Taylor Swift, who has been enjoying the most successful album release of the year with Midnights, released a video last week for her song “Anti-Hero,” which unintentionally created controversy thanks to a quick scene that earned some strong reactions
In the song, Taylor takes on her insecurities, including not feeling sexy enough and questioning if she is humble enough. At one point in the video, she walks on a scale to see how much she weighs but the scale doesn’t give a weight and instead simply reads the word, “fat.”
Some took to social media to complain that this is fatphobia, including the tweets below:
Others defended Taylor, including Whoopi Goldberg on The View.
Others who defend her have pointed out that Taylor is actually making a statement against how we see each other and how the world pressures us into looking a certain way when it should instead accept us. Of course, her video takes a more personal approach, suggesting that she sees herself as not good enough thanks in part to how the world wires us to see ourselves, which is a mentality that triggered her an eating disorder that she struggled with.
Taylor has now responded with action. Last night, the scene in question has been edited on Apple Music, effectively erasing the quick second where the scale reads, “fat.”
As of this publishing, the scene has yet to be edited on YouTube.
Regardless what opinion you have on the scene, it seems that Taylor Swift taking the steps to make sure she is not misunderstood, by ridding the video of the controversial scene, is perhaps the right step. In the least, it says that she’s not interested in creating controversy for attention. Besides, the change of the literal message in the video doesn’t change the figurative message, and that’s more important.