CW: Ableism It’s difficult to know where exactly to start with the saga surrounding Sia’s debut feature Music. Public awareness of the controversy began with the moment that Sia started insulting autistic actors on Twitter after they rightfully criticised the casting of Maddie Ziegler, a neurotypical actress, in an autistic role. The online autistic community […]
CW: Ableism Music, Sia’s recently premiered debut film, faced intense backlash months before it was even available for viewing. It tells the story of Zu who, newly sober, assumes the role of primary carer for her 16-year-old half-sister, Music, a non-verbal autistic girl. Music is played by neurotypical Maddie Ziegler, a casting choice which is […]
Murray MacDonald tells me there are two sides to him. The ‘social media’ side of Murray – amiable, chipper, and perhaps “too confident,” he claims, in a hail-fellow-well-met sort of way – is most likely the Murray known to the Edinburgh locals that make up the Facebook group The Meadows Share, an online free exchange […]
What’s Autistic Mutual Aid Society Edinburgh (AMASE)? AMASE is a representative Autistic People’s Organisation (APO). This means that we are led by autistic people and aim to represent the views and concerns of our autistic members. We were founded in 2017, all of our committee and full members are autistic. Allies who support our aims […]
All in a Row, an Alex Oates production now showing at Southwark Playhouse, has come under fire for casting a puppet as one of its lead roles, an autistic eleven-year-old boy named Laurence. The catch? The remainder of the cast is comprised exclusively of humans. The play follows protagonists Tam and Martin in their struggle […]
How should scientists approach the twenty-year-old misconception that there is a correlation between autism and vaccines? Despite vaccination rates remaining high, the contention persists on public forums like Twitter (a “flourishing” anti-vaccine sentiment was found by a recent CU Boulder study on the social media site) and was even discussed on the Republican Party debate […]
The University of Edinburgh have been awarded £20 million by The Simons Foundation for groundbreaking autism research. Researchers hope to build on past studies to uncover more biological mechanisms that cause alterations in brain development. According to the Simons Foundation, a particular focus will be placed on how various wirings of the brain can affect […]
At the current Summerhall Exhibition, Autism, Abstraction and Colour, Garvald Artists deems John Black’s work “inherently beautiful”. However, this description does not even attempt to do the artist justice. In fact, it does quite the opposite. Deciding that a collection of art carries an objective aesthetic prowess tells the viewer that there is no need […]