The Canadian band Arcade Fire presented in mid-May a new video that promised to give a lot to talk about. The song We exist he had the actor Andrew Garfield as protagonist of this music video, recorded at the Coachella festival (California), where the band was headlining. We Exist tells the story of a young transsexual, how she feels observed and mistreated in a bar attack, as she tells her father, unable to explain why this situation is still happening.
Although its launch was quite successful on social networks, the video received harsh criticism from the transsexual community, especially by the punk singer Laura Jane Grace, who through Twitter protested to the band for not having chosen a transsexual actor, instead of a famous actor. "Dear @arcadefire, maybe making the video for a song called We Exist you should have chosen a transsexual actor instead of Spiderman. » the artist wrote, adding that she misprizes and perpetuates stereotypes.
In an interview for The Advocate magazine, the director of the video clip, David WilsonHe responded to criticism by noting that the actor's choice had been correct. When talking to Andrew Garfield and see his commitment to the cause and the passion towards the created character and towards the project, he felt convinced, as well as flattered. "For an actor of his caliber to be so emotionally involved in such a project is something very special," confessed Wilson. For his part, Win Butler, lead singer of the band, pointed out that once you post something on the internet, it has an impact on people's lives in a very powerful way. And he responded to Grace's tweet like this “For a gay boy to see the Spiderman actor playing this role is very powerful, In my opinion". Our Lady J, a trans singer who helped Garfield prepare the character, confirmed in turn that the two saw the character as a young man exploring his gender, not like a transsexual woman.
We will see how the controversy continues and how Arcade Fire defends this song now that they are in full festival season, today in Barcelona with Primavera Sound. What do you think?
