One listen to Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend and it is clear she is a woman on a mission, not just to become the queen of the pop princesses but the supreme world leader of irresistible earworms. There’s not a single sleeper track on the twelve-song album. The acerbic, tongue-in-cheek lyrics go toe-to-toe with some of the sharpest rap and pop-punk turns of phrase. The grooves, ranging from ABBA-inspired disco to souring country instrumentals, are impossible not to dance along to.
So why do I keep feeling a little pin prick of dread every time I singalong?
Since Short n’ Sweet I’ve been unable to resist Carpenter’s music. Probably because I haven’t really tried. Why deny myself the simple pleasure of singing along with the song of the summer? I get just as much joy cathartically screaming along with Manchild as the next girl.
Carpenter’s critics seem singularly focused on her sexuality. The right accuses her of indecency and corrupting her young fans. The left vilifies her as catering to the male gaze and serving up women’s rights on a vintage silver platter. Carpenter herself waves both of these attacks away by insisting that she is having fun and that her music isn’t for everyone. Neither the critiques nor her defense feels quite right to me. I certainly don’t think Carpenter is part of some conservative cabal to pull women back to the kitchen. If you listen to the lyrics of the songs, that should be obvious enough. But do I think it’s a little too easy to just wave the “it’s all in good fun” wand? Yeah.
In that way, Carpenter is the ultimate reflection of our time. Her frilly, buxom vision of femininity is enticingly embodied. It feels realer and more tangible than discussions about the falling birth rate or the future of reproductive care. Watch any of her recent music videos and you can all but feel her underwire balconette bra pushing her boobs up a little closer to her chin and her heels shifting her forward onto her tiptoes. Though I’m someone who’s inclined to want to talk about big, messy issues, I have to admit that recently, if I had to choose between reading up on abortion rights rollbacks or learning how to use hot curlers so I can replicate Carpenter’s perfectly voluminous blowout, I’d pick the latter. In that, I’m sure I’m not alone. These days we want easy. We want fun. We don’t want to bother with systemic issues. We want to bitch about our boyfriends’ annoying behavior with our friends and feel affirmed when we land on one of the only two real options: deal with it or dump him.
But Carpenter’s perfumed embodiment coupled with her sly lyrics and girl’s girl image carves a space for political ambiguity that makes me wary. Her man-kvetching lyrics say something without really saying anything at all. Because in the Sabrina Carpenter Cinematic Universe, the body is a material object, not a political one.
In an recent interview, Gayle King asked Carpenter her intention behind Man’s Best Friend’s controversial cover. She said, “My interpretation is being in on the control, being in on your lack of control and when you want to be in control,” Carpenter said. “I think as a young woman, you’re just as aware of when you’re in control as to when you’re not.”
Therein lies the source of my discontent. The places where women are in control feel increasingly slim. Ironically, no one seems more aware of this than Carpenter, who laments the hopeless state of men as competent, reliable partners—though she stops short of looking at that problem beyond the patterns of her own relationships or tapping in to any real rage at the way women often have no choice but to fend for themselves in the very narrow corners of the world where they can access agency.
Will this stop me from blasting When Did You Get Hot? when I’m getting ready for a night out? No, probably not. And do I think any of this makes Carpenter an irresponsible public figure or a bad role model? Not really. She’s a capitalist just like the rest of us, wielding her control where she can find it in a system that is tough to beat.
What Carpenter seems to symbolize more is a shifting relationship between art, culture, and politics. Gone are the days of wondering if we need to, or can, separate the art from the artist. The question now seems to be, can I separate the art from the era in which it was made? I think in an appropriate dosage, the answer is yes so long as we don’t lose ourselves in the material pursuit of ease and entertainment.
I can’t help but think that the antidote to Carpenter’s hairspray-adled fantasy lies in her own lyrics. When you need to get off the internet and ground yourself, touch grass. When you need to remind yourself that Carpenter’s fun, flouncy, boudoir fantasy of womanhood is just that—a fantasy—touch dick.