On August 23, rising artist Dove Cameron released a music video to accompany her popular single, “Breakfast,” released a month before. The short film depicts a satirical world in which traditional gender roles switch; men cook and clean while women dominate the corporate scene. Most notably, the controversial ruling of Roe v. Wade is brought to light.
In many instances, Cameron’s video presents men facing gender inequality: they hold fewer positions of power and are patronized, harassed, or blamed at a disproportionate rate. A clear storyline is told through minimal dialogue, leaving the audience to interpret hidden glances and close-ups. A group of women hovers over a clearly uncomfortable man in a display of power, moving closer and closer into his personal space. Soon after, the same man lies on a medical examination table, anxious and sweating. A doctor reassures him, but it’s undercut by his remark to “...[dress] appropriately, so you’re not provoking women” (3:11). Instead of receiving support and sympathy, he’s blamed as the instigator of the assault.
The themes and topics illustrated in Cameron’s music video hold obvious parallels to the recently overturned Roe v. Wade decision, one specifically about the right to abortion. In 1973, the U.S. Supreme court granted the right to have an abortion, and on June 24, 2022, this right, held for 50 years, was revoked. Individual states decide whether abortion is legal, and thirteen of them, mostly conservative-leaning, have ruled that it’s not.
To some, outlawing abortion may seem like saving a life, but many extenuating circumstances surround each pregnancy. Accidental pregnancies happen, and often, women are not in the right state mentally, financially, academically, or otherwise to raise a healthy child. Without the necessary means, being forced to risk death and have one is simply unfair to both the mother and child. However, the controversy extends beyond just these arguments. Women are accused of not taking accountability or even murder, though it’s known that men are more likely to commit violent crimes or child abandonment. These sentiments are directly parallel to the man in Cameron’s short music video, nervously fidgeting on a cold, sterile bed, praying for a negative on their pregnancy test.
Cameron’s short film flips the current scene of gender inequality, specifically sending a powerful message regarding the Roe v. Wade debate through a masterful depiction of a dystopian world remarkably similar to ours. Her message is one of the millions in the movement for equality, one that, as Cameron writes, is “not over yet” (4:22).
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