Yesterday Australian singer-songwriter Sia released the video for her single “Elastic Heart,” featuring 12-year-old Maddie Ziegler engaged in a stylized dance war with a speedo-clad Shia LaBeouf—a controversial casting choice, given LaBeouf’s history with naked dancing and general Shia LaBeouf-iness. But this particular interpretive dance was performed tastefully, with the performers reportedly representing warring sides of Sia’s personality:
Nevertheless, the presence of an underage girl in the same room/cage as an adult man led to accusations from people on the Internet that “Elastic Heart” promoted pedophilia, which says as much about them than it does about the video. Sia then took to social media to apologize, saying basically that she anticipated some pushback from the video but, “All I can say is Maddie and Shia are two of the only actors I felt could play these two warring Sia self states.”
Besides her appearance in Sia’s “Chandelier” video, Ziegler is best known for being on Dance Moms, presumably an infinitely more traumatizing experience than dance-fighting with Shia LaBeouf. Ziegler will perform with Sia on Saturday Night Live on January 17, before, during, and after which a group of adult women will start meaningless fights with each other to compensate for the fact that they’re all jealous of a 12-year-old.