Taylor stepped on the scale, and the result showed "obesity", and her doppelganger shook her head after looking at it... Because of this scene in the MV of the new song "Anti-Hero", American singer Taylor Swift was questioned by some foreign netizens for suffering from "fatphobia" (prejudice against obesity and obese people).
According to the British "Guardian" reported on October 27, after the controversy, the MV deleted the close-up of the scale.
On October 21, the 32-year-old Swift released a new album "Midnights" (midnight), which sold more than 1.4 million copies in the United States in 5 days of release, setting a record for the first week of sales of any artist album in the United States in the past seven years (not breaking the record of Adele's "25" in 2015), and streaming media in the United States exceeded 423 million times.
The huge traffic is also accompanied by controversy, and the MV of the main single "Anti-Hero" has become the "largest single-day playback MV in history" on the music platform Spotify, but it has actually been criticized as "anti-fat".
Written by Swift and written and directed by herself, the plot recreates her nightmares and shows her experiences of self-denial, insecurity, and suffering from eating disorders (mainly anorexia or bulimia). Publicly available sources say the song discusses "self-loathing, depression and anxiety."
The controversial scene was when she stood on a scale in the bathroom with a reading of "obese," and her doppelganger stood aside and shook her head when she saw the results. The lyrics at this time are "I dare to look directly at the sun, but I can't look at myself in the mirror".
Comparison of the original (top) and the updated version
This scene immediately sparked heated discussions on social platforms. Many foreign netizens believe that the word "obesity" appeared on the scale in the MV because Swift has "obesity phobia".
“...... I want thin people to know what fat people feel like when you say that looking like fat is your biggest fear. ”
Others believe that she can be better expressed about her struggle with body image (which refers to an individual's evaluation and cognition of his own body, different from the real outside, shaped by popular social culture), rather than reminding fat people that "being fat is a nightmare" and that "suffering from eating disorders is not an excuse for obesity phobia."
But supporters of Swift argue that the aforementioned netizens are overreacting and too "sensitive."
“...... In my opinion, [this scene in the MV] is more like a criticism of obesity phobia. I'm fed up with people who attack artists with bad media analysis without critical thinking. ”
On October 26, ABC's "The View" discussed the matter, and host Whoopi Goldberg defended Swift, saying, "Let her keep her feelings, if you don't like the song, don't listen to it, why waste time on this topic, you always want to talk about Taylor Swift." ”
At present, the "Anti-Hero" MV on Apple Music and YouTube has been replaced with a new edited version, removing the "fat" scale reading and retaining the scene of shaking your head.
In 2020, Swift opened up about her experience with an eating disorder in his Netflix documentary, saying that media scrutiny of her figure led her to lose weight on a diet.
Swift recalls that when she first appeared on the cover of a magazine at the age of 18, her lower abdomen was not flat enough because she was wearing clothes, and the headline at the time was almost "Pregnant at 18?" ", which hit her hard. She confessed that now she knows that it is more important to eat and get done with energy and not to be tired, and she no longer cares so much about the outside world about her weight.
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