
In the newest Arcade Fire music video ‘We Exist,’ released May 16, Amazing Spider-man 2 star Andrew Garfield plays a character struggling with his gender identity.
After examining himself in a mirror, Garfield tries on several outfits before settling on a pink cowboy shirt and denim shorts. He then applies make-up and puts on a long blonde wig, completing his transformation.
The character then makes his way to a local bar, where he is propositioned by men wanting to dance. He accepts, but the crowd quickly becomes violent when they realize that the girl they thought they were grabbing is actually male. He gets kicked to the ground and beaten up, which transitions into a contemporary dance sequence that includes burly men in as backup dancers.
In the final scene, Garfield joins Arcade Fire on stage, which was actually filmed on the second weekend of the 2014 Coachella festival in California.
The video comes a week after Conchita Wurst, a bearded drag queen, provoked a discussion on gender identity after winning the Eurovision Song Contest for Austria.