I love Sabrina Carpenter’s music and didn’t realize until I read it (thanks, Corrine!) is that part of that love completely takes for granted that it’s camp! It’s camp and I love it!
I wouldn't know a Sabrina Carpenter song if it slapped me on the ass and called me a good girl*, but I have been reading the various essays about her in my feed. The essay, Sabrina Carpenter is a Heterofatalist Princess was really interesting and based on the little bit I have seen outside of the discourse online (like the occasional performance footage) I get the impression it is camp too.
*This is not a point of pride, simply a point of I am trapped in the music of the 90s and my teenage daughter doesn't listen to much pop music.
I interpreted it as a sort of, "well, this is what you think of me anyway, right?" kind of like a vague F U, plus it felt like putting a big old squeeze of lemon juice on a hundred paper cuts. Most of the women I know feel pretty crappy right now, and this album cover felt like someone poking that right in the eye and saying "I'm not scared to poke this in the eye." To be clear, I think it's way cooler to say I'm not afraid of this and I'm going to poke it in the eye than to ignore it altogether.
It's sort of like GAH! It's 2025! Is this still what people want from pop stars? and then looking around at THE REST of 2025 and our current political realm and going ohhhh....It puts some pressure on the conversation that we should always be having forever. And I don't fully understand what it means about whiteness, but I think it's kind of weird and interesting. Not saying I think this was super genius or anything, but I definitely don't think it was done ignorantly.
I think Sabrina is probably getting exactly what she wants. A lot of attention for her new album. I’m very old and don’t have an opinion on whether or not she’s good or evil.
Yes! I saw the album doesn't come out until August, but look at all the press it has had already. I was wondering if she was even going to use this album cover or if she would end up "changing" it before the official release? I don't know how these things work..
I don’t know much about Sabrina Carpenter, but the idea that she’s performing gender in a camp/critical way is interesting. I am convinced, and was at the time, too, that Lana del Rey was and is a camp performance aimed to make ridiculous the fealty (to men) and hyper-feminine self-presentation stereotypically valorized by American culture. That’s the kind of pop star I’m looking for—one that’s attentive to the performance of gender and uses it to make us more aware of those constructions.
I also love the idea of art provoking some kind of emotion out of people. It's really not that serious! I love to see her having so much fun with everything she does.
I agree. I think she's totally camp. The backlash to this is so brain rotted.
I just like to shake my jiggly butt to her music and embarrass my kids, regardless of why she performs sexuality and feminism the way she does 😂.
totally fair!
Good to hear I’m not the only one who can’t stop consuming hot takes about Sabrina lmao
You are DEFINITELY not alone
Great read! Definitely feels to me like a joke about being a straight woman and men being garbage ha
My only take on it was "let women be horny you absolute dorks!"
I love Sabrina Carpenter’s music and didn’t realize until I read it (thanks, Corrine!) is that part of that love completely takes for granted that it’s camp! It’s camp and I love it!
Ooh - also see her Christmas special! Camp!
I shall ask my 22- and 24-year-old daughters about it all and report back!!!
OMG that album cover is so disgusting! Hahaha!! Teenage me would definitely approve. 40 year old me is scandalized. That must be the point?!
I wouldn't know a Sabrina Carpenter song if it slapped me on the ass and called me a good girl*, but I have been reading the various essays about her in my feed. The essay, Sabrina Carpenter is a Heterofatalist Princess was really interesting and based on the little bit I have seen outside of the discourse online (like the occasional performance footage) I get the impression it is camp too.
*This is not a point of pride, simply a point of I am trapped in the music of the 90s and my teenage daughter doesn't listen to much pop music.
I interpreted it as a sort of, "well, this is what you think of me anyway, right?" kind of like a vague F U, plus it felt like putting a big old squeeze of lemon juice on a hundred paper cuts. Most of the women I know feel pretty crappy right now, and this album cover felt like someone poking that right in the eye and saying "I'm not scared to poke this in the eye." To be clear, I think it's way cooler to say I'm not afraid of this and I'm going to poke it in the eye than to ignore it altogether.
It's sort of like GAH! It's 2025! Is this still what people want from pop stars? and then looking around at THE REST of 2025 and our current political realm and going ohhhh....It puts some pressure on the conversation that we should always be having forever. And I don't fully understand what it means about whiteness, but I think it's kind of weird and interesting. Not saying I think this was super genius or anything, but I definitely don't think it was done ignorantly.
I think Sabrina is probably getting exactly what she wants. A lot of attention for her new album. I’m very old and don’t have an opinion on whether or not she’s good or evil.
Yes! I saw the album doesn't come out until August, but look at all the press it has had already. I was wondering if she was even going to use this album cover or if she would end up "changing" it before the official release? I don't know how these things work..
I don’t know much about Sabrina Carpenter, but the idea that she’s performing gender in a camp/critical way is interesting. I am convinced, and was at the time, too, that Lana del Rey was and is a camp performance aimed to make ridiculous the fealty (to men) and hyper-feminine self-presentation stereotypically valorized by American culture. That’s the kind of pop star I’m looking for—one that’s attentive to the performance of gender and uses it to make us more aware of those constructions.
The criticism of women is so tiresome
I also love the idea of art provoking some kind of emotion out of people. It's really not that serious! I love to see her having so much fun with everything she does.