In the aftermath of Roe v. Wade’s overturning, Dove Cameron wants to make an impact with her new music video. The singer and Emmy-award-winning actress reverses gender roles in the powerful visual for her song “Breakfast.”
Following up on her queer anthem “Boyfriend” from earlier this year, Cameron builds an alternate universe in the “Breakfast” video that premiered today. Opening with a TV reporter declaring Roe v. Wade’s impact on men, the Lauren Dunn-directed video liberates women at their expense.
“With this video, I want to show the disturbing contrast between stylized femininity and masculine power and the gender stereotypes that plague our social commentary,” Cameron says. “I want the audience to notice how strange it is to watch the roles be reversed and it was important to highlight how ingrained these roles really are in our nervous systems.”
The video’s '70s-inspired costume and set design call back to the early movement for abortion rights, which culminated in the Roe v. Wade decision. However, Cameron acts out a thought-provoking twist, where men are the ones stripped of autonomy and forced to fight for their reproductive rights. Wearing an oversized suit, she leaves her husband at home before heading to an office full of female executives and male assistants, turning gender roles on its head.
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In the spirit of the chorus, “I eat boys like you for breakfast,” Cameron proceeds to be brazenly abusive of the men around her. She inappropriately kisses, touches and feeds alcohol to an underling, who then has to run out for an abortion (which the doctor shames him for as he lies vulnerable in stirrups).
However, Cameron’s fantasy of female domination eventually comes to an end. In the final few seconds, news commentators describe the present reality of abortion rights being rolled back, and Cameron is left to settle with the true state of the world.
“This is a video to remind us that ‘how it’s always been’ should never be a reason for desensitization or upholding broken systems,” Cameron says. “Hopefully by re-contextualizing these familiar scenes, this video will encourage people to vote for a world where we leave gender discrimination as a thing of the past and stop bringing the past into the present.”
Cameron concludes the video with the words, “This is not the end,” before offering four “direct ways to get involved” through abortion funds, voter registration efforts and other organizations working towards gender equality. These include Supermajority, EMILY’s List, Headcount and National Network of Abortion Funds.
Photo courtesy of Dove Cameron