Taylor Swift Has Edited Out “Fatphobic” Scene In ‘Anti-Hero’ Music Video
The video elicited prompt backlash from Swifties, who said it promoted anti-fatness.
Taylor Swift’s music video from ‘Anti-Hero’ has reportedly been altered after criticisms that the video promotes an anti-fat message.
After dropping her tenth studio album last Friday, including a music video for the album’s first single, ‘Anti-Hero’, she received a barrage of criticism about a scene that shows her stepping on a bathroom scale that reads ‘fat’. While Swift has said that this scene was supposed to be reflective of “nightmare scenarios and intrusive thoughts [playing] out in real time,” the video has attracted accusations of fatphobia.
As Merryana Salem explains, many Swifties have tried to excuse the video’s sequence by citing Swift’s own past with disordered eating, with one going as far to say that her video was actually critiquing the prominence of fatphobia in the minds of young women.
“If you think any time people with an eating disorder speak about their issues it’s fatphobic you’re facilitating the idea that people shouldn’t talk about it,” wrote one fan.
However, others have pointed out that having an eating disorder or the history of one doesn’t excuse fatphobia.
“Fat people don’t need to have it reiterated yet again that it’s everyone’s worst nightmare to look like us,” read one social worker‘s viral tweet.
– unworthy
– the problem
– unloveable
– bad
– not good enough
– rejected
– do better
– broken…you get the idea
— Erin Phillips, MPH, RD, CDCES (@ErinPhillipsRD) October 22, 2022
According to Variety, Swift’s ‘Anti-Hero’ music video on Apple Music no longer shows the scale. Swift’s anti-hero clone in the video just looks at her with a face of disappointment.
The YouTube iteration of the music video, however, still features a scale displaying the word “fat”. At the time of writing, it’s unclear if that will change.