Sabrina Carpenter Would Like You All To Stop Treating Her Like A Child

Sabrina Carpenter is on top of the world. She just wrapped up her Short n’ Sweet world tour, she’s going to star in and executive-produce the 50th anniversary special of The Muppet Show, and her most recent album is nominated for six Grammys. Oh, and she also told the White House to get the hell away from her music. She’s very cool. I like her.

I think Carpenter is a fascinating celebrity. She’s a former child star who honed her musical craft over the course of a few albums, faced the drama of being ‘the other woman’ in Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Driver’s Licence’, and remoulded herself into a kitschy camp pop diva with an image that was both cheeky and horny as all hell. Imagine Betty Boop with Kristin Wiig-esque comedy chops. She’s the queen of the single entendre. It has, however, gotten her into some trouble. The backlash to the album cover for her seventh studio album, Man’s Best Friend, was a discourse-churning machine. Some viewed it as misogynistic and romanticising abuse, while others embraced the joke and saw it as part of Carpenter’s bawdy image. Later, Carpenter released an alternate direct-to-consumer cover, which she described as ‘approved by God.’

In a recent profile by Variety, Carpenter discussed her album and the perils of making music that is both exceedingly randy and very stupid. ‘There’s so much sarcasm in the album. More than people have been able to pick up on, unfortunately,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I’m like, ‘You do know, right?’ Maybe I’ve gotta make it more obvious.’

She also wondered if her status as a former child star impacted how many people viewed her now-adult image. ‘I think it wouldn’t matter so much if I wasn’t a childhood figure for some people. But I also can’t really help that. It’s not my fault that I got a job when I was 12 and you won’t let me evolve.’

I have to agree with her here. The ‘all grown up child star’ mould of celebrity is a tricky one. If you spent your entire childhood in the public eye being treated like a doll with no agency, wouldn’t you go a bit wild in your adult years and let the world know you’ve got real and messy feelings? Of course, that part of the equation is also highly marketable: look, world, you can now legally gawk at this young woman. With Carpenter, however, I think she’s been very savvy in navigating it. Her sexuality is fun, funny, and very femme. It’s ’50s chic with Gen-X mouthiness but all with a wink and a daft joke. Also, frankly, I don’t think Sabrina is for the boys. Her music is about dumb guys who keep embarrassing Sabrina but she’s still horny for them and therein lies the conundrum.

Also, Sabrina is very short, and I think a lot of people are weird about people who look or are coded as younger than they are being open sexual beings. Sabrina gives her own fanbase credit in the Variety interview, noting that many young people listen to older female artists sing about the birds and the bees and grow up just fine. I’m a Madonna stan, so I concur.