Fashions in virtue change rapidly, as Australian pop singer Sia learnt to her cost last November when publicity for Music, her first film as writer-director, sparked outrage from much of the internet.
The trouble was that Maddie Ziegler, the precocious young dancer from Sia’s video clips, appeared to be playing a character on the autism spectrum, although the actual Ziegler by her own admission isn’t autistic at all but just pretending. That might have passed muster 3½ years ago, when the film was reportedly shot, but in the enlightened 2020s, it’s self-evidently problematic.
Or so some would argue. To my mind, this implies a strangely literal view of the nature of fiction – and in general, I’m more than a little wary of the dogma which says that artists should avoid trying to imagine the experiences of people different from themselves. But while I went into Music prepared to stick up for Sia’s good intentions, it wasn’t long before I was wondering if the campaign for cancellation might have its points.