Laura Jane Grace Criticizes Arcade Fire’s Pro-LGBT “We Exist” Video
The video for “We Exist,” a song from Arcade Fire’s Reflektor album, is the band’s attempt at a massive grand-scale pro-LGBT statement. It casts Amazing Spider-Man star Andrew Garfield as a transgender woman who, after suffering a hateful beating, hallucinates her way onto the Coachella main stage. But Against Me! leader Laura Jane Grace, an actual transgender woman, was not moved. On Twitter, she called the band out for casting Garfield as the video’s star: “Dear @arcadefire, maybe when making a video for a song called ‘We Exist’ you should get an actual ‘Trans’ actor instead of Spider-Man?”
Dear @arcadefire , maybe when making a video for a song called "We Exist" you should get an actual "Trans" actor instead of Spider-Man?
— Laura Jane Grace (@LauraJaneGrace) May 22, 2014
She also compared it to blackface.
@Ereeeek white actors in black face cool then too?
— Laura Jane Grace (@LauraJaneGrace) May 22, 2014