Lines still blurred on subject of body image

IMAGINE a world where you get cancelled as “fatphobic” for merely reflecting on societal and internalised pressures on women to be thin. Welcome to 2022 — a time where being “triggered” outflanks absolutely anything else.

News broke this week that pop star sensation Taylor Swift, the same woman who is tearing up record books and redefining modern music success, moved to edit a scene from the video clip of her new smash hit Anti-hero after being dragged on the internet as “fatphobic”.

This is the same woman who has previously spoken bravely about suffering from an eating disorder.

Instead of an opportunity to reflect on the pressures that still pervade the modern world for women to attain impossible beauty standards, what has followed is another day, another victory for woke Twitter crusaders who have declared themselves the arbiter of the right and wrong way for women to speak about this pressure.

The scene, now edited, originally showed Swift stepping gingerly onto scales which then flicked up with word “fat” in the spot where a numerical weight would usually be displayed.

In the original clip, Swift looks at the word “fat” before turning to look at a second version of herself, who appears to be judging her, inspecting the scales and then shaking her head in a disapproving “no”.

Swift had previously described the music video by saying “watch my nightmare scenarios and intrusive thoughts play out in real time”.

And so, as a female artist shared her inner demons about the cruel pressure on women to maintain the ‘ideal’ weight, what happened? Twitter and all the judges of what women can and can’t say came for her like a freight train. One of the most cited tweets, which went viral, came from eating disorder therapist/ social worker Shira Rosenbluth.

“Taylor Swift’s music video, where she looks down at the scale where it says ‘fat’ is a sh*tty way to describe her body image struggles. Fat people don’t need to have it reiterated yet again that it’s everyone’s worst nightmare to look like us.”

In a think piece on US site The Cut, Olivia Tuffaut-wong wrote: “To me, this scene isn’t just harmful because it reinforces the idea of being ‘fat’ as bad; it’s harmful because the word “fat” is triggering to many of us who actually exist in these bodies. It allows the video to give off the air of being inclusive while still celebrating a thin body. Unless Swift is willing to unpack her own thin privilege, or take a stand for her fat fans, any perceived gesture of solidarity with fat people is meaningless.”

After decades of women being told by society how they should look, we now have a scenario where women are demanding other women declare their “thin privilege” before they dare reflect on the pressures that have haunted women, teens and some men for decades.

We live in a time where influencers and celebrities are being praised and making a name for themselves when they do embrace what’s now known as “body positivity”. But what is the point of women working relentlessly to promote body positivity and to shine a light on the screaming, loud voices young girls grow up with if all of a sudden we decide to cancel anyone who actually articulates what those voices sound like — and have sounded like for decades?

Taylor Swift’s scene on the scales crudely articulates the harmful, absurd dichotomy that body positivity is railing against.

And yet she’s been attacked for it because suddenly society is too triggered to speak plainly.

And so the truth is society is still telling women how they can and can’t speak and feel about their own body.

Not much has changed at all then, has it?