LogFAQs > #953221898

StealThisSheen posted...

The point is that the movie was promoted as being empowering and a vehicle for people in the autistic community, but it casts a non-autistic actress to play an autistic role in a way that is basically based on stereotypes and with mannerisms that seem almost more on par with mocking.

An actors portrayal can be empowering for a group even if the actor portraying the role isn't part of that group. In fact done well I might even prefer it, since it shows the person behind the portrayal has done their due diligence and really tried to understand what life may be like if you live within that group, which would be touching.
The only people who complains about who portrays a role are people who cry about representation, and people who do that are people who that either are so insecure about their own worth that they feel they need preferential treatment, people who can't identify with anyone who specifically doesn't represent them or people who section up people into different distinct groups and live with an innate "us vs them" mentality... Or any combination of those things.

Now again, if the portrayal is bad then that isn't a good thing... But it's not worse than if any other portrayal is bad. Believe me, I know Hollywood doesn't do a particularly good job when portraying autism. My particular "quirk" is asperger's and I seen countless of things where they've used it almost like quantum physics or nanoparticles in the script (something they can throw into script to not have to explain things further). It's very clumsy... But the problem there is that the script writers are lazy and/or bad. It's not worse than any other case of dumb script writing. To be all like "it's extra bad cause it's autism" is condescending. Like autistic spectra people are weak people that need special coddling and protection. And besides, the criticism didn't happen cause the portrayal was bad, it happened as soon as casting got known. Besides, I just looked it up and it seems the actress is someone Sia personally knows, can't be too upset for someone wanting to make a movie with their friend.

Anyway, if the portrayal is bad then critique the portrayal. Whether the actor has a disability or not should be completely inconsequential, their skill at the role is all that should matter. If that's what the critique was based on I'd be completely onboard with the critique...
But as it is I feel insulted.