Final week, multi-award-winning singer Taylor Swift delighted followers around the globe with the discharge of her tenth studio album, Midnights.
One of many stand-out songs from the album is Anti Hero, which is at present doing the rounds on TikTok and sitting at primary within the UK charts.
Whereas the vast majority of followers have been excited that the singer was again – as all the time, with so many nice songs, too – some took to Twitter to precise their disappointment within the Anti Hero music video.
Set off warning: this text discusses themes of consuming problems and unfavourable physique picture
Taylor directed the video herself and has spoken about the way it was a metaphorical tackle the physique picture points she’s confronted her entire life. Having a profession within the public eye, she’s lengthy been candid about her disordered consuming and physique dysmorphia and described the Anti Hero video as her “nightmare situations and intrusive ideas play[ed] out in real-time.”
These embody her household and mates betraying her and a nod to her weight throughout a scene the place she sees the phrase “fats” when she steps on her rest room scales.
Why Taylor Swift is being accused of fatphobia in new Anti Hero video
Whereas the video has since been edited to omit the pan all the way down to the scales (Taylor’s group hasn’t publically addressed this, nonetheless), it has brought about a debate on-line. Some name the video “fatphobic” and say that framing being obese as a worst-case situation is insensitive to those that battle with their weight.
One stated on Twitter: ““Taylor Swift’s music video, the place she seems down on the scale the place it says “fats” is a sh*tty solution to describe her physique picture struggles. Fats folks don’t must have it reiterated but once more that it’s everybody’s worst nightmare to appear like us.”
One other added: “Horrible. Simply terrible. Fatphobia at its best. And from a thin, wealthy, white, straight cis girl. Your selection to incorporate it will trigger intense hurt to many individuals.”
There have additionally been accusations of lazy storytelling, with a number of specialists from charities like BEAT, the Consuming Dysfunction charity, reminding that such scenes might be triggering for these at present experiencing disordered thought patterns round meals or fighting the signs of an consuming dysfunction (opens in new tab).
That stated, the star has been candid about her personal private physique picture journey and struggles with self love (opens in new tab) earlier than. In her 2020 documentary Miss Americana, she says that if she ever noticed “an image of [herself] the place [she felt like her] tummy was too large” or “somebody stated that [she] appeared pregnant”, it typically “triggered” her “to simply starve a bit bit” and “cease consuming.”
This is the reason many followers – and even celeb Whoopi Goldberg – have jumped to her protection, defending the singer for talking her personal reality.
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“My relationship with meals was precisely the identical psychology that I utilized to the whole lot else in my life: if I used to be given a pat on the top, I registered that pretty much as good. If I used to be given a punishment, I registered that as dangerous,” she’s stated beforehand.
“I bear in mind how, once I was 18, that was the primary time I used to be on the quilt of {a magazine}, and the headline was like ‘Pregnant at 18?’ And it was as a result of I had worn one thing that made my decrease abdomen look not flat. So I simply registered that as a punishment. After which I’d stroll into a photograph shoot and anyone who labored at {a magazine} would say, ‘Oh, wow, that is so wonderful you can match into the pattern sizes!’ and I checked out that as a pat on the top. You register that sufficient instances, and also you simply begin to accommodate the whole lot in direction of reward and punishment, together with your personal physique.”
As a Well being Editor, I see either side – however firmly consider that nobody’s psychological well being must be trivialised or referred to as into query due to how they give the impression of being. It seems that she’s stating how ridiculous societal requirements about physique picture are – as one fan Tweeted, “She is aware of it’s f*cked. That’s the purpose.”
Anybody can undergo from disordered consuming – you might be any weight, peak, race, or age. And so it is extra necessary than ever that we preserve breaking down the taboos surrounding talking up, and be sure that those that want it will possibly get the assistance and assist essential to make a full restoration.