With her recent album “Short n’ Sweet” and tour of the same name, Sabrina Carpenter’s music career has been on an upwards trajectory. I couldn’t stop humming some of her songs all summer, and my entire TikTok feed was filled with her songs.
Besides some addictively memorable songs, there is something very specific that endears her to women: her use of the female gaze through her lyrics and fashion.
The term “female gaze” encompasses the outlook that women have towards fashion, music, and art in a way that places women at the forefront. Over the decades, it has been taboo for women to discuss anything remotely suggestive of sex, paving the way for men to be the only ones allowed to talk about sex. This, or the male gaze, has been met with criticism due to how women are objectified. In contrast, even male romantic interests through the female gaze are less sexualized than women are through the male gaze.
While Carpenter’s songs contain various sexual innuendos, they are centered around the female experience and portray her crushes through the female gaze. As per an article by Rolling Stone, her use of sexuality and “horniness” is comparable to Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera’s artistic aesthetics.
The common denominator? All three women have been met with criticism, to various degrees, for dressing how they dress and singing what they sing. Some people say that Carpenter’s openness about her sexuality is off-putting, but her lyrics represent the female experience, which has also garnered significant praise.
Carpenter’s songs are intertwined with allusions to sexual positions, experiences with her boyfriend Barry Keoghan, and an overall retro aesthetic that creates unique, catchy tunes. According to NBC, “Espresso” is indicative of men who cannot stop thinking about Carpenter due to her persona. Elle Magazine writes that “Bed Chem” fantasizes a sexual encounter with a crush. From my understanding, none of her lyrics overtly sexualize men, but rather focus on her thoughts and interactions (she even apologizes if her thoughts seem objectifying due to her hormones in “Juno”).
As for her fashion on tour, Carpenter enters the stage before her song “Taste” wrapped in a prop that resembles a towel. She then cheekily removes the towel, revealing a bedazzled and corseted bodysuit with motifs of lips in random placements. While corsets, lingerie, and the pin-up aesthetic were historically associated with the male gaze, I have seen waves of appreciation from women online with very few male commenters. All they can talk about is how she looks like the love child of Tinker Bell and Betty Boop or how perfect her hair is, which is indicative of the female gaze.
As the times have changed, so has our outlook on what is socially acceptable for women to do.
This has been refreshing to see, as it also allows ourselves to express ourselves in ways we never could. Whatever Sabrina Carpenter has done with her “Short n’ Sweet” aesthetic is phenomenal, and I hope that female artists can continue to cater to the female market and create art that appreciates the female narrative.