FEATURE:
Taste
IN THIS PHOTO: Sabrina Carpenter at the 2024 Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills, California, March 10, 2024
Sabrina Carpenter and Female Empowerment
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NOT related to…
anything specific, I did want to take a moment to spotlight Sabrina Carpenter. An award-winning and amazing artist, it will not be long until she is headlining festivals like Glastonbury. A hugely empowering artist and someone who is a modern-day feminist iconic, this is an artist who advocates self-love and writes these incredibly powerful lyrics. Uncomfortable earlier in her career with what she was told to wear and how she was presented, now, she uses her music and voice to portray her sexuality in a way true to her. Empowering, confident and unshackled, she is an artist tackling prejudices and those who criticise her. Whether it is a slightly provocative performance or something that is seen as risqué, Carpenter is giving strength to so many other people. Being who she wants to be without being constrained. She is also something who collaborates with other female creatives and advocates for women constantly. A definite role model, I did want to source from a few articles that look at Sabrina Carpenter as this incredible feminist. Maybe an unexpected one in some cases, her most recent album, Short n’ Sweet, was released in 2024. A Deluxe edition of the album came out this year. I will end with a recent feature that explores how Sabrina Carpenter is redefining and recontextualising female empowerment. I am going to start off with a feature from Stellar:
“She’s also unashamedly sexual, in a way that women can relate to and even more importantly, enjoy. Let me explain.
The male gaze is a concept coined by film theorist Laura Mulvey in the ’70s. She proposed that media tends to present women through a lens most attractive to heterosexual men, stripping them of any agency and reducing them to mere sexual objects.
The female gaze, on the other hand, implies empowerment. It’s the lens in which women characters, directors, or writers view the world and the women in it; as people… who can be sexy, of course, but also have other attributes too.
In the past, many pop girlies were created for men. They dressed and acted certain ways, whether they wanted to or not. There may have been largely female crowds at their shows, but it was the male gaze they attracted.
Think Britney Spears in the early 2000s. The star has spoken out consistently about the discomfort she felt in her early career, the way she was styled, the shoots she took part in.
Remember the Rolling Stone cover where she was lying on her bed in her underwear holding a Teletubbie? Yeah, that.
The female gaze doesn’t mean that women can’t be sexual. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. A lot of the time, female gaze media involves a lot more than the subject, but the entire creative process.
Female crew, female writers, stylists, and photographers – a whole group of people hired to represent a female experience that isn’t just focused on the body, but much more.
Sabrina is hyper-sexual, but not in a way that pop culture is used to. She’s sexy but she’s funny. She’s dressed in lingerie but she styled herself. She’s not saying ‘I want to have sex with you.’ She’s saying ‘I want to have sex… and you’ll be there too.’
Her sexuality is loud, but there’s also a subtly to it – a cleverness. She has fun with her risque ‘nonsense’ outros, her lyrics are dominated by innuendo she wrote herself, she’s speaking to women as much as she is to men. It’s that me espresso, not that his espresso.
Her most recent album, Short n’ Sweet includes tracks like ‘Bed Chem’ and ‘Juno’, songs about having sex, thinking about having sex, and getting pregnant as a result of having some really good sex in various positions.
She’s also hyper-feminine. Her makeup is soft and pink, she wears glittery platforms, she pokes fun at herself being short without ever stumbling into ‘pick me’ territory.
She’s got her brand down, but it’s still a work in progress. Recently, she had to respond to criticism surrounding her attitude towards sex, both on and off the stage.
“My fans online are like, I can’t believe she’s bending over in front of her grandparents!” she said. “I’m like, girl, they are not paying attention to that. They’re just like, I can’t believe all these people are here”.
There are women at the forefront of Pop that are empowering and inspiring so many fans around the world. Artists such as Beyoncé, Charli xcx and Taylor Swift very much at the forefront when it comes to the most influential feminists and role models in music. However, as this feature from last year suggests, Sabrina Carpenter is the feminist we didn’t know we needed. There is no doubt that she is at the forefront of a new wave of a feminism. One about expression, positivity and self-love, whether it is the official start of the fifth wave of feminism or one happening in music (but not in wider culture), there is no denying how important she is:
“Carpenter has effectively altered her image while also recreating an entirely new wave of feminism. She does this through her lyrics, costumes, performances, ad campaigns and dance moves. The once “Girl Meets World” star has broken the Disney curse and become the most famous pop star of the moment.
Her lyrics acted as the catalyst for this newfound image. In “Espresso,” she describes how she essentially hypnotized this boy into loving her because it’s “that sweet.” The utterly hypnotic song also made us listeners fall in love with her. And then, when her sixth studio album, “Short n’ Sweet,” was released in Aug. 2024, we saw a whole new side to her.
The songs “Juno,” “Bed Chem” and “Taste” ooze with female sexuality. Fans saw this on display during the “Short n’ Sweet” Tour, where Carpenter switches between different variations of lingerie and displays a new “position” in each performance of her song “Juno.”
She’s received criticism for the hypersexual lyrics, but I’d say she is just finally coming into her female agency. And she is a great role model for young women.
Society has always tried to force women to be humble and poised. Carpenter confidently rebels against these expectations, all while reminding you just how beautiful she is.
Let’s get one thing sorted out: women can be just as sexual as men. If men are allowed to make “locker room talk” and write songs about sex and hot girls, then women have the same exact rights.
If The Weeknd and Playboi Carti in the hit song “Timeless” can say, “Ever since I was a jit, knew I was the shit / Shorty keep wanna come ‘round she wanna get hit / She think she the main because I keep her by my side,” then I think Carpenter should be able to sing, “And I bet we’d both arrive at the same time / And I bet the thermostat’s set at six nine / And I bet it’s even better than in my head.”
Carpenter is embracing sexuality and flipping the script. If men can be openly sexual and objectify women in their lyrics, then why can’t she?
Her most pack-a-punch lyric is in the song “Juno,” where she sings “Sorry if you feel objectified.” It’s a little wink to the type of music that men have been creating ever since Elvis could pop his hips. While her brand has transformed into a hypersexual pop princess, she’s really just showing the world and all of her young fans that women can also think like men. Cry me a river!
The only reason that Carpenter is getting any flack for her blatant sexuality is because a lot of people aren’t used to it coming from a woman. Female musicians, especially pop musicians, are typically expected to maintain a clean image for young fans.
In a recent interview with Time Magazine, Carpenter is upfront about the criticism she’s faced. “You’ll still get the occasional mother that has a strong opinion on how you should be dressing,” Carpenter said. “And to that, I just say, don’t come to the show, and that’s OK. It’s unfortunate that it’s ever been something to criticize.”
Other pop musicians, like Britney Spears, suffered backlash for showing even a morsel of sexuality, and it took a serious toll on her mental health. Carpenter’s sheer confidence and self-assuredness is what makes her actions so admirable.
With so many young and impressionable fans coming to her shows and indulging in her music, it’s easy for people to say she’s setting a bad example considering society’s attitude towards female sexuality. Yet the lady of the moment’s positive attitude and self-love is what young girls need to see. In a sense, Carpenter is finishing what pop princesses of the past started”.
I am going to finish with a recent article from Clique. Redefining female empowerment, it is interesting what they say about her live shows. Go to her gigs now and it is this explosion of self-expression, confidence and togetherness. Sexually open and powerful women always tore down and seen as bad role models. Sabrina Carpenter is a good feminist. “She is doing it for the girls”:
“Sabrina started out as a young teenage actor on the Disney Channel show “Girl Meets World." The show was having disappointing ratings and got canceled after a few seasons. The brightest star to come out of that show was Sabrina. She signed a record deal for five albums with Hollywood Records and recorded them in the image of a modest child pop star.
As Zoe mentions in her video series, Carpenter’s career was doomed by the “Disney curse” at the time, as her music and image were targeting a young audience, hence the age-appropriate, well, everything. However, if we know something about teenagers, they want nothing to do with age-appropriate. Her target audience was listening to Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, and Miley Cyrus, who at this point in their careers were already fully shedded from the Disney curse and were making art that made sense for a grown woman. Something all teenage girls wanted to be.
Sabrina signed a record deal with Island Records in 2019, and in 2022 the world was blessed with a new era of her music and image. She stepped into her rebranding.
From the very first steps in her new image, she provoked the public. The album featured a song “Because I Liked a Boy,” where she refers to the media calling her a whore for dating an ex of Olivia Rodrigo, which was one of the biggest scandals in her career. Olivia Rodrigo wrote her hit song “Drivers Licence,” mentioning “a blonde girl” who was hanging out with her ex-boyfriend Joshua Bassett. It was a nod to Carpenter. The first wave of hate hit Sabrina when that song came out, and the public was calling her a “homewrecker” and a “slut” for taking another girl’s man. Which was not true, but even if it was, the public’s response was so strong, so hateful, and so quick to judge, leaving no space for another narrative, just another story of slut-shaming.
“Because I Liked a Boy," a song where Sabrina mentions all the hate that she got and how misogynistic the public’s responses were, was the song that led to Sabrina developing her 50s-inspired wardrobe. Ironically, the emergence of this new style was one of the sparks that ignited the recent hateful commentary on her overly sexualized costumes.
Other songs from that album also played a part in Sabrina’s more mature image. “Skinny Dipping” was a song where she shared raw and personal details of her past relationship, delving deeper into her personal life, distancing herself from the cookie-cutter lyrics of her past. However, the song that kicked off her flirty image and determined the direction of her branding was "Nonsense,” which featured a number of spicy lyrics provoking the listener, especially if they compared it to the previous version of Sabrina.
The success of her second album with Island Records, Short and Sweet, was vast. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, marking Carpenter's first number one and top-10 album and best opening week to date. Her listening audience grew immensely; the songs were playing on the radio the whole summer, and her tour gave her even more publicity.
With the new album, the singer very obviously knew exactly what her brand was. At this point she was already working with Jared Ellner as her stylist, feeling very confident in her
established 50s pin-up aesthetic, singing about her sexuality, and knowing that people loved it. And that’s when the clash happened.
The growing audience, the Disney past, the revealing outfits, and provocative lyrics all came together to produce the narrative of Sabrina Carpenter “oversexualizing herself." A narrative that unfortunately was expected but is definitely not based on anything substantial.
Sabrina’s recent video for Vogue with her stylist explains the structure, meaning, and inspiration behind everything that happens during her show. The performance is supposed to feel like a night out with the girls.
It starts in Sabrina’s room, in her robe or towel, as she is getting ready. In this part, she sings slower songs of hers, starting the night. The singer drew inspiration from movies like “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Grease” for her outfits and stage design to capture the feel of “the girlies getting ready." She then changes into her Swarovski corset and pairs it with a sparkly garter and platform shoes. Then she puts on a lace bodysuit inspired by Marylin Monroe in “There is No Business Like Show-Business” and Audrey Hepburn in “Funny Face." She ends the night with her most fun and spicy songs in her bejeweled two-piece look inspired by the Abba Voyage Show. This is the part where she continues the tradition of sexy improv with her new song "Juno," where she mimics a new sexual position every night.
As Sabrina and her stylist Jared get excited to tell the audience of the video about the ideas and work behind her tour image, I get excited with them. I get excited about the lace and the sparkles and the garters, like I was excited about my pink ruffles and pearls on Halloween. Sabrina and her team made the show into a girly heaven with flowy bathrobes, Abba, platform shoes, Audrey Hepburn, and the unparalleled joy that girls feel getting ready together.
At the end of the video, she looks at her stylist and says, "The girls are going to love it.”.
I smile.
When you look at it from the inside, at least for me, the Short and Sweet show and Sabrina's branding in general seem like a lot of hard work, talent, great creative vision, and immense confidence and will to have fun. Despite the hateful comments she receives about her appearance and songs,.
In the endless fight against the patriarchy and battling on many sides of the argument, there has to come a point where you look in the mirror, standing in your kitten heels and lace corset as Marie Antoinette, thinking, "Which narrative should I choose?”. Do I look like the most attractive and confident version of myself, or am I objectifying myself and degrading women?
Well, I think only I can say which one it is.
Sexually open women are always going to be threatening, always an easy target to choose, always something easy to hate and attack before you analyze the work, talent, and imagination that goes into anything that woman does. Sabrina Carpenter is doing so much for the female community by allowing us to feel sexy when we want to, have fun when we want to, and continue doing it despite the backlash. Sabrina Carpenter is a good feminist. She is doing it for the girls”.
I wanted to write this feature in order to bring other people’s words together. Celebrating and recognising Sabrina Carpenter as this incredible feminist who is inspiring girls and women. Carpenter received backlash for simulating an ‘Eifel Tower’ (sex) position on stage. She also was criticise for what was deemed a risqué performance at the BRITs. This ridiculous outrage aimed at an artist who is not corrupting minds but is instead providing these incredible celebrated performances that are filled with fun, kookiness, camp, celebration, humour, sexual self-expression and infectiousness, this empowering, inspiring and amazing feminist should be heralded and not judged. That should be…
THE real conversation.