In a stunning demonstration of how far political correctness controls our reactions, Taylor Swift’s music video for “Midnights” lead single “Anti-Hero,” has been edited to remove a scene that shows her stepping on a bathroom scale that reads “fat.”
In the new version of the clip Swift steps on to the scale, receiving a look of disapproval from a doppelganger also played by Swift, but no reading is shown. Speculation surrounding the reasoning behind the removal of those frames comes from online debate over the scene, which has since been labeled by some as “anti-fat” because of the indication that being fat is a negative thing.
The edit comes after some fans and commentators criticized the scale scene for perpetuating “fatphobia.” On Twitter, eating disorder therapist and body positivity blogger Shira Rosenbluth said the clip “reiterated yet again that it’s everyone’s worst nightmare to look like us,” while Teen Vogue writer Catherine Mhloyi described the scene as “lazy”: “In having the word ‘fat’ appear on the scale, she made a choice to explicitly name her demon, the fear of being called fat, which is fatphobia in its most literal sense.”
Not everyone was horrified by Swift’s alleged “fatphobia.” Other commentators, including Whoopi Goldberg, have come to Swift’s defense. “Just let her have her feelings – if you don’t like the song, don’t listen to it,” she said on panel show The View. “Why are you wasting your time on this? You always wanna say something about Taylor Swift – leave her ass alone.” Joy Behar added: “What’s she supposed to put on the scale, ‘plump? It doesn’t work.”
Swift has talked about struggling with an eating disorder in the past, most extensively in her 2020 Netflix documentary “Miss Americana.” In the film, Swift admits there have been times in the past (“It’s only happened a few times, and I’m not in any way proud of it”) when she’s seen “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.”
The assumption has always been that artists have the freedom to express their thoughts and emotions through their works, but as obesity becomes an ever-greater threat to health, more resistance seems to be growing to any criticism of it. Now apparently, it has become politically incorrect even to name it.
