Arcade Fire's Win Butler Responds To Criticism For Casting Andrew Garfield As Transgender In 'We Exist' Video

Arcade Fire singer Win Butler has hit back at criticism the band have received for casting Spider-Man star Andrew Garfield to play a transgender in the music video for their new single, 'We Exist.'

The Canadian band premiered the video for their latest 'Reflektor' single earlier this month, and depicts Garfield in the role of a young man, who is struggling with gender identity.

Andrew Garfield dressed as a woman in Arcade Fire's 'We Exist' video (YouTube)

Although it has clocked up more than two million views so far, the 'We Exist' video has received its fair share of criticism, most notably from Laura Jane Grace, the lead singer of Against Me! And an openly transgender woman, who was born Tom Gabel.

Grace tweeted last week: “Dear @arcadefire , maybe when making a video for a song called "We Exist" you should get an actual "Trans" actor instead of Spider-Man?”

Responding to criticism the video has attracted, frontman Win Butler told The Advocate: “There is a very kind of homophobic undercurrent, even in a lot of popular music and dancehall music, where there is a lot of violence against gay people.

“And we were in Kingston, and we went to this kind of film event and met some gay Jamaican kids and just kind of talked to them and realised that they were constantly under the threat of violence.”

Win Butler has defended the band's choice not to cast an actual transgender person in the video (WENN)

He added: “For me, just meeting these kids in Jamaica and then imagining this conversation between a son and his father.2

“Once something gets on the Internet, it works its way into people's lives in a way that I think is pretty powerful,” he later continued.

“For a gay kid in Jamaica to see the actor, who played Spider-Man, in that role is pretty damn powerful, in my opinion.”

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