The Wokest Baes of May 2016

By Kara Brown  |  June 1, 2016 | 8:05pm
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Summer is almost here, which means soon we’ll be shedding our clothes, winter weight and outdated ideas about race, gender and sexuality. Luckily, our Wokest Baes™ from the month of May are here to get things started with their words of wisdom-type things.

Lil B

Bae Factor

You know what, Brandon is a cutie although/and it really helps to ignore the tongue on his chest.

Woke Factor: Is Lil B the wokest rapper alive? Maybe! I’m not gonna lie, in the first tweet, Brandon lost me a bit in the middle there, but the beginning and end were strong enough to warrant a nod. If you don’t already know, Lil B (government name: Brandon Christopher McCartney) is all about positivity and love—hence his very respectable dislike of nuclear weapons. It’s not completely clear exactly what about Victoria Beckham it is that inspires him so, but I’m going to choose to believe that it is her continued commitment to not smiling no matter how many goddamn times annoying people ask her to smile.

Additionally, one could argue that Lil B is the wokest bae to appear in this fine collection due to his ability to curse people—as evidenced by yet another Kevin Durant loss in the playoffs. Having supernatural abilities has got to count as its own form of wokeness somehow.

Jesse Williams

Bae Factor

CHRIST ON A BOX OF CRACKERJACKS. THE BIGGEST “DUH” IN THE HISTORY OF “DUHS.” I MEAN, WE ALL HAVE EYEBALLS HERE RIGHT? BECAUSE ALL IT TAKES IS A WORKING EYEBALL OR TWO TO SEND THE SWEET IMAGE OF JESSE WILLIAMS’ MAGNIFICENT FACE TO YOUR BRAIN FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND THAT WE ARE DEALING WITH SOME PRIMO BAE FACTORAGE.

Woke Factor: Truly, it was just a matter of time before this alert piece of arm candy made his way onto the list. Jesse is woke pretty much on a minute-by-minute basis, but what what finally pushed this bright-eyed babe over the edge was his new documentary: Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement.

I mean, the word is right in there.

While this column is generally a recognition of men who receive plenty of justified recognition as is, Jesse Williams definitely deserves it more than most. He’s one of the very few celebrities that I truly trust to speak in public about serious issues. He hasn’t embarrassed us yet so, congrats on that.

Eric Stonestreet

“It’s the girls, Ariel, on our show, and Sarah and Sofia,” he told FOX411. “It’s rough, and people are really super mean, and they’re cowards on social media.”

Bae Factor

Here at Woke Baes we are equal opportunity appreciators of all types of baes. So while Eric Stonestreet might not be my kind of bae, I can definitely see him as a bae for some other lucky human being. Also, remember when he and Bethenny Frankel kinda maybe sorta dated?

Woke Factor: Guys, Eric plays a gay man on a popular national television show so, ya know, he knows his shit. One might argue that referring to a group of women who are 18, 25 and 43 years-old as “girls” is some sleepyhead shit and you would be right. But we’ve gotta get in where we can fit in. It’s nice to see that he’s not out here comparing idiots who tweet mean things about, I don’t know, his glasses to the women on his show getting rape threats (probably). The internet is great.

Seth Rogan

Seth on realizing that his 2007 film Superbad was rather homophobic:

Namely, it’s the homoeroticism played for laughs in Superbad, he says. “There are probably some jokes in ‘Superbad’ that are bordering on blatantly homophobic at times,” he says. “They’re all in the voice of high school kids, who do speak like that, but I think we’d also be silly not to acknowledge that we also were, to some degree, glamorizing that type of language in a lot of ways.”

Bae Factor

I went to Tufts University. Seth Rogan would have done very well at Tufts University.

Woke Factor: Wow-o man. Now, I’d obviously prefer all of us to actively practice common sense and empathy at all points in our lives, but that obviously is not the case. Therefore, I can appreciate when a person is able to look back and realize that they did some fucked up shit.

This was a solid moment of wokeness for Seth, but if he had really had that extra cup of coffee, he might have also acknowledged that one movie that was very funny but also painted every woman onscreen as a shrew who was harshing some dude’s mellow. C’est la vie! There’s only so much respect to go around, folks.

Fumbles In Wokeness or Baemanship

Drake

UGGGHHH AUBREY.

I had gotten very used to Drake being a beefy, bearded bae and I did not appreciate this regression. Luckily, he’s growing it back and the world is starting to make sense again.

It will make even more sense when he abandons that mortifying lip pout once and for all.

Sleeping Baes

John Carney

I should preface all this with the glaring fact that John Carney is not a bae at all, but I could not stop myself from drawing attention to his slumbering ass. Also, I once included a mattress on this list. There are no rules.

This director you’ve never heard of recently talked a bunch of shit about Keira Knightley—an Academy Award, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and BAFTA nominated actress who also happens to have done some modeling—whining that after this film, he’s never going to work with supermodels again.

Somehow, Adam Levine, a deep v-neck tee come to life, is A-ok though.

So it’s not like I hate the Hollywood thing but I like to work with curious, proper film actors as opposed to movie stars. I don’t want to rubbish Keira, but you know it’s hard being a film actor and it requires a certain level of honesty and self-analysis that I don’t think she’s ready for yet and I certainly don’t think she was ready for on that film.

So, objectively, fuck this dumb dude.

In related news, I have a very, very exclusive* comment from Keira Knightly who said that she is done working with sexist man babies who can’t figure out a flattering facial hair situation.

*Because I made it up

Images via Getty. GIF via Bobby Finger.

 
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