Arcade Fire – We Exist

Arcade Fire releases an LGBT-themed video for We Exist, the third single from last year’s album Reflektor.

The video was directed by David Wilson — who previously worked with Arctic Monkeys’ Do I Wanna Know? [MV] and Passion Pit’s Take A Walk [MV] — and it stars Andrew Garfield as a young person’s struggle with gender identity. While the song’s lyrics were described by Win Butler as “a gay kid talking to his dad”, Garfield’s character is a transgendered woman, just like Jared Leto’s Rayon from Dallas Buyers Club.

The video starts with Garfield’s character shaving her head and getting dressed. She then goes to a small-town local bar where she is harassed and assaulted by some bar patrons. She collapses and enters a “dream-like sequence”, where she dances accompanied by a group of male dancers in matching plaid half-shirts and jean shorts. In the final moments of the video, the protagonist walks through a portal to Arcade Fire’s Coachella concert, where she dances on stage.