We exist

Earlier this week Laura emailed me a link to a video of  the song We Exist by Arcade Fire. Thanks Laura

It’s here.

 

The lyrics to the song are:

We Exist

by: Arcade Fire

They're walking around
Head full of sound
Acting like
We don't exist
They walk in the room
And stare right through you
Talking like
We don't exist
But we exist
Daddy it's true
I'm different from you
But tell me why they treat me like this?
If you turned away
What would I say?
Not the first betrayed by a kiss
Maybe it's true
They're staring at you
When you walk in the room
Tell 'em it's fine
Stare if you like
Just let us through
Just let us through
Na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na
They're down on their knees
Begging us please
Praying that we don't exist
Daddy it's fine
I'm used to 'em now
But tell me why they treat me like this?
It's cause we do it like this
Na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na
Maybe it's true
They're staring at you
When you walk in the room
Tell 'em it's fine
Stare if you like
Just let us through
Just let us through
Let 'em stare! Let 'em stare!
If that's all they can do!
But I'd lose my heart
If I turned away from you
Oh Daddy don't turn away
You know that I'm so scared
But will you watch me drown?
You know we're going nowhere
We know that we're young
And no shit we're confused
But will you watch us drown?
What are you so afraid to lose?
Down on your knees
Begging us please
Praying that we don't exist
You're down on your knees
Begging us please
Praying that we don't exist
We exist!
We exist!
Down on your knees
Begging us please
Praying that we don't exist
You're down on your knees
Begging us please
Praying that we don't exist
We exist!
We exist!
We exist!
We exist!

Na na na na na na na,

na na na na na na na,

na na na na na na na
Maybe if you hang together
You can make the changes in our hearts
And if you hang together, you can change us
Just where should you start?

The song is from Arcade Fire's album Reflektor, and is "about a gay kid talking to his dad." To me, the video kinda illustrates that the same kind of thing applies to the whole LGBT community.

Pandora Boxx added an interesting comment at YouTube:

This is a powerful message marred with hateful comments but it just shows as far as we've come the journey ahead is a long one.  Thank you Arcade Fire and Andrew Garfield for doing this video.

Having said that there’s an article in the Guardian here with the headline:

Against Me's Laura Jane Grace slams Arcade Fire for transgender video.

And the quote:

'Maybe when making a video for a song called We Exist you should get an actual 'trans' actor instead of Spider-Man,' writes the singer.

Together with some interesting comments here.

I’m not so sure that I’d say that Laura Jane Grace exactly slammed Arcade Fire. She just asked a question.

For myself, I think it would have been great if a transgendered actor had been featured in the video. At the same time I have no problem with the fact that a non-transgendered (cisgender – I only just learned this as a word) person feels enough about something to feature in a video like this. So I go more along with Pandora Boxx than I do with Laura Jane Grace.