Don’t Hate Taylor Because She’s Thin And Still Feels Fat: “Anti-Hero” and Its Cacomorphobia Interpretation

For some reason, it was only about two or so seconds of the “Anti-Hero” video that stood out to many viewers. Particularly, let’s say, more zaftig viewers who took one look at the scale that read, “FAT” and said to themselves, “How could she?” Not only because Taylor Swift embodies one of those rather vexing skinny bitches who feigns having to worry about their weight like any other garden-variety fatso (read: most of America), but because, in the present climate, it seemed incredible that she thought she’d be able to get away with it unscathed, innocuous as it may have seemed to her. This perhaps being a product of both her foolishness in thinking that uncensored self-expression is part and parcel of what art is and being surrounded by too many cloying sycophants to be properly forewarned. One would sub out “cloying sychophants” with “skinny people” were it not for the fact that Lena Dunham is one of Swift’s “besties,” and she didn’t seem to take offense.

In the past, Swift has been known for “carousing” with fellow tall, thin people (often referred to as models), most of which were represented in the “Bad Blood” video, including Cara Delevingne, Gigi Hadid and Karlie Kloss. The backlash that her “girl squad” received, however, was also rooted in a public disdain for Swift parading a homogenous standard of beauty. Swift eventually responded to the reaction by remarking, “I never would have imagined that people would have thought, ‘This is a clique that wouldn’t have accepted me if I wanted to be in it.’ Holy shit, that hit me like a ton of bricks.” And yet, for someone whose songwriting is so frequently about being an “outsider,” one would think she could tend to imagine it. But that’s the thing: she’s the type of “outsider” frequently presented in rom-coms of a bygone era. You know, the sort of girl who is only “ugly” because she has glasses and her hair hasn’t yet gotten a blowout. Naturally, Swift wouldn’t and couldn’t see it that way, just recently singing things like, “No one wanted to play with me as a little kid/So I’ve been scheming like a criminal ever since/To make them love me and make it seem effortless” on Midnights.

And one aspect of the “effortlessness” of “making someone” “love” you, in this world of peddling brainwashing ads about how to be “beautiful,” is “keeping fit.” Something Taylor has been made hyper-aware of in her role as a monolithic celebrity, dissected and picked apart as much for her looks as she is for her personal life. Understandably, this would warp her perspective even more than the average self-hating girl. And for those who wish to seek a better, more tasteful insight into that than “Anti-Hero,” it can’t be emphasized enough to listen to and watch the video for Tove Lo’s “Grapefruit.” A track that speaks to the raging sense of body dysmorphia that exists inside so many women. Though, to be more “feminist,” Xtina’s “Beautiful” video also calls it out in men as well. So yes, there is an honesty to what Taylor is portraying on that scale. How, no matter what size we are, we’ve been conditioned to see it as being still too “FAT.” Regardless of simply being a healthy weight.

Alas, even Taylor Swift can no longer have her nice things, namely freedom to express her subjective thoughts and feelings without it being shat upon by people who are ultimately jealous of her figure and enraged by the fact that she doesn’t appreciate it. It’s ironic, of course, that in declaring in the very same video, “It’s me, hi/I’m the problem, it’s me,” Taylor should make good on that assertion by being the “problem” for many an “overweight” person whose own insecurities she tapped into with use of the word “fat,” in addition to conveying it as a source of ultimate fear. This playing into the inherently fatphobic (cacomorphobia, if you prefer) nature of society. One whose “values” Taylor is both a product and purveyor of. So why should she be muzzled when it comes to mentioning how she feels about that? Least of all held responsible for single-handedly eradicating the concept of body-shaming. Something that will never go away. And certainly not with the dominance social media, the premier conduit for comparison and self-loathing, here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Nonetheless, Swift was shamed for her purported body-shaming. To the extent that she actually altered the video almost right away (proving once again that most “artists” of the present are fucking pussies that won’t stand by what they’ve said or done when it’s poked at too much). To this end, in the current era of automatically “erasing” or “deleting” something that causes a backlash, it leaves one to wonder if art—in its undiluted form—can even exist anymore. Not to mention how it highlights that we live in a dystopian-level society that can and will censor at the drop of a hat.

To boot, “making people forget,” as though they’ve been exposed to the neuralyzer from Men in Black, doesn’t truly make the “problem” go away, it just buries it to the point where everyone becomes more passive aggressive in their expression of authentic internal feelings. And, by the way, it bears noting that Men in Black was released at a time when, evidently, the neuralyzer wasn’t as needed. For people are far more sensitive now than they were in 1997. Their delicate sensibilities constantly shot and rattled to the extent that, if they really were using the neuralyzer to have their memories of unwanted portrayals erased, they’d be operating with a practically lobotomized brain at this juncture. With Taylor now being yet another person to wield the ice pick by promptly removing the offending image. In turn, she’s effectively used it on herself as well, manifesting her ism, “I’m the problem, it’s me” by backing down on her own genuine emotions. And no, this not the same as Ye refusing to back down on his genuine “emotions” about Jewish people.