn't, but Sia was wrong again lmao. It didn't feel like representation, it felt like a mockery. (To be clear, I'm not blaming Maddie, I'm blaming Sia for thinking any of this was a good idea).
Also there's blackface in one song, from what I can tell?
So anyways the tl;dr is yes, you can write about whoever you want, but please do your fucking research and don't act like an egomaniac when people say "this is bad, actually"
Sia's movie really comes off as the white savior trope but for autistic people. She clearly didn't do research, she just wanted to write inspiration porn about some poor little autistic girl who's able to rise above it all or whatever. It's a film that claims to be for autistic people when it's really for neurotypical people to feel good about themselves and feel "inspired", and we deserve better than that. We deserve to be more than caricatures and props in other people's stories.
And don't even get me started on how overstimulating and flashy everything is, because again: this is not a film for autistic people like it claims it is.
Anyways sorry for how long and rambly that was but I had Thoughts.
god the fucking 'im crushing her with my love' line makes me want to die
Yeah what Eva said
Same. And it could literally have caused her to die, but research? Who is she?
Heard Leslie Odom jr was in that abd terrible which nakes me sad.
Bruh his whole character is just "wise black man who helps our protagonist and did I mention that he's wise?"
Total disservice to him, he's a super talented actor and Sia has him playing yet another stereotype
Insert clown emoji here, I don't have emojis
Heard Leslie Odom jr was in that abd terrible which nakes me sad.
Bruh his whole character is just "wise black man who helps our protagonist and did I mention that he's wise?"
Total disservice to him, he's a super talented actor and Sia has him playing yet another stereotype
Insert clown emoji here, I don't have emojis
🤡
Heard Leslie Odom jr was in that abd terrible which nakes me sad.
You can tell I was typing on my phone.
Heard Leslie Odom jr was in that abd terrible which nakes me sad.
You can tell I was typing on my phone.
Not gonna lie, I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to remember if "abd" is some abbreviation I'm not familiar with
Nah just my lame keyboard.
So my question is. Should Crimea, the place I have been talking about, be apart of Ukraine, or Russia? Or possibly another solution is possible?
I’m a bit late here but I think it should be Russian.
Ok, so someone asked me if I would accept Neopronouns as a valid way of addressing someone, and I respectfully said no.
I have my own opinions, and I am willing to share them however, does anyone here have any opinions on this matter?
Am I wrong for saying that I don't accept them as valid?
why do you get to decide which pronouns are and aren't valid? just because you wouldn't use them doesnt mean you get to say 'I won't respect them coming from anyone'
All language is complete bullshit, so I think disregarding some of it but respecting other bits of it is kind of silly. I do think you're wrong for not seeing them as valid, but I understand your hesitancy. What's your reasoning for not accepting them?
I understand that gender is social, I get that, like they/them, he/him and whatever, like i respect that, but kitten/kittenself? Xiao/xiaoself? Mint/mintself? Like, I dont get it.
And maybe I'm wrong, that's why I'm asking.
Wow, ever consider that maybe other people's pronouns don't need to be things that you're "comfortable" with? Because they have nothing to do with you?
I understand not having a gender, because gender is built around social ideas and such. So they/them fits that, but how can someone feel as if they are mint? Or kitten? Or xiao? They aren't like, you can't embody an animal or an object or a completley made up word. Gender is what you feel like you are. If you identify as male, you feel as if you are male, and if you feel as if you don't fit into any category of "gender", you feel lik you don't have a gender, you use pronouns that don't have a gender.
You feel what your gender is.
How can one feel they are kitten?
I didn't try to be rude guys, I have accepted that I could be wrong, and I came asking for other perspectives to get educated.
This is merely my opinion, and this forum is to discuss other views and maybe even correct wrong views, that is simply what I'm doing, no need to be rude.
Who fucking cares, honestly? It doesn't impact you at all.
Coming from someone who does have a set of neopronouns (though I don’t often use them or even tell people I have them just because of the air around them) maybe I can offer a different look on this situation..
Well, you said gender is what you feel. Neopronouns/xenogender users don’t feel that they’re cats. It’s hard to explain, but neurodivergent (and not all people, of course) people generally tend to have a bit of a different relationship with gender, though this isn’t the reason for all neopronoun users. Using them may just make them more comfortable.
https://neopronoun.carrd.co/#index Here’s a carrd that explains things pretty nicely.
Thanks for that valuable insight. That really helps me to understand more of how people who use neopronouns think and feel. I appreciate your response and it completely and totally helped to sway my views and opinions in the other direction. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Without that valuable information, I would still be uneducated.
I totally am not even more against it because of your hostility and unwillingness to try and help me understand, even though I clearly asked to learn because I know I am uneducated in this subject.
So thank you
I don't know anyone who uses those neopronouns (I've only ever seen xe/xem and ze/hir), but my understanding is that people use obscure words and pronouns like that to describe their gender because it's the closest they can get to their actual gender. I don't think they think they actually embody kittens or mint, rather they see their gender as cool like mint. Mint is just the closest thing they can see that represents how their gender feels. And gender is whacky so I don't blame them.
Coming from someone who does have a set of neopronouns (though I don’t often use them or even tell people I have them just because of the air around them) maybe I can offer a different look on this situation..
Well, you said gender is what you feel. Neopronouns/xenogender users don’t feel that they’re cats. It’s hard to explain, but neurodivergent (and not all people, of course) people generally tend to have a bit of a different relationship with gender, though this isn’t the reason for all neopronoun users. Using them may just make them more comfortable.
https://neopronoun.carrd.co/#index Here’s a carrd that explains things pretty nicely.
Thank you, I will read over this. I see that I'm wrong, thank you for being mature about it and informing me. I'm sorry if I came off as disrespectful at all.
I don't know anyone who uses those neopronouns (I've only ever seen xe/xem and ze/hir), but my understanding is that people use obscure words and pronouns like that to describe their gender because it's the closest they can get to their actual gender. I don't think they think they actually embody kittens or mint, rather they see their gender as cool like mint. Mint is just the closest thing they can see that represents how their gender feels. And gender is whacky so I don't blame them.
OHHH, Oml, ok. I completely thought otherwise. I get it now. Thank you
Idk if this is really a debate topic as opposed to a discussion topic, but what do y'all think of the decision to pull some Dr. Seuss books from republishing due to racist lines/illustrations?