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this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2025
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El Chisme
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I know next to nothing about Sabrina Carpenter, but why can't the artist express whatever she wants? It would be cool if she did champion a cause and fight the good fight, but if she's a slop merchant then why stop her from making slop?
I don't know anything about her either, but I think this has to do with her being very popular atm, and so many people watching what she does. The cover itself is nothing special, I've seen worse in recent years so I guess it's mostly sensationalism.
From what I have observed, a lot of people saw her as a reclamation of boy-crazed sexuality; thus a sense of betrayal has been formed.
Sounds plausible to me.
Ugh this may ignite a struggle session, but, I feel like this is a weird sentiment to expression on an ML dominated site? We reject the liberal notion of "freedom of expression" and believe all actions done in the public sphere have an effect on broader society and are worthy of scrutiny. Also we regularly sing the praises of socialist state that have pretty strict regulations on public media, often specifically in regards to sexualized presentations of women.
Now I don't personally have a problem with Sabrina (actually I kinda dig her music), but I think it's Lib to just hand wave this discourse with what basically amounts to
Record label: has their employee do something misogynistic
Leftists: "why are you policing a woman's sexuality?"
I would point out, we don't really know how much agency Sabrina has here. She may be a record company slave, she may have a lot of creative control and is actually designing a lot of this stuff herself cuz she likes it.
I've seen interviews with her where she comes off as someone who does just enjoy being over the top and exhibitionist, but that could be acting, I can't prove anything either way.
The way that material analysis is just so easily thrown out the window when we talk about certain subjects infuriates me to no end. I think it's pretty clear why people are upset about this and hand waving it away as people being puritan or her just expressing her sexuality is just so fucking stupid. It makes my head cave in.
Perhaps my response was too inflammatory. Especially conflating critique with "stopping her." There's nothing wrong with the critique of media. I myself am a video essay enjoyer. I guess I was reacting to phrases like "over-sexed, degrading, and troubling." It read to me like moral scrutiny more than artistic scrutiny. Like over-sexed compared to what? Let her sex herself as she sees fit. Or if the critique is "Explain to me again how this isn’t centering men? How this isn’t catering to the male gaze?" Then I'd say that she can center men if she is so inclined. If the critique was more like "She claims to not like sexing herself and this seems counter to that message." or "She advertised this new album as very men-off-centering so this is disappointing" that comes to me as a more salient critique. Because to my cursory glance this is self-expression that she is doing of her own volition. And even if it's "an ML dominated site" I'd be shocked to see the presence of justice and peace if she can't swag out if she damn well pleases.
I think the difference is she's someone with a lot of cultural capital and a massive platform, not some rando just doing this stuff in private, or heck even just a mildly famous social media star. So when she endorses certain behaviors publicly, even if she's genuine in her endorsement, she will likely influence others to embrace those behaviors. Then the debate becomes if that's harmful or not.
It's been argued our hyper sexualized society is basically having the reverse effect of prudishness where now people are being pressured into being more sexual than they truly wish to be rather than less.
Now personally, I don't fully agree, at least not with Sabrina's work. Yeah she's horny but I don't think she's really advocating for anything truly harmful, nothing wrong with being a little slutty. But I at least understand the logic of her critics.