Karly

In full transparency, I had already planned and scheduled all of June. But then Hay Festival happened. I did manage to post one of the originally planned pieces, and then Sabrina Carpenter went and announced Man’s Best Friend.

If you know me, you know I love cultural commentary. And one of the perks of this blog being my full-time (sadly unpaid) job is that I get to do what I call market research, which basically means scrolling through social media to see what people are talking about and whether there is anything I want to explore.

And lately, the internet has had quite a bit to say about Sabrina. Or, in her own words from Espresso: holy shit.

Let’s Set the Scene

Or rather, let’s describe the cover. Sabrina Carpenter, on her knees. A man’s hand, seemingly tugging a strand of her hair. It is provocative, deliberate, and clearly referencing submission. You do not need to have studied semiotics to clock that. The backlash was immediate, with people calling it anti-feminist, regressive, or just plain embarrassing.

But this did not begin with the cover. A few days earlier, a TikTok went viral claiming that if a man had written a song like Manchild, Sabrina’s newest release, he would have been cancelled. What that user seems to forget is that men have written songs for decades that glorify misogyny, objectify women, or worse, and no one bats an eyelid.

Meanwhile, Sabrina’s supposed offence is satirising fragile masculinity. Calling out exes for being emotionally useless. Saying the quiet part out loud, and sounding very catchy while doing it.

The Satirical Blonde Problem

Now, back to the image. The accusations that she is setting feminism back feel not only exaggerated but also very telling. It is not the first time the internet has struggled to make room for a pop girl who is both clever and glossy. And it likely will not be the last.

Sabrina Carpenter has always loved satire. Emails I Can’t Send was packed with sugar-coated fury and lyrical double takes. Short n’ Sweet builds on that. The tone is confident, flirty, and self-aware. She plays with sweetness in the same way others play with dissonance, as a tool, not a trap.

What makes people uncomfortable, I think, is the fact that she is enjoying it. She is not asking for permission. She is not apologising in advance. She knows what she looks like, and she knows exactly how she is being read. That is the problem. She is not just aware of the optics. She is orchestrating them.

Not for the Male Gaze, Not for Yours Either

There is a specific kind of criticism that arises when women present themselves in overtly feminine ways while still maintaining control. Suddenly it is “inauthentic,” “dangerous,” or “unserious.” We do not like it when women are visibly performing their own image.

But Sabrina is not asking to be taken seriously in the traditional sense. She is not trying to explain herself. She is playing the game and changing the rules mid-match. It is camp, calculated, and completely her.

To those who insist the Man’s Best Friend cover is a step backwards for feminism, I would ask: backwards from where? Feminism is not a marketing strategy or a single visual language. And it certainly is not undermined by a pop album rollout.

Let’s Talk About Herd Mentality

The online reaction to the cover also says a lot about how we consume media in real time. Most, if not all, people criticising it have not even heard the music. The context did not matter. What mattered was the instinct to be the first to call it problematic, without considering that it might be more layered than it appears.

This is where critical thinking matters. And where, frankly, satire tends to fall apart. It requires nuance. It demands interpretation. If you are not willing to ask what the artist is doing and why, then you risk flattening everything into outrage or praise, with nothing in between.

In Conclusion: She’s Not Setting Feminism Back. She’s Holding Up a Mirror

We will know more when the full album is out. Maybe Man’s Best Friend is a bait-and-switch. Maybe it is exactly what it appears to be. Either way, to claim it is setting feminism back simply because it makes people uncomfortable is not just lazy. It is dishonest.

Some of the same people criticising the image would celebrate it in a different context. A magazine editorial. A perfume ad. The difference here is authorship. Sabrina is making the image for herself, not for approval.

She is not man’s best friend. She is not yours either. She is on her knees, fully in control, and asking the world to sit with its own discomfort.

And maybe that is the point.