Swift was called out for ‘blatant fatphobia’.
Taylor Swift appears to have tweaked the music video for her ‘Midnights’ single ‘Anti-Hero’ after a backlash over the word ‘fat’ which some fans branded fatphobic.
The self-directed clip, released October 22, shows Swift being judged by an evil version of herself and includes a scene where she is weighing herself. The video cuts to a close-up of the scale, which reads ‘FAT’, before we see the twin shaking her head.
Swift said the video explored her “nightmare scenarios and intrusive thoughts”, but some fans said it went too far and was fatphobic.
I have a thread abt this lol this is how I feel https://t.co/K6Ew8q2s8t
— 💖 (@hutchleah) October 21, 2022
https://twitter.com/luciewald/status/1583551762673197057
https://twitter.com/amateur_arguer/status/1583501704128962561
While Swift hasn’t commented on the criticism, she appears to have adjusted the video.
Overnight, the video for ‘Anti-Hero’ was altered on Apple Music, removing the close-up shot of Swift stepping onto the scale, instead, the scene appears as one continuous shot.
Taylor Swift removed the close up of the scale saying ‘FAT’ in the Anti-Hero music video on Apple Music. It got across her point just as well with it only showing her standing on the scale + being judged, this version does it without harming fat folk in the process.👏🏻 #Midnights pic.twitter.com/5IoLetcPSD
— 💖 (@hutchleah) October 26, 2022
I think editing out the word “fat” was the perfect example of how we balance talking about EDs and fatphobia. Taylor didn’t remove the entire scene. That would be an entirely different conversation. She removed a brief clip that many found hurtful. IMO, the message remains.
— Sav 🪩 (@SavLovesSwift) October 26, 2022
The YouTube version, however, at the time of writing, had not been changed. The scene appears around the two minute mark.
On Wednesday, Swift released a clip for ‘Bejeweled’, where she stars as Cinderella alongside Laura Dern and the Haim sisters.
The singer announced last week that every track on ‘Midnights’ would be given the “music movie” treatment. Other stars set to appear are actors Laith Ashley, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, John Early and Mike Birbiglia.
‘Midnights’ is already the fastest-selling record of 2022 (shifting over a million copies as of Wednesday) and is Swift’s 10th studio album, following her 2020 lockdown albums ‘Folklore’ and ‘Evermore’, as well as last year’s re-recorded versions of ‘Fearless’ and ‘Red’.
Last week, Swift confirmed that a UK tour in support of ‘Midnights’ will be announced soon. In her 2020 documentary, Miss Americana, Swift spoke about her personal experience with her body image as a public figure, saying: “It’s not good for me to see pictures of myself every day,” she said in the documentary.
“It’s only happened a few times, and I’m not in any way proud of it. A picture of me where I feel like I looked like my tummy was too big, or … someone said that I looked pregnant … and that’ll just trigger me to just starve a little bit — just stop eating.”
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