Karena Evans's New Video for Drake Puts Pop to the Bechdel Test

By Whitney Kimball  |  April 7, 2018 | 5:59pm
Entertainment

Director Karena Evans has hereby overthrown the rule of sweatpants boner men over music videos and replaced them with critical thinkers. Long may she reign.

Remember how she directed that million-dollar video where Drake gave all the money away, including a $50,000 scholarship to a first-generation University of Miami student? Now she casts Drake as a backup dancer in his new video Nice For What-which heavily samples Lauryn Hill–for women being beautiful in the way that we see each other as beautiful.

Here’s Misty Copeland, the first black woman principal dancer with American Ballet Theater; Rashida Jones and Tracee Ellis Ross, who’ve been primary movers in the Time’s Up movement; Tiffany Haddish, who is Tiffany Haddish. If you’re wondering why actor Yara Shahidi is wearing a Harvard sweatshirt, that’s because she got a personal recommendation from Michelle Obama on the merits of her work for civil rights and get-out-the-vote activism.

The video also features Elizabeth and Victoria Lejonhjärta, Olivia Wilde, Jourdan Dunn, Issa Rae, Letitia Michelle Wright, Bria Vinaite, Emma Roberts, SYD, Zoe Saldana, and Michelle Rodriguez.

Not a single butt close-up among them.

There’s even a baby. It’s wild.

 
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