{"id":62482,"date":"2022-10-27T13:12:06","date_gmt":"2022-10-27T17:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/?p=62482"},"modified":"2025-08-11T11:01:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T15:01:19","slug":"personal-essay-taylor-swift-anti-hero-video-eating-disorders-body-positivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/personal-essay-taylor-swift-anti-hero-video-eating-disorders-body-positivity\/","title":{"rendered":"On Taylor Swift\u2019s Music Video, and Society\u2019s Ongoing Problem With My Body"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Myself at age 18 (left) and 38 (right). The same person, at two very different points along a body acceptance journey. (Credit: Candice Helfand-Rogers; Broadway Inspirational Voices)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Taylor Swift<\/a> released a new album \u2013 and sparked a conversation on body image in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The singer-songwriter\u2019s latest opus, \u201cMidnights,\u201d is a 13-track deep dive through familiar themes for Swift\u2019s music, such as love, loss<\/a> and internal emotional struggle. (And for the record, it\u2019s freakin\u2019 great.) The first single from the album, \u201cAnti-Hero,\u201d came with its own video<\/a> \u2013 which came with a problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parts of the video depict two versions of herself interacting, with one Taylor functioning as the personification of a negative internal monologue \u2013 a storytelling device used to portray some of her \u201cnightmare scenarios and intrusive thoughts,\u201d as Swift described it in a tweet<\/a>. In one such moment, the \u201cother\u201d Taylor steps on a scale. In the original version of the video, rather than a number, it registers one word: \u201cfat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a small moment, admittedly, but one that stuck out to many. Beyond passionate social media discourse on the subject, that bit became a point of reflection for pieces in major publications, from The Cut<\/a> to The Huffington Post<\/a>. Another contingent of her fans, in response to the frustration, came to Swift\u2019s defense by citing her struggles with eating disorders<\/a> as an explanation. But at times, some supporters would engage<\/a> in the very sort of anti-fatness others were speaking out against, further widening the rift in perspectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, we\u2019re all getting hurt by the same damn thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

~<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The summer before my senior year of high school, I began taking diet pills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve never been thin<\/a> \u2013 but at that point of my life, I desperately wanted to be. Those pills made me feel, to borrow from the parlance of younger generations, completely unhinged. My heart pounded, and my mind and blood raced constantly throughout my days. I felt on edge, and frequently grew moody. I often struggled to calm my thoughts enough to fall asleep at night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when asked by my doctor and parents whether I was experiencing side effects, I said there were none to report. Because those pills also caused me to lose an extreme amount of weight in mere months. And when I experienced the reactions to my transformation \u2013 from friends, from family, from teachers \u2013 I couldn\u2019t have cared less about how awful I actually felt. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Related<\/h4>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\n \n Why That Ad Featuring ‘Body Positivity’ Isn’t as Great as You Think\n <\/a>\n <\/h3>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n

I was hooked on the high of benefiting from the value our society places upon thinness. Everyone treated me differently \u2013 better \u2013 and I never wanted it to stop. (And no, it wasn\u2019t my adolescent imagination. Research shows that fat individuals grapple with discrimination everywhere, from doctor appointments<\/a> to dates<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the lens from which I, and others, viewed the \u201cAnti-Hero\u201d video. I\u2019ll admit that it\u2019s hurtful for someone to describe the idea of living in my body as a \u201cnightmare scenario.\u201d Especially from someone as savvy and detailed as Swift, who weaves layers of meaning into every song, every video, every social media post \u2013 you can\u2019t simply write this off as an oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there\u2019s more than any one individual’s feelings to consider here. “I’m the problem — it’s me,” Swift sings in the song\u2019s refrain. But the thing is, I don\u2019t agree. No, her mistake is one symptom of broader sicknesses: anti-fatness and fatphobia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

~<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eating disorders are a plague. Millions of Americans<\/a> grapple with them, and over 10,000 die as a direct result of them each year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And they\u2019re steeped in anti-fatness. It\u2019s not just a matter of a misalignment existing between what Swift, or anyone, sees in the mirror, and what they actually look like. It\u2019s about the flat-out fear of being seen as fat \u2013 fear of being a plus-size person in the first place. And it\u2019s about how that sentiment causes us to talk to and treat one another, and ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 22 years that have passed since that formative summer, I\u2019ve gone on a lengthy journey with my body. I now feel more comfortable in it than I ever have. But I\u2019m still not \u201cthere\u201d yet, because pressures to conform are so fully integrated into every video, every ad, every interaction \u2013 into our very psyches \u2013 that it can sometimes feel impossible to parse out what we actually see when we see ourselves, and how to feel about it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our relationships with our bodies are already complicated. Our perceptions of ourselves are then unavoidably tinged by what we\u2019re told is \u201cbeautiful\u201d and \u201cgood.\u201d Swift is no exception \u2013 proof that not even immense privilege can\u2019t insulate you from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of that said, she appears to have heard her aggrieved fans. While Swift hasn\u2019t released a statement on the matter as of publication of this piece, the versions of the video that appear on YouTube and Apple Music have been edited<\/a> to omit the shot of the scale entirely. It\u2019s the latest instance of celebrities taking fans\u2019 critiques of insensitive lyrics or imagery to heart and changing their products in kind, with both Lizzo and Beyonce removing ableist language from new songs earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s not an act of aggression to bring up faux pas like this – it’s a reflection of a belief in others’ abilities to do better. As we’ve now seen several times over, that belief can be rewarded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And maybe because of Swift\u2019s choice to act, one fewer girl will feel the need to suffer in silence at the idea of being fat, as I once did, in order to contort her body into an uncomfortably small idea of beauty. Maybe she won\u2019t have to wait until she\u2019s approaching 40 to love her softness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe we needn\u2019t sing of ourselves as problems, when we can so easily be part of a solution. ◼️<\/p>\n\n\n

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Related<\/h4>\n <\/div>\n \n
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Anti-fatness thrives in a world beholden to narrow \u2013 in several ways \u2013 beauty standards. The only way to effect change is by calling it out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":62483,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":false,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19648],"tags":[21148,20787,21149,19645],"class_list":["post-62482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-anti-fatness","tag-body-image","tag-eating-disorders","tag-opinion"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA Personal Essay on Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201cAnti-Hero\u201d Video Eating Disorders, Body Positivity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Anti-fatness thrives in a world beholden to narrow \u2013 in several ways \u2013 beauty standards. 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