Being a geriatric millennial with an aversion to staying on TikTok for longer than a few minutes, I’ll admit my finger wasn’t exactly on the pulse when her sixth studio album, Short n’ Sweet, dropped in August last year. I knew nothing, unlike her much younger, Gen-Z and Gen A fans, of her role in Disney’s Boy Meets World revival, which seems to have catapulted her to new heights of fame.
And then came her latest album cover.
The second artwork for Man’s Best Friend shared by Sabrina Carpenter
The backlash – and defence – was immediate. Some fans, myself included, wondered what, other than an attempt to get people talking, she was attempting to achieve. Some considered it satire – a clever means of subverting misogynistic expectations of women, reclaiming the term “bitch” in the most literal sense possible. Others saw it as a declaration of a submissive kink, or an attempt to spark a conversation about our sexual desires, particularly those most commonly maligned among certain generations, or sex-negative feminists who tend to lean into respectability politics.
While I think she’s been given a little too much credit, I don’t think Sabrina Carpenter is exactly the first pop artist to spark this conversation. I’m not even sure she’s having the conversation Hardy suggests she is. But I agree that sex appeal does not a self-hating woman make. Sabrina Carpenter’s doe-eyed, facetious display of sexuality hasn’t felt to me like the great offence some people on the internet have tried to convince me it is.
I also understand why, in presenting herself in this manner, so many have had visceral reactions to the photo. I certainly did. It made me deeply uncomfortable, angry, even. I began to wonder – as I tend to whenever I have a reaction that strong – whether those feelings were worth challenging. Was I projecting my experiences of unhealthy relationships with men onto this image?
square REBECCA REID I can’t get enough of Sabrina Carpenter talking so cheerfully about her sex drive
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Let’s go back to the satire debate. The lead single, “Manchild”, complete with lines such as “Why so sexy if so dumb? And how survive the Earth so long? If I’m not there, it won’t get done/ I choose to blame your mom”, suggests the album might not encourage all women to be at the beck and call of men, but to ridicule their bad behaviour.
In this case, I think, given how much harder it is to achieve that goal in this day and age, at best, Carpenter’s cover is a bad example of satire. It’s titillating to those who do believe women are inferior – in other words, the executioners. I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss those who see it that way as prudes, or proponents of purity culture.
If, with time, the songs on the album do some work to achieve the sense of irony that I hope the singer is going for, then, brilliant. I’m not convinced she has the range for that – but I hope she proves us all wrong.
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