Lillian Carrier made her acting debut this year. The Los Angeles venue plays Drea in Freeform’s new series, Everything’s Gonna Be Okay, an exciting new adventure that happened by chance. Carrier, who is autistic, grew up playing as a way to socialize. But that hobthrough became a career after a professional coach spontaneously encouraged her to look for the role and she booked the concert.
This opportunity, though fortuitous, is an anomaly in Hollywood, especially among the disabled community. That’s why advocates and others with disabilities are fiercely fighting for greater inclusion and greater representation.
In short, that’s why they ask at least to be taken into account for parties where the character has a disability.
However, this often does not happen, and the most recent example has caused a firestorm on social media, reigning the debate about possible disability-centered casting options on Hollywood. Sia, the Australian singer, known for hits like “Chandelier” and “Elastic Heart,” released the trailer for her film Music on Twitter, saying, “The news was waiting!”, he wrote and directed the film with a release scheduled for 2021.
The film shows a nonverbal autistic teen who transmits her emotions through a tablet. The character is based on Sia’s neuroatypic friend. (Neuroatypic, a familiar term for many members of the disabled community, is a relatively new way to describe a person’s neurology when they are not in the box that maximize other people to be ”normal’). But like many Hollywood films, the character played in the role of Maggie Ziegler is not disabled.
The reaction on social media was swift.
“I got through the trailer and I’m so excited it’s an autistic movie with autistic characters,” Carrier said. “Then I started with him and felt a little uncomfortable with the way I saw the character portrayed. “
“I wasn’t sure what it would be like, or if it was going to be ‘inspiring pornography’ (a term used that describes the representation of other people with disabilities as an inspiration alone or partly based on their disability), so I immersed myself in the comments section and that’s when they actually gave me.
Carrier and many other advocates of autism, as well as others with autism, responded to Sia’s tweet, some asked why he did not choose someone with autism for the role, and others wondered if Sia had consulted someone with autism during the making of the film. .
Sia’s responses left many others in the network of people with disabilities absolutely stunned.
Helen Zbihlyj responded to Sia on Twitter by saying that she had responded to one of her casting calls and that “no effort has been made to come with someone who is autistic. “
Sia’s answer: “Maybe just a bad actor. “
When Bronagh Waugh, an Irish actress, tweeted to ask why Sia had chosen to go for a non-disabled actor, Sia responded by saying, “Pick someone at their point [Sia’s neuroatypical friend’s cognitive point] who works cruelly, not pleasant, so I made an executive resolution that we would do our best to build the community with love. “
It’s a reaction that many on the network discovered offensively and capablely.
“The way Sia responded to the complaints and comments of the autistic network was so angry and so offensive,” Carrier said. “And that’s what disappointed me the most. “
“Instead of paying attention to what other people had to say, he just attacked them. And it was awkward and hard to watch.
Tal Anderson, an autistic actress who played Sid in Netflix’s Atypical, agreed: Carrier and Anderson would like to see more people with disabilities play the role of disabled characters, but they agreed that this cannot happen and will not happen.
“There are so many reasons why casting is the way it’s done, and there are so many reasons why stories are told,” Carrier said. “And other people don’t know what they don’t know, so I understand the aspect that she probably had very clever intentions, but smart intentions don’t have a smart result. And listening to what the network says, seek help and then forget directly about it is just as hurtful. “
Anderson echoed Carrier’s feelings.
“I sense that casting decisions are made for many reasons and that a film is a business, and they have what they believe will make their film successful,” Anderson said, adding, “modified. “
“It was a wonderful opportunity to tell the story of a deaf autistic person. Nonverbal autistic adults are not represented on screen and never authentically represented. “
The representation of others with disabilities in videos and television has progressed in recent years, but is not yet representative of the American population of other people with disabilities. The vast majority of characters with disabilities are played through other people without disabilities, which many are helping to drive the same replaced tropes.
According to the CDC, one in four people in the United States identifies as disabled, but only about 2. 5% of oral roles in Hollywood films describe a disability. Non-disabled actors play 80% of those roles. The figures are even more bleak for others with disabilities who play a role that is not explained through disability.
But it’s not just about acting roles: writers, administrators and professionals with disabilities, the scenes are also poorly represented. According to the America West Writers Guild’s 2020 Inclusion Report, 26% of adults in the United States identify with a disability. -writers identified with disabilities account for less than 1% of existing wgAW active members. WGAW states that this disparity may be partly the result of lack of information, but suggests that at the very least it indicates serious discrimination in employment.
This lack of professionals with disabilities leads to misrepresentations and the creation of erroneous data on the disabled community. That’s the component of explaining why Alex Plank, an autistic actor who gave the impression on ABC’s The Good Doctor and FX’s The Bridge, was disturbed by Sia’s Responses on social media. Plank also discovered Ziegler’s functionality in the Offensive Music trailer.
“When I first saw the trailer, I looked at what the actress was doing and it hurt because, you know, it looks like she’s making fun of it,” Plank said. “She walks down the street doing this kind of thing for no purpose, without any concept of anything that seems like an explanation of why. It’s like I saw something an autistic user did and copied it.
Plank was also discouraged by the obvious lack of involvement of other autistic people in the film.
“I wouldn’t have been disappointed if I’d noticed this, and that was good, because overall, there was significant involvement from other people like me, either or in front of the camera,” Plank said. “I think others people look at this and give the impression that each and every user of a movie about autism has to be autistic. No, I mean, I mean, the writer is autistic, or the administrators are autistic, it’s going to mean a lot more. that if an actor is autistic. “
Sia said on Twitter that she had hired “thirteen neuroatypical people, three trans people, like prostitute whores or junkies, but as doctors, nurses and singers. Damn it, nobody noticed the damn movie. “
Sia said she had consulted Autism Speaks, an autism advocacy organization, for several years.
An Autism Speaks spokesman said, “Autism Speaks didn’t care about the cast or production of the film”Music. “Representation matters, and we believe that autistic actors deserve the opportunity to play autistic characters. “
Sia’s representatives did not respond promptly to a request for comment, but the singer said on Twitter, “My center has been in the right place. “
Cynthia Green, the mother of Tina Green, a 24-year-old autistic actress, agrees. Tina was selected for a small role in Music, which was filmed in 2017.
“I’m one of the other introverted people who never speak out publicly, but I’m very convinced that there’s one facet that other people don’t even take into account,” Green said.
“In 2017, when it was filmed, my daughter did not get auditions for the lead roles. He got more, you know, more background, co-star roles. And for me, I see this as a big win a little more. Three years ago, we see many more opportunities for other people with disabilities to audition for the lead roles. “
Green and Tina are involved in the reaction preventing the film from being released.
“If denigration doesn’t prevent early, the film would probably never come out,” Tina said. “People didn’t even see how they included disabled actors. I would have liked to have had the lead role, of course, but I’m satisfied. “to be part of the most important story. “
Gail Williamson, an agent at KMR Talent Agency, who runs her diversity branch and represents other people with disabilities, says she would like to be consulted about the film and have the ability to audition for some of the autism talents on her list. he says that in the years leading up to music filming in 2017, it was no more unusual and it was accepted that an actor without disabilities played a disabled character.
“In 2017, when our fall lineup came out of the new shows, we had The Good Doctor, with Freddie Highmore and Atypical with Keir Gilchrist (Freddie and Keir are non-disabled actors playing with disabled characters),” Williamson said. 2017, when he did, even though those of us in the network of people with disabilities would tell them that it is not fair, the network of studies as a whole had not yet felt that way. “
“So this film, which premiered for three or four years, found itself trapped in this crazy place. “
Williamson’s son Blair, who has Down syndrome, played a small role in the Sia Music film. Williamson said she didn’t know what the film would be like when he shot his role because his role was small and headless; they never won a script.
“My first impression of Sia was that when she worked with Blair, we found out she was adorable,” Williamson said. “When I saw the tweets I sent, I liked, ‘Oh my God, this is not the woman I knew. ‘”
Williamson believes the cry for music from the disabled network shows how the industry has come. She sees it in the amount of cash that artists on her list have earned. Williamson says disabled actors represented through KMR in 2013 jointly earned $50,000. , together won more than $3,000,000.
“It’s like a freight train, ” he said.
Many autistic actors who responded to Sia online think she would possibly have had the right intentions but, again, suffered damage from her execution and responses, such as Cothrough Bird, an autistic actor who has given the impression on screens like Speechless and The Buen doctor She recently chose Netflix’s Locke And Key.
Bird posted a letter to Sia on Twitter.
“I’m not going to make a judgment about her or her movie,” Bird said. “I’ll look at him and give him a chance. But we want to help teach other people instead of getting angry or using vulgar language. We must be understanding and not use social media to “troll” other people. His answers were hurtful. “
Bird and many other actors who responded say that all Sia wants to do to get it right is show empathy.
“I think she wants to hear what the collective network has to say. I heard where we came from. These are our stories and we’re suffering,” Bird said.
Samantha Hyde, an autistic actress in Atypical, felt compelled to create a reel of autistic actors.
“When I heard this story, I knew it was time to highlight some of the many talented autistic actresses I know and let the world see how varied the other autistic people are. As autistic women, society has forced us to be neurotypical for many years and opportunities. to tell our stories on screen are scarce, even more so for other people of neurodivergent color,” Hyde said.
“There is very little representation of other people with disabilities, so those opportunities pass on to disabled actors. I made this reel because I was looking for other people to see us and that we and others like us would play the disabled and non-disabled. “disabled roles. . . “
Julia Bascom, executive director of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, a national disability rights organization run by adults with autism and others with developmental disabilities, tweeted the Sia controversy with a viral reaction.
Bascom encouraged the continuation of verbal exchange, but needs to do so on the lack of representation and selection of actors without disabilities.
“Other people who don’t speak are among the most marginalized people in our community,” Bascom said. “[They] exist, but it is incredibly rare for them to be hired, even for other disabled actors. This has genuine consequences for them, and makes them invisible. “
Bascom said other people who don’t use speech face additional marginalization. She believes this is evident in some of Sia’s reactions on social media, especially in the reaction that throwing away a non-speaking user would have been “cruel. “
“It is to be transparent that this is not the case, that there are actors who do not speak and are competent and talented and want accommodation, of course, but without pity or rejection,” Bascom said.
Bascom also needs the Sia controversy to open a much-needed discussion about the inclusion of other people with disabilities in all aspects of Hollywood productions. He said the verbal exchange about casting other people with disabilities was too simplistic.
“Visually impaired actors are rarely thought of as roles that are not written as disabled roles. You don’t see many blind actors as characters who weren’t meant to be blind. It’s a challenge in itself. The only jobs for which they are generally thought to be disabled characters, so when non-disabled actors occupy disabled roles, those jobs are also eliminated. between administrators and manufacturers that disabled actors don’t exist,” bascom said.
Bascom believes that Sia now deserves to meet with organizations led by autistic people who do not communicate to communicate about the use of their platform to repair the damage caused and the autistic community. Many other advocates and organizations agree and have advised in several other ways, they say. , that Sia can fix things, such as giving the proceeds of the film to an organization that has other people with autism.
Lauren Appelbaum is vice president of communications for RespectAbility, a nonprofit organization that fights stigma and promotes opportunities for others with disabilities to participate fully in all facets of the community. Make content more inclusive and accurate. Appelbaum was disappointed by Sia’s selection to choose a disability-free actor for a disabled character, and thinks that if she had selected a disabled person, the film would in the end have better performances.
“According to Nielsen, the disability market is valued at a trillion dollars worldwide. That’s why, when you turn to a disabled actor, you’ll attract a whole new audience,” Appelbaum said. “People would like to see themselves, so many other autistic people would like to see this movie, but you too would have other people with other disabilities. We are eager to see a more positive and original representation of other people with disabilities on the screen. “
Meanwhile, actors such as Anderson, Bird, Plank and Carrier hope that this will not prevent the hiring of others with autism and other disabilities in the future. Everyone reiterates that the reaction is due more to Sia’s social media responses, and hopes it will be a time of training for Hollywood professionals to realize the importance of original casting and the desire to publicize the inclusion and diversity of others with disabilities.
“We all have a Rain Man story where other people think we’re magical mathematicians because this film is the only performance at the time. We’re so far away that other people realize that, oh, Rain Man is rarely the only autistic person, there are many other versions of other autistic people,” Carrier said.
“I feel that the more we can put pressure on people to tell our stories and get it right, the more we can replace the world. “
I’m a three-time Emmy Award nominee with a decade of media delight that has covered primary national reports such as the Charlottesville sequels ‘Unite
I am nominated three times for the Emmy Award with a decade of media delight that has covered major national stories, such as the aftermath of Charlottesville’s “Unite the Right” rally and President Trump’s “travel ban” before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. .
I have become a journalist to speak for those who have no voice, like my severely disabled sister. I have used my platform to speak gently about issues affecting other people with disabilities and other vulnerable and rights-deprived communities.
I won a Virginia ARC Catalyst for Change Award for influencing my reports and an Emmy nomination for an investigation that reveals forgetfulness and abuse in a residential service.
My purpose as a journalist is to leave the world in a more important position by spreading hope with my paintings while making sure the fact is told and the irregularity is exposed.