Discordant Music

cn/cw: child abuse, ignorance of mental health, discrimination, drug use, mention of suicide, Sia…

Warning: Spoilers. Lots of them. But my hope is that you won’t put yourself through watching this mess. And how do you spoil something that’s this much of a disaster, anyway…?

I’m trying to do some more ASD positive stuff before we are out of Autism Acceptance Month. Seems like a good excuse, right?

With this in mind, I have watched ‘Music’. So that you don’t have too.

Where to begin?

Who knows what Sia was thinking when she not only decided that making this was a good idea, but that casting her neurotypical ‘muse’ in the lead was a good idea, too. Or that ignoring all the advice and dismay this was causing was a good plan, or that responding to the criticism once it came out by dismissing, mocking and insulting the voices of the autistic community was in any way the right move. I’m assuming she must do her own PR, because there are trash fires and then…

There’s ’Music’.

From the Renaissance holy family feel to some of the promo pictures onwards, this film is an achievement only in the range and quantity of misguided and genuinely offensive moments.

A film about a young girl with non-verbal autism, giving insights into her world and her connection to music… That might have been a good film. In fact, it’s pretty much ‘The Reason Why I Jump.’

Go watch that instead.

This is not that film.

This is a film about how hard it is to take care of someone with autism, but, you know, trying to manage their behaviour can help keep us grounded about our own lives. Because happily, we’re not weird like that.

Who knows what the title character, Music (Maddie Ziegler) is thinking or why she’s doing things? Who amongst the characters actually cares to try and find out? This film isn’t interested in any of that. For a film that purports to show her inner world, it’s not at all interested in her actual inner world. But look what cool music videos we can make by trying to imagine how she feels. That’s pretty cool. Bet people with non-verbal autism probably feel really seen by these videos. Like a ‘normal person’ has reached out, and shared what they think about autism and what it is. So empathetic. That’s a really great thing to do, and the autistic community should be really grateful for how this actually increases awareness about how ignorant neurotypical people can be about autism.

This film will genuinely make you angry, especially if you have any knowledge of Austism Spectrum Disorder.

Instead of any nuance or knowledge, everything we get to witness is filtered through Music’s older sister’s lack of understanding of and annoyance with her sister’s autism, so the only thing we get a real insight into is how hard autism is to understand, and how annoying it is.

But it’s not all doom and gloom! Big sister Zu (Kate Hudson) gets to decide not to dump her sister in an institution, so we can see how she’s grown as a person. In fact, she tries it twice, just to make sure.

She also gets her ‘meet cute’ with the Hot African Neighbour. She gets to meet SIA, for goodness sake! She loves Sia! And, she gets no comeback from her drug supplier for loosing hundreds of dollars worth of drugs. Isn’t that great? All the plot lines dealt with so we get our happy ending.

Well, apart from Felix (Beto Cavillo). He lives across the street and really likes Music. We don’t see a lot of him, in terms of screen time, but it’s an honestly nuanced performance, and we get more story and drama from his brief segments that the whole rest of the film put together. Cut the film down to 20 minutes and call it ‘Felix’. That’s the best answer to all this film’s problems.

I wonder if there’s a deliberate irony in naming his character Felix, which means ‘lucky’.

I honestly doubt any element here had that much depth to it, though.

Felix sees Music every day, is part of the neighbourhood network that checks she’s ok on her daily walk to the library, and at nights he shines his SUPER high powered torch across the street and into her room, which makes her feel happy, so somehow, she’s communicated her enjoyment to him. We see how she looks forward to this happening each night, and how it’s something she loves to interact with before going to sleep. Cue for another levered-in music video — This one sees her dressed in a ball of pink net, and wandering down a teardrop-shaped, fleshy-lined pink corridor. Which, well — what is this saying? It just feels like badly misplaced random sexuality.

Anyway, back to Felix. Sorry, but he is the best part of this film.

He’s an overweight kid, adopted by Evil Chinese Parents who make him work in their laundry (what?!) and send him to the boxing gym run by the Hot African Neighbour (Ebo Odom — played by Leslie Odom jr. Yes, you can tell the amount of thought that went into a character by the fact that Sia couldn’t even be arsed imagining a surname for him…) who lives next door to Music’s grandma’s flat, and gym is where Felix obviously feels happy and welcomed. He tries his best at training, and gets encouragement and validation that’s lacking elsewhere in his life. He’s obviously not very good at boxing yet, but, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t get entered into a contest against someone much more skilled that he is, so his angry father gets to see him refuse to even take part in the fight, but instead hug his opponent. He’s so starved of physical affection, you see..

But his father’s dreams for his lucrative boxing career are dashed (what??!) and his one chance to see his son do something he can be proud of is gone.

His father blames his mother for this, of course. She spoils Felix by not being constantly abusive to him. But when the argument gets more violent, and his mum is in danger of being hurt, Felix steps in to protect her. Luckily, we saw him doing training earlier at the gym about how to avoid getting hit, so when his father goes to hit him instead of his mother… he knocks him straight down, and Felix hits his head sickeningly hard on the floor.

Felix’s head pools out blood whilst he lies motionless.

I assumed he was dead. Is he dead? We see the ambulances arrive outside their house, but what happens to Felix after that? Who knows…?

Happily, Felix pops up again before the end of the film in another one of Music’s pop video dreams, wearing the least appalling costume out of all the ones we see. And it’s still pretty awful. But he gets to dance with grace and presence, even if this is now the only place he exists. Due to being dead. Or maybe horribly brain damaged. No idea, sorry…

As a plot point, Felix’s story arc could have shown his father the terrible consequences of his violent nature. Perhaps he at last realises he did care for Felix, after all? Or maybe he’ll not abuse the next child-slave they adopt so harshly. Who knows? Maybe in a few months, he kills his wife, too…

The police were there as well as the ambulances. Maybe he’s arrested and made to pay for his crimes with a lengthy jail sentence, and Felix’s mother gets to live out her life free from his malign influence. Who. The fuck. Knows?

Certainly no one watching this bollocks.

So, Felix’s plot line remains unconcluded. What about anyone else’s?

Zu’s development is pretty trope-y too. She’s the big sister who went off the rails, after their junkie mother… Died? Dumped them? Anyway, Music lives happily with their Grandmother now. But due to being kind and old, Grandma (Mary Kay Place) dies pretty early on. Music comes home to her dead body, which is never really addressed as a trauma, and whether Music even understands what happened is never addressed, either. In two of the music video inserts, we do see Music imagining a sleeping grandma who she awakes or pulls back to upright. It’s not the most nuanced metaphor…

Zu turns up after hearing of grandma’s death, and she’s the cocky kid with… nope, no heart of gold. She tries immediately to dump Music in an institution, but that’s a no go and totally unacceptable to social care. Which is funny, as it’s fine with whatever authorities there are for Zu to do exactly this, later in the story. And as a young person with their own mental health issues, on probation with no job or stable home, why wouldn’t the authorities be keen to step in, for both sisters’ well-being? But I can happily believe this is an honest reflection of mental health services in the US, too.

Zu next tries to see if there’s anything valuable dead Grandma has left, a stash of cash or a will, but no joy — although she only looks in one of the tins and jars on top of the cupboard, so there could have been more up there than the stash of Monopoly money she actually finds.

On their first morning together as roomies, Zu tries to cope with Music and her important daily routine, but fails, and Music stops her going back to bed by asking her “Where’s your hair?” repeatedly, in an increasingly distressed way. (Zu has a buzzcut — which admittedly looks brilliant on Hudson) and her distress leads to a massive autistic meltdown. Or Music certainly shouts a lot, anyway. This alerts their Hot African Neighbour, who comes to see what’s wrong, and luckily knows ‘how to deal with’ her sister’s meltdowns.

This is by restraining her physically and pinning her by lying on top of her until she is calm.

Besides how inappropriate it is for him as a man to be lying on top of a young girl, this method has led to the injury and even deaths of autistic kids. So that’s great. Prone restraint (flat on the floor) should never be used, even in situations where restraint may be unavoidable.

(Sia eventually apologised for the scenes featuring restraint, and said they’d be removed from all future releases of the film. Which is odd, because they’re still there in the Sky Movies and Prime versions of the film.)

Zu immediately fancies Hot African Neighbour, and I cannot put my finger on why this feels so wrong. Possibly the sheer number of vulnerable people here; and whilst a gentle romance sub-plot would be one thing, hypersexualised/innocent Manic Pixie Dream Girl Zu and her habit of not wearing much feels distinctly off. The tone is all wrong. Zu’s unawareness of her own semi-nudity and naïve flirting makes her seem doubly vulnerable. The childishness of the drama, leads, script and storyline just doesn’t lend itself to anything like an adult theme of any sort.

Speaking of adult themes, the next plot point sees Zu happily dumping Music with the Kindly Hispanic Building Supervisor (Héctor Elizondo), and we learn that he knows her as she had previously broken into his flat to steal his tv, and off she goes to see her drug supplier, Rudy, (Ben Schwartz) since she needs to make some money.

(This attempted tv theft fits oddly into the timeline. The Kindly Hispanic Building Supervisor says it was only a month ago, but it’s implied she’s not been around Grandma and Music for years. She also explains to Ebo the reason she was out on the fire escape that day was not to steal anything. She only said she was to cover up her actual suicidal feelings.

This feels like a lie, in being such an obvious ploy for sympathy, but whether it is or not is never clarified.)

It transpires that her time in jail/rehab means she owes Rudy, the Quirky Rough Diamond Drug Dealer (Ben Schwartz) a lot of money already, which she promises to get back for him, if he’ll just front her some more drugs to sell. He’s a nice guy, like drug suppliers are, and agrees to give her more free drugs to sell. Hurrah! We can tell how nice he is, not only from this, but because he’s creative and quirky, dressed in a silky kaftan and rocking some excellent white-boy corn rows.

One of Zu’s obviously very patient regulars (Juliette Lewis) even has a tip for her about a new client she could make loads of money from, but Zu isn’t interested to start with. I mean, why would she be, right?

But then she realises that the plan here was to make some money, so she decides to go along anyway. You’ll never guess who the new client is! Yes! Famous celebrity that everyone is a big fan of, Sia!

But wait, surely Sia isn’t some kind of junkie? And, this proves to be the case, because Sia just wants to buy big loads of prescription drugs to send to refugee camps that are short on urgent medication, because that’s how she rolls. She’s really generous, and loves doing humanitarian works. She’s very private about it’d imagine, too…

Sia puts in her order, and Zu goes back to her supplier who feels this sounds legit and loads her up with lots of drugs to sell to Sia, though with dire warnings if she doesn’t come through on this for any reason... What could possibly go wrong? Nothing, right? No foreshadowing here!

Zu just has to go deliver the drugs — but in a remarkably badly managed series of events, she manages to walk past her building, be spotted by the Kindly Hispanic Building Supervisor, who’s at the window at that exact moment, and who she chooses to acknowledge when he shouts at her from across the street, even though she knows she’s already late to pick up Music from ‘daycare’. He says she has to take Music right now, and rather than insist on the extra hour she needs, or run off, or pretend to misunderstand, she is suddenly hit by an uncharacteristic sense of responsibility, shrugs and goes and gets her.

Zu and Music walk happily through the park with Chekov’s ominously big Bag O’ Drugs, but Music wants a Sno Cone. What can possibly go wrong? Rather than take Music over to the cart with her, Zu leaves her stood some distance away, all alone, and then puts the portent laden Bag O’ Drugs on the floor by the cart to pay.

Uh oh! What’s this, Music is having a meltdown! Zu rushes over to lie bodily on top of her, everything else losing precedence. Because that’s the kind of responsible girl we know she is by now…

Music is left hurt and unwell by this experience, so they go to the ER, and it’s quite some time before Zu remembers she left the Big Bag O’ Drugs on the floor by the Sno Cone cart. Oops. She manages to tag in Hot African Neighbour so she can go back to check if… it’s still sat there? She even looks in the bins in case anyone mistook her nice Bag O’ Drugs for litter? But no joy.

Quells surprise.

Only one thing for it. She goes and gets wasted in a bar. She’s been introduced as being post-rehab/incarceration and as going along (if reluctantly) to AA meetings, and early on we see her pouring away all the booze at grandma’s, so we know how strong willed she can be when drink is involved. It’s a condition of her parole to stay sober too. But, you know, fuck that shit. She tries to come home at one point, but Hot African Neighbour sees that she’s been drinking and is angry with her — so she goes back out to get even more slaughtered.

She eventually staggers back to the apartment building, much later, and stumbles and smashes her head on the stone steps up to their apartment. Quite viscerally. Luckily, our other head injury character is still alive at this point, so Felix sees what happens to her — and goes out to help her and gets her safely inside and on the sofa in her flat? Seems unlikely, but it’s unclear (deliberately?) how she got home otherwise.

The state of her face gets her some sympathy from Hot African Neighbour (HAN), which she plays up to, now he’s not angry with her.

The appalling state of her ‘face + stone step’ incident cleans up nicely, however, with no lingering concussion or even a headache to speak of. Which is good.

However, she now regrets what she did, and decides that therefore she’s not fit to look after Music, after all.

It had otherwise been going so well, of course.

Zu gets Music readily accepted in an institution — it’s unclear how she’s affording this, or how her situation has changed from when she first tried to institutionalise her sister, but there you go. But as they’re being shown around, Zu realises how Music’s routine, stability and ability to be somewhat independent would be compromised by this major life change, so she changes her mind — but rather than telling one of the staff this, they just pack up and sneak out, and we cut to them running out of the building together.

They get home just in time to see HAN leaving for his brother’s wedding. His brother was earlier discovered to be marrying HAN’s ex, who he stole. Zu had previously said they’d be his plus one, to support him. Because that’s what they’d provide at a family wedding. Yep. So they follow him there, somehow…

They get there, timing their arrival perfectly so they can get straight on stage, and tell the understandably confused guests how glad they are to be there to support HAN. They drag him up on stage to play piano and Zu is about to sing the song they all know so well, because Grandma wrote it for Music. HAN got Zu to sing it earlier in the plot, so we can see what a good singer she is and how she cares really, because she remembers all the words.

But…. Wait for it. Music is just stood around being a plot device as usual when HAN starts to play piano — and what’s this? Music starts singing. A bit tremulously, but she can sing, and knows all the words and can suddenly put more than three words together at once. (She has previously been established as only having a few short, set phrases she can say, but that’s it, apart from using the AAC device HAN gets her to help her express her feelings — which she clearly understands well enough to identify).

The audience of religious African family, (many of whom are in traditional dress, of course, to indicate their cultural separateness) accept this as not bizarre but lovely. HAN makes up with his brother, and they all applaud each other.

Everyone lives happily ever after.

The end.

Thank god.

But let me just add in here, WTF? Nothing Zu does shows any consistency of character or consequences. Is it fine now that she lost the drug supplier’s drugs? Is Rudy that nice a guy? I mean, HAN was getting his retroviral drugs from him, (for free?) which is how Zu found out HAN has The Aids. (He is from Africa…) Again, this is not really addressed or developed apart from being wedged in as a plot device that doesn’t really go anywhere or fit with the rest of the story, and feels just a teensy bit racist.

HAN is just magical; a noble black token character. He’s so decent it’s painful. Both he and Music fit into the ‘Magical Negro’ trope, and show again and again how much they are plot devices, not people.

Like every other character in this film, in fact. But they are the worst of the worst, because the plot hinges on them.

Ebo’s such a painfully decent character that it doesn't ring true that he’s not more upfront about the whole HIV thing, which you’d think you would share with the people you were close to, in case of medical emergency or similar. And especially if you want to have sex with them.

But, let’s move onto Music.

Maddie Ziegler researched her role by watching YouTubes of autistic meltdowns. Which even as a concept (who’s filming them and why?) is a bit shit. But apparently she worried about being an NT doing an impersonation of autism, but Sia said it was fine.

Reader, it was not fine.

Donald Trump’s take off of a disabled reporter was less problematic than this. Rain Man is a much better film about autism, and that dates from nearly 50 years ago. It’s horrifically embarrassing/rage-inducing to watch both ‘Music’ the film and Music the character. She’s the Poor Disabled Child, and we must have this milked to the fullest to engage our sympathy. See how the whole neighbourhood loves her, and knows her routine, allowing her some safe independence each day, going from the newspaper stand to the library. Only, I’m not sure she, as someone non-verbal and possibly developmentally challenged, should be wandering around outside in a busy city, unchaperoned. It’s great she has some independence, but what if she has a meltdown whilst she’s out? What if someone tries to take advantage of her, or she gets hurt? It all seems a bit badly thought out, really. But the whole neighbourhood love her! And we’d not know that if she didn’t get to go out and interact with them.

No judgement on non-verbal autism, here. People with quite severe autism can have rich internal lives and great understanding of the world, and cope well as independent people if they have a robust support system. They may even have great skills in some areas, due to their different sensitivities regarding sensory perception and processing. However, I don’t think that the Daredevil level of ‘she can hear a whisper from rooms away’, is something usual, if ever, associated with ASD. Autism is usually found alongside hearing loss and auditory processing disorders, and reduced distant sound sensitivity may actually be more common. Stress responses to sounds may be more marked, as well as low thresholds for being overwhelmed by noise, whether it’s volume, pitch or complexity and layers of background noise. But no super-hearing, no. Autism is not actually a Superpower.)

Music is not portrayed as being safely independent or understanding of her environment, nor does she seem to have any coping skills. In an emergency, how would she communicate her distress? She’s so vulnerable when shes on her own that watching her out there is worrying rather than inspiring.

Unlike the lead character in ‘The Reason I Jump’.

If you want an insight into the inner world of someone with non-verbal autism, this is where you will find it, and discover the remarkable richness, intelligence and understanding of the world that can be hidden there, if someone takes the time to find a way to access it.

And there are no technicolour nightmare pop videos in that film, involving the cast engaged in weird, semi-modern dance storytelling, all the time clad in bizarre, genderless, heavy foam costumes that look more like futuristic incontinence wear than anything else. I’ve nothing at all against gender-free clothes or presentation, but this feels instead like a strange attempt to ‘toddlerise’ the adult cast, and again it feels off-key and discomforting. Also, when Ebo is involved in the routines, the high stepping, eye-rolling gurning that goes on make it feel painfully like a cakewalk. Along with the use of white boy cornrows, and the accusations of blackface, there’s no end to the minority groups Sia has managed to offend.

The one good thing we can take from all this is that it might well be lucky they didn’t cast someone neurodiverse in this role, because these ‘dream’ segments are a cascade of sensory overloads. I challenge anyone autistic to sit through any one of them without wincing. Or cringing. Awful, awful stuff.

If you’ve seen any of Sia’s music videos — and lots of people have — you may realise that much of this is just exposition latched on to another one of her odd, previously released output. ‘Chandelier’ and ‘Elastic Heart’, featuring Shia LaBeouf, are good examples of where the uncomfortably sexualised ‘wise child’ innocence has been a theme for Sia before. Ziegler is obviously a great and skilful dancer, but her use in these videos of exaggerated expresssion, jerks and dramatic gestures makes them now feel like her audition pieces for ‘Music’, and bring a greater edge of discomfort to them by association.

For a film called ‘Music’, featuring a character called Music, and featuring not just songs but fully choreographed musical inserts, this is as off-key and tone deaf as you can get.

Avoid at all costs. It’s genuinely offensive to anyone with ASD, HIV, addiction issues or body image issues, and frequently racist, too. It also features child abuse and suicidal ideation which are not mentioned in the preamble.

Honestly, this film is dangerously misguided, and the fact it was green-lit is astonishing.