How About we Stop Calling Successful Women Controversial?

Sabrina Carpenter is, and always will be, doing something wrong, and other failings of the music industry.

I’m going to start this very serious critique of the music industry by saying, not at all parasocially, that I know for a fact Sabrina Carpenter and I would be best friends.

It is written within my DNA, having grown up with Chandler Bing and Alex Russo (a weapon of a combo, might I just say) that everything, and I mean everything that comes out my mouth be punctuated by a joke. Nothing really is that serious (except everything we’re hiding behind that class sense of humour, but that’s not on this year’s curriculum).

Sabrina is the Queen of unserious, but that seems to just fly over most people’s heads seeing as her latest album, shockingly, was met with controversy: Adult Woman Releases Adult Themed Music. Too much for the fragility of the internet to handle, clearly. Is Sabrina Carpenter really the biggest villain of the music industry currently? I’m gonna go out on a whim, and say no, and let me tell you for why.

A man convicted of abusing a woman is selling out stadiums, a man, when faced with accusations of sex crimes, saw no change to his streaming numbers, a man who was convicted of violent crimes continues to be crowned as ‘an icon’. None of the search results for these men so much as reference these crimes. They’ve been erased in a lot of minds. Lost to time, irrelevant after a few years.

If you search ‘criminals in the music industry’ the list that drops itself onto your screen is a collection of men.

But, I’m so sorry, let’s get back to the matter at hand. Woman makes a joke at the expense of the patriarchy, using her sexuality to her own advantage and not for their entertainment. Lock. Her. Up. There’s got to be space, because most of those men remain free.

What else? Oh, she’s setting back feminism. This might be one of my favourite arguments I’ve seen. The kind that I stare at smiling, open mouthed, breathy and disbelieving. Like did user15748362 just say that? She is feminism, my love. She’s taking the piss out of men, and your small confused little ego can’t quite grasp that. Her lyrics are clever, they’re fun, and they’re deeply emotional. No, her songs aren’t over-sexualised, actually they’re poetic and they talk about sex - a thing adults do. If we’re finding offence at that, don’t listen(!).

Finally, ‘but she caters to the male gaze’. Male gaze? No. The male gaze is violent, the male gaze relies on a woman being nothing more than a hole, subservient to their desires. Something for them to use.

The female gaze appreciates, analyses. Opens up gently, and with interest. She explores the way it feels to be a young woman, single, and fucking done entertaining ‘men’ and she has the audacity to have fun with it.

---