Sabrina Carpenter turns submission into strategy

Photo: @sabrinacarpenter

You’re just not getting it

Sabrina Carpenter is not your cute little pop puppet. She never was — but her new album “Man’s Best Friend” is making that clearer than ever. Too bad half the internet is too dense to get it.

Cue the pearl clutching: ‘She’s calling herself a dog?’ ‘She’s leaning into the male gaze?’ - Yeah, and? That’s the point. The album title isn’t Sabrina begging for male approval — it’s a middle finger to every misogynist who’s ever tried to reduce her to that. You know, the ones who call women bitches for having agency and expect pop stars to stay pretty, pliable, and submissive?

If you’ve ever actually listened to her lyrics — from the scathing honesty of “because i liked a boy” to the brutal takedown in “Manchild,” or the biting sarcasm of “Please Please Please,” and the sharp truths of “Lie to Girls” — you’d know Sabrina’s not submitting. She’s subverting. That wide-eyed, all-fours pose with a man’s hand gripping her hair like a leash on the cover is pure caricature. She’s poking at the absurdity of how she’s been viewed, turning it inside out and feeding it back to you wrapped in bubblegum melodies and razor-sharp punchlines.

This isn’t some tragic fall from grace or a cry for attention — it’s calculated, clever, and laced with irony. But of course, some people only see the mini dress, the pout, the choreo, and assume she’s sold out. The reality? She’s holding up a mirror. If you think she’s being objectified, maybe you’re the one doing it.

Let’s not act brand new. The same people whining about Sabrina “changing” are the ones who never understood her in the first place. This isn’t her becoming someone else — this is her showing you she’s always been more than just a pretty face. She knows how the game works. She’s playing it — and winning. With teeth.

So no, she doesn’t need to scream louder, show more skin, or dance harder to “earn” her spot next to Charli XCX and Chappell Roan. She’s already there. If you’re too busy misreading satire as submission, that’s on you.

Get a grip. Get a brain. And maybe — just maybe — get a better sense of humour.