Ever since her rise to stardom on the back of “Emails I Can’t Send” in 2022, Sabrina Carpenter has become known for her campy and comedic music videos, rife with pleasing visuals and allusions to older media. Her music videos always feature her glitzy, girly style, a continuity that always references her most recent music video, and even celebrity cameos, such as Jenna Ortega in “Taste” or Colman Domingo in “Tears.”
Carpenter’s latest music video for her song “House Tour” from the album “Man’s Best Friend” is fully decked out in her signature style, from the first frame that features a pink van bearing the name “Pretty Girl Clean-Up Crew” in looping script, to the bloodied heels referencing the “Tears” music video, to Margaret Qualley and Madelyn Cline starring as Carpenter’s sidekicks. The video features them breaking in and robbing an extravagant house.
For many fans, “House Tour” is another fun work of art from their favorite pop icon. However, others criticized the video, saying it catered to the male gaze and was therefore, antifeminist. Carpenter’s fans were quick to defend the singer from those accusations.
While Carpenter is far from the first pop star with a large female following to lean into a scandalous image, there’s something else at play here. Carpenter’s songs are all about her unsatisfying relationships with men, and she’s not afraid to directly insult men in her lyrics (just look at “Manchild”). She maintains a tradition of killing a male character in each of her music videos. Because of this, there seems to be a consensus that of course, Carpenter is a feminist. Of course, Carpenter isn’t male-centered, and doesn’t cater to the male gaze. Look what she did to the guy in the “Tears” video!
Be that as it may, disrespecting men and having a majority female fanbase does not automatically make someone’s art feminist, nor does it cancel out them potentially perpetuating the male gaze. While I would not say that every single one of Carpenter’s performances does this, “House Tour” is one of her most egregious examples as of late.
Carpenter, Qualley, and Cline aren’t simply dancing in lingerie. They’re crawling up staircases and across tables with the camera leering at their scantily-clad rears. Cline and Qualley shoot pool by climbing onto the table and kneeling with their rears in the air. Cline even shoots pool in between Qualley’s upside-down spread legs. There are three shots of panties falling down to the actress’ ankles. Several shots of the music video are shot from the perspective of a security camera, lending those shots a voyeuristic feel.
I think that a lot of us have heard the term “male gaze” being used in online spaces, but many of us do not fully understand what it actually means. The male gaze is not simply about men looking at women, it is a term that originates feminist theory and is applied to visual arts (under which a music video qualifies) and literature. It is about artistic techniques that frame women as objects of desire.
The video even leans into fetishizing sapphic relationships, with the main example being the infamous shot where Qualley, lips parted, holds up a string of pearls, dangling them into Cline’s mouth. There’s another shot that has not spread quite as wide where Carpenter and Cline dance while imitating a heterosexual couple with Carpenter as the man, groping Cline’s rear.
Carpenter is generally queer friendly and is known to include queer themes in her music videos and performances, but sapphic relationships are often fetishized by straight men and trivialized by straight women. When it crops up in a video alongside all the other objectifying shots I’ve described, it feels less like a celebration of queerness, and more like having a pair of women grope and act vaguely sexual toward each other to titillate viewers.
It is important to note some queer women liking Carpenter does not mean other queer women cannot criticize her portrayal of sapphic themes.
“House Tour” is not the first time Carpenter has been criticized for expressing sexual themes in her music. As always, there is also a backlash to the backlash, where fans take matters into their own hands and argue against the critics, perceiving their criticism as attacks toward Carpenter.
People who slam critics to defend Carpenter claim that all criticisms of the music video’s sexualization of women amounts to “slut-shaming,” but it is disingenuous to frame every critique in that manner. The problem is not that Carpenter is singing about sexual intercourse, or that she, Qualley, and Cline wore a bunch of lingerie in “House Tour.” The first part of the problem is how the camera framed them, how it ogled them in all the ways I’ve already described.
The second part of the problem is the refusal by fans to engage with healthy criticism simply because they do not like the conclusions drawn. Of course, there are plenty who criticize Carpenter with a purely misogynistic lens, and I’m not talking about those instances. Shutting down more thoughtful criticism by claiming Carpenter is too feminist to be guilty of perpetuating the male gaze helps no one.
Carpenter benefits from what a few have named the “assumption of feminism.” While Carpenter does express liberal views, she has never outright identified herself as a feminist. Her music does not have any feminist themes either, in fact, her last three albums have been almost exclusively comprised of songs about her relationships with men (and, while it does not appeal to my personal taste, it needs to be said that there’s no requirement for a female artist to only make music with feminist themes, or to avoid making music about men and relationships). Despite what pop culture might have led you to believe, feminism entails much more than just complaining about men. Feminism does not end when you personally feel empowered.
Still, her fans insist that she is a feminist icon, and because she allegedly is, her sexualized stage persona is subversive or satirical, even though about half of the time, her performances, while often entertaining and well-crafted, are not particularly subversive or satirical.
For example, one of the defenses against the criticisms of her album cover for “Man’s Best Friend” was that she was satirizing the male gaze. However, I find nothing satirical about the image. The only component of it I find even remotely subversive is that it does not show the man’s face, and focuses entirely on Carpenter. However, that does not erase the fact that Carpenter is depicted on her knees with her hair being pulled. Her little black dress and full face of makeup serve to further glamorize a straightforward depiction of female submission.
Her alternate, less provocative covers referred to as being “approved by God” by Carpenter herself (thereby relegating all potential criticism of the cover as associated with Biblical prudes, a social category no one in Carpenter’s fanbase wants to be associated with), do not cancel out the fact that this is the album’s main cover, the one that appeared in all the articles, the one that appears on Spotify, the one Carpenter is using as a profile picture across all socials.
Trying to argue that the image is satirical is a fruitless endeavor. If you have to explain that something is satire for it to be understood as such, it is, at the very least, not an effective piece of satire. Additionally, good satire of patriarchy and the male gaze would flip the script and make men uncomfortable, but the majority of the people who have expressed criticism and discomfort with the album cover’s imagery are women.
Additionally, art is not made in a vacuum. “Man’s Best Friend” does not and cannot exist in a world where women were not historically oppressed, dominated, and degraded by men. While I will not accuse Carpenter of “setting feminism backwards” with a single image, I do not think it should be surprising women might find this image offensive in a time where our rights are being stripped away and the manosphere is ensuring that a large majority of the male population turns to extreme misogyny. To quote video essayist Diana Simumpande, whose Internet handle is Afrodizjha, “When the world is actively brutal to women, especially the most vulnerable women, watching a white pop star stylize submission and call it empowerment sparks a lot of tension.”
I am not a Sabrina Carpenter hater, nor do I think she needs to be cancelled over this. However, I’ve always had mixed opinions on her, and I don’t appreciate the embargo on legitimate criticism of her and her brand. I do not think that the existence of worse people in the music industry should exonerate Carpenter from any criticism of her work. I have seen what I would consider to be thoughtful criticism completely shut down by accusations of pearl-clutching or slut-shaming Carpenter ever since the “Man’s Best Friend” album cover dropped.
Praise and criticism of Sabrina Carpenter can and should be able to coexist. So if you’re a fan of Carpenter and you see thoughtful criticism of her, don’t just dismiss it. Hear it out, and hold her accountable when necessary.