Australian-born singer Sia has recently confirmed she will be performing at the Grammys this coming Sunday. Given her recent performance featuring lip-syncing children wearing her trademark wig on the Ellen Digeneres show, as well as recent controversy regarding her last music videos, audiences can expect an unusual, provocative performance.
Sia has now released two videos featuring Maddie Ziegler, a professional 12-year-old dancer and star of Lifetime's "Dance Moms" (2011-present). The first song, “Chandelier” (2014), is a tongue-in-cheek party-girl anthem that correlates the urge to drink uncontrollably with swinging from a chandelier. The video for "Chandelier" featured Ziegler in a passionate, lively dance, one that Jimmy Kimmel has jokingly tried to learn. Due to the skin-colored clothing Ziegler wore, some found the video disturbing. One of the highest rated YouTube comments, which has since been deleted, claimed "no self-respecting parent would let their child participate in this s--t."
The controversy increased when Sia released her second her second installment of a music video trilogy, “Elastic Heart,” which features American actor and director Shia LaBeouf as well as Ziegler, both wearing tight, skin-colored clothing and fighting in a bird-cage. Due to a storm of user tweets the day of the video’s release, Sia apologized via Twitter. “I anticipated some ‘pedophelia!!!’ Cries [sic] for this video,” she wrote in a series of tweets shortly after the video premiere. The tweet continues with, “All I can say is Maddie and Shia are two of the only actors I felt could play / “These two warring ‘sia’ self states.”
https://twitter.com/Sia/status/553023264646123520
Many publications quickly reported on the tweet, and some asked why cries of pedophelia existed when the music video itself was not romantic or sexual. Aimee Cliff, writer at "The Fader" suggests, in an article titled “The Only Creepy Thing About Pop’s New Child Stars Is Us,” that the problem is not the child stars but the way audiences view them. She notes that male children are not held to the same standard. “Did anyone question the presentation of 13-year-old Justin Bieber when he started to blow up, appearing in romantically charged videos at the age of 15?” Cliff demands of readers.
To put it simply, male children are often viewed as subjects, while female children are viewed as objects. Cliff blames this double standard on mainstream Western media, which has, as she describes it, "created a context in which predatoriness and perversion infects everything we see.” The music video for Sia's "Elastic Heart" is different from the norm not because Ziegler is sexualized, but because she is portrayed as a subject.
“I'm supposed to be portraying a werewolf, and pretty much Shia and I have been just living in the cage for a year, and I'm the strong one and I'm trying to pretty much kill him," Ziegler said in an official behind-the-scenes video released shortly after the storm of aggressive tweets and comments. "I’ve never played a wolf. I growled 20 times in this dance," she continued.
“When was the last time you saw a mainstream music video that depicted the inner strength of a woman through the medium of a 12-year-old girl with enough talent and power to battle a grown man?” Cliff asks.
It is still unclear whether or not Ziegler will join Sia in performing at the Grammys this Sunday, where Sia's music video, "Chandelier," is competing for "Best Music Video." Yet, given the collaboration between the two artists, a performance is not unlikely. Yet the fact that Sia has potential to win for "Chandelier" already puts the artist, and her message, at the forefront of American pop culture. Perhaps in addition to prompting conversations about race, the Grammys will also spark dialogue about female sexuality in pop culture.
Sia releases controversial music video featuring Shia LeBeouf, Maddie Ziegler
