Troye Sivan’s ‘Rush’ Video Started A Big Discussion About Representation In The Queer Community, And Even Charli XCX Appears To Have Weighed In

For the past few months, Australian pop singer Troye Sivan has been teasing his new single, “Rush.” The song, along with its video, finally dropped yesterday (July 14). However, despite the anticipation surrounding the song and video, the latter proved rather polarizing.

There’s certainly no shortage of shirtless men in the “Rush” video, however, many have criticized the visual for its lack of body diversity.

“I adore Troye Sivan, but this ‘Rush’ video is making me feel some type of way,” said one viewer on Twitter. “It seems like a case study on how white gays choose to view queer people as a whole. There’s not a single fat person in the entire video. Just white twinks and chiseled bodies.”

He continued, saying, “It’s not that someone like Troye Sivan *has to* include diverse bodies in all his videos, it’s the fact that he chose to promote ‘Rush’ as this gay sex liberation anthem yet left out a massive chunk of the population he’s singing about? Why is critiquing that “boring discourse”?

Additionally, the video has also inspired a few memes, implying that Sivan opted to be very selective when choosing dancers and background actors for the videos.

But despite the discourse, some viewers have come to Sivan’s defense.

Comedian Jay Jurden expressed enjoyment over the song and video, suggesting that there’s no sense in starting discourse over them.

“‘Rush’ is not a song or video you need to think too hard about,” he said. “What happened to fun?”

Pop sensation and frequent Sivan collaborator Charli XCX also appears to have come to his defense, however, she did not specifically mention him by name.

“I feel like we live in a world where audiences feel like expression or art isn’t worth their time unless it appeases every single unspoken requirement,” she said. “IT IS SO BORING. if something breaks common aesthetics it’s ‘weird’ or ‘try hard.’ if something conforms it’s ‘offensive’ and ‘not diverse enough.’ What a boring discourse.”

She then referred to Sam Smith, who, in converse, has been the subject of discourse for the body diversity they’ve included in their videos.

“actually Sam Smith has made a load of great music videos/performances that play with the topics of eroticism and sex and sexiness with very diverse casting and they have been heavily criticized for doing so,” Charli said. “so basically what I’m saying is – no one can ever successfully make art for everyone in this current world, nor should they try to.”