Sabrina Carpenter’s Sexist Album Cover

There’s a character on my favorite TV show, Bojack Horseman, named “Sarah Lynn”. Perhaps the most important character on his journey throughout the six seasons. She co-starred on the sit-com “Horsin’ Around” when she was a child. When she turned 18, she set out to prove that she wasn’t a child anymore. She did this by releasing an album all about sex claiming “America needs to know I’m not that little girl anymore. I’m a grown-up sophisticated woman now, and I have sex, and I do sexy things. People like sex, and since I’m sexy right now, people like me.” I only bring this up to illustrate how common in our culture women need to brand themselves as “sexy” to sway away from their image of child stardom Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan are two of the most prominent examples, but a new age of child stars are emerging into their twenties. 

Many former Disney Channel stars have sought a new angle to remain relevant, and few have succeeded. In the last ten years, none have succeeded more than Sabrina Carpenter. At 15 years old (in 2014), she starred in the series Girl Meets World. I was 8 when this came out and although I would always say “I prefer Boy Meet World” (showing how contrarian I have attempted to be ever since a young age), of course still I watched Girl Meets World. I even remember how much I loved her first single, “Can’t Blame a Girl for Trying”. When the show ended in 2017, she fell off my (and many others) radar. She signed with a Disney record company, and at 18 had to maintain a brand-friendly-good-teenage-girl image. 

She reached a new popularity in 2022, when she released the album, Emails I Can’t Send, which was not produced by a Disney company and thus allowed her to have more freedom. Many of my friends began listening to her at this time, largely because of controversy around Olivia Rodrigo writing many songs about Carpenter on her 2021 album Sour, and Carpenter responding to those songs in her own album. Some people did have a problem with this since Carpenter was 21, writing songs that attacked Rodrigo, who was 17. That was largely forgotten in 2024. 

What came in 2024 surprised us all as she released “Espresso”, becoming the song of the summer and perpetually stuck in everyone’s minds. She’s hot in the music video, and continues to be hot as she released her next single “Please, Please, Please”. At this point, as you all remember, she begins wearing lingerie on stage. She starts swearing often, even at times that feel forced. Her album, Short N’ Sweet, contains twelve songs, half of which are explicitly about sex. No one protested when on her tour, she would travel down stage and mimic a different sexual position every night after singing “wanna try out some freaky positions”. I say all this to underline that most people did not have a problem with this behavior, and it was celebrated; this proves important when discussing the controversy around her recent behavior. 

So to talk about my feelings on Short N’ Sweet, I want to use the words of Diane in Bojack Horseman. When Bojack asks Diane (a feminist) about what she thinks about Sarah Lynn, she responds “I don’t really think about her all that much. I mean, obviously I’m a fan of her early work which both saterized and celebrated youth culture’s obsession with sex, but I do wonder as a third-wave feminist if it’s even possible for women to reclaim their sexuality in this deeply entrenched patriarchal society. Or if claiming to do so is a lie we tell ourselves so we can more comfortably cater to the male gaze. But you know on the other hand, I worry that conversations like this one often dismiss her as a mere puppet of the industry, incapable of engaging in these discussions herself and infantilization which is itself a product of the deeply misogynistic society we live in. But like I said, I don’t really think about her that much.” Word. For. Word. How I feel about Carpenter’s first album. 

Now, we can move onto her recent controversy and my opinion as to why the album cover for her upcoming Man’s Best Friend is unequivocally wrong. I’d like to clarify that my mentioning of her use of sexuality prior was to encapsulate how few people cared that she flaunts her sexuality. Many people who are falling out of love with Carpenter were former fans, and barely any of these people (former fans or not) intend to slut-shame her. She acted in a highly sexual manner before, and women liked that representation of the feminine sex drive. So it’s idiotic to encapsulate the debate into her digressors being “puritantanical”. 

The Cover of Carpenter’s Upcoming Man’s Best Friend Album

The image on her album cover, being on her knees and getting her hair pulled, calls to mind an act of abuse. Now, of course she intends to make this look like a consensual activity that she enjoys, but presenting this image uncritically could tell a lot of people “abuse makes women sexy, and women want to participate in this behavior”. Some women do want to participate in the behavior of being on their knees and getting their hair pulled, but in that particular scenario, it can be hard to tell when playing ends and real abuse begins. Especially since positions like the one she’s in have been presented comically in the past as something all women are okay with, men cannot continue to be reinforced with the idea that women want abuse. I understand she put herself in that position. She is objectifying herself and maybe that makes her feel empowered. I worry that in the present moment you cannot use violence against women to look sexy. 

It may be hard for many my age to understand why feminists take issue with Carpenter’s album cover. When I was ten, I was taught feminism is having a job. When I was sixteen, I was taught feminism is about being sexually liberated. I think many women overlook real feminist issues because they have not been exposed to the more important issues that women face. That’s why many actual feminists had an issues with the Barbie movie in 2023 because after all, the grand feminist speech fails to outline the prevelance of sexual assault in women's life, the problems experienced in the workplace, consistent competition between women, and the lose of reproductive freedom. But I digress, the big issue around the album cover is the romanization of the history of sexual assault, in particular domestic abuse by using similar imagery to sexist advertisements of the fifties. She looks sexy. But looking sexy isn’t feminism. And if done in the wrong way, can be harmful. 

There’s more to the controversy than just the album cover. I don’t believe the cover would’ve been as big of a deal if she had not already participated and said questable things surrounding her youthful appearance. She has made comments about how she looks young and connects that back to sex, which is gross. Many have already seen the Lolita photoshoot where she recreates images from the 1997 film, Lolita. That to me is the worst of all because it presents a narrative about the depravity of American culture sexualizing young women in a way that lacks any of the criticality of the book/movie narrative. Instead, when you see the side-by-side comparison all you see is two young women (one 12, one 26) being sexualized in the same manner. 

I do think all of this would be different if she made more music that talked about women’s trauma or even her own trauma being famous at a young age (and maybe even sexualized at that age as well). Right now, she isn’t ready to open about that through her music so I don’t think she should use sexy photoshoots to express it. She should at least elaborate upon why she chose those images, rather than adding them to the timeline without any commentary. Many online strike comparisons to Lana Del Rey using the “Lolita aesthetic” to connect to her trauma, and how she connects that into her music. Fewer take issue with her use of provocative imagery because she’s using it to add commentary and ask questions. A comment under Carpenter’s stating “your music lacks the radicalism to this type of radicalism to do this cover” has 14.5 thousand likes. I think it’s the uncritical nature of it that leads people to see it for what it is: using harmful images to look sexy for the male gaze. No one cared about her catering to the male gaze before until it came at the expense of other women.

And if you female fans don’t feel empowered by the album cover, the whole “I’m empowering women” argument goes out the door. 

I worry that even though Sabrina Carpenter is talented, if she had not made the switch to wearing skimpy clothing and singing overly sexual pop music, she would’ve faded into the history of child stars who fell out of the limelight. It speaks to the larger problem within the industry and society’s expectation of young women. They need to use their bodies to be recognized for their talent, which is messed up. I’ve come to the conclusion that we want all our female pop stars to be feminists. We want them to be feminist so badly that we think someone looking sexy and killing men in her music video is a feminist icon. Anti-man music isn’t feminist music. Music about sex isn’t intrinsically feminist music. In order to understand Sabrina’s choice to do problematic photoshoots, we need to understand her desire to continue relevance in the only way she knows how. We need to understand that she thought this was okay because she was being propped up as an example of an empowered woman. We need to understand that she’s not been educated on real issues facing women because she’s been a rich, straight, white woman her whole life. 

In an ideal world, Carpenter would use this controversy to help raise awarness around domestic violence, child abuse, and grooming. I doubt this will happen since that would require her to recognize what she did wrong, and possibly derail the release of her new album. If she continues to be silent, I know I’ll be boycotting her new album and trying to convince others to do the same.