The Sabrina Carpenter & Sydney Sweeney Controversies, Explained

The Take Film TV Movie

From Sabrina Carpenter’s new album cover to Sydney Sweeney’s bathwater soap and beyond, a spate of recent controversies have some people questioning if pop culture is not only signaling...

Transcript

00:00From Sabrina Carpenter's new album cover to Sydney Sweeney's Bathwater Soap and beyond,

00:05a spate of recent controversies have some people questioning if pop culture is not only signaling,

00:10but aiding in the backtracking of female empowerment. But while these recent issues

00:14might be new, this conversation certainly isn't. So why are people mad at Sydney and Sabrina?

00:21Where does it fit into the larger conversation? And is it really a problem? Let's take a closer

00:26look. Disagreements around how sexual and desirable a woman is allowed to be, and how much control she

00:33is allowed to have over her own sexuality, go back forever. But much of our modern understanding of

00:39these issues and feminism as a whole began to really come to the forefront over the course of

00:43the last century or so as society went through several waves of feminist thought. Through all

00:48of them has existed a tension created by the idea of female sexuality itself, and how much freedom

00:54one should have over it. And indeed, how much control one could have over it in a world designed

00:59by the patriarchy. After women had gained power and a sense of self-sufficiency with their work

01:04away from more traditional roles in the home, and the aiding of the war effort during World War II,

01:09for example, there were societal anxieties that they had become a bit too free and in control of

01:14their own lives. As a result, the noir femme fatale began popping up all over the place on screen.

01:20Gilda, are you decent? Me?

01:24She was sexy, powerful, and confident, but also a bad woman who needed to be punished and put back

01:31in her place. These characters allowed audiences to enjoy this sexuality and power, while still in

01:37the end reminding them that it wasn't acceptable. The type of sexuality that was generally seen as

01:44more acceptable was one that was more innocent, less vixen going after what she wants, more sexy

01:51sweetie who doesn't ask too many questions. Take the persona Marilyn Monroe created for herself,

01:56an ultra-ego that was beautiful and bubbly and generally inoffensive, though even then there was

02:02pushback because the so-called ideal woman to marry was one who didn't exude sexuality at all.

02:08You're a Jackie or Marilyn. Leaning into a very specific, male-focused idea of sexuality in order

02:14to achieve commercial success certainly didn't begin or end with Marilyn, but she has become one

02:19of the most iconic examples that is referenced again and again. From Jane Mansfield essentially

02:24launching her own career by satirizing Marilyn's, to others who have attempted to copy aspects of her

02:30persona directly or in a tongue-in-cheek way. Hers is a sexuality that has come to feel safe,

02:36no matter how overt, and so in some respects able to skirt the issues that arise with more

02:41raunchy or direct displays. Pop stars have had to walk this line as well, being pushed to be sexy to

02:47be more commercially viable, but also not to go too far and be labeled a problem. In recent decades,

02:54pop culture has particularly enjoyed using young female pop stars walking this line as they come

02:59into adulthood as punching bags. If they don't lean in enough, they're prudes who will never escape

03:04their child star roots. If they go too far, they're naughty and shouldn't be allowed to have a

03:09platform at all. Of course, so much of this, from the femme fatales to Marilyn's versus Jackie's to

03:14the pop stars and beyond, is actually not just about sexuality. It's about personal control and

03:19money. And as women have, as a whole, gained more personal power over both their sexuality and their

03:25own finances, the degree to which it's seen as specifically empowering to use one to beget the

03:30other has fluctuated. This has led to some major pushback against some modern young stars who were

03:36using more old-school attempts at grabbing the male gaze to garner attention. From Sydney Sweeney

03:42selling soap that allegedly contained some of her own bathwater, to Sabrina Carpenter likening herself

03:48to a dog. In many of these modern controversies, there's a question of the degree to which it was

03:54intended to be satirical. These women and their audiences are well aware of how they're seen by

04:00some portions of society. So by playing into that in a winking way, are they smartly sending up that

04:06exact stereotyping that's been used against them? Or are they actually just leaning into it?

04:11You've put a greased, naked woman on all fours with a dog collar around her neck. You don't find that

04:19sexist? This is 1982. Sydney has been rather open about the fact that she is very specifically and

04:25explicitly using her looks and appeal to men to further her career and make money. Let's face it,

04:29guys only want one thing. About her actively being a part of the planning and execution of her fake

04:34relationship with Glenn Powell to help promote their rom-com Anyone But You, for example, she told

04:39the New York Times, I was on every call. I was in text group chats. I was probably keeping everyone over

04:45at Sony marketing and distribution awake at night because I couldn't stop with ideas. I wanted to

04:49make sure that we were actively having a conversation with the audience as we were promoting this film

04:53because at the end of the day, they're the ones who created the entire narrative.

04:57Are they watching? Yep. Are they buying it? She knew that these rumors would both help get people

05:03talking about the film and continue to boost her persona as a desirable young sex symbol in the public

05:08consciousness. Most recently, she's made waves for becoming the spokesperson for a male-oriented soap

05:14company, especially with their most recent release, a soap that allegedly features some of Sydney's

05:19own bathwater. This is obviously an attempt to play into the long-standing joke of a woman being so hot

05:25that a man would drink her bathwater just to feel close to her. In my experiences, I found two types of

05:30men, the decent ones and the dogs. You so fine, baby. I drank a tub of your bathwater. But this on top of the

05:39feeling that she's constantly playing into the male gaze and then framing it as empowering solely because

05:43it makes her money has started to grate on some people. On the one hand, she does not come from

05:49money. Her most well-known media hit is one that's only managed to put out two seasons in six years.

05:54And she's been open about how expensive trying to maintain her life in LA is under these conditions.

06:00And so there has been a, well, you gotta do what you gotta do, girl, aspect to the conversation around

06:05her choices. But on the other hand, in her current moment in particular, her leaning so hard into this

06:11kind of branding, instead of her actual talent, has begun to rub some people the wrong way.

06:17Sabrina Carpenter has had a bit of a different path, more in line with the par-for-the-course

06:21child-star trajectory of becoming more openly sexual, in a very specific commercial way,

06:26as she moved into adult pop. Like with Marilyn, her more winking, tongue-in-cheek sexuality,

06:31especially paired with an aesthetic that called back to that period, felt a bit safer or more

06:36relatable than some of her more overtly raunchy counterparts might have to some fans.

06:41But as she's continued down that path, and you're starting to second-guess the degree to

06:46which she's actually deliberately creating a caricature as part of a larger commentary.

06:51You don't have this mentality anymore.

06:53Well, you should have seen the cover they wanted to do.

06:55I don't care what they want.

06:57While there was some hubbub about part of her choreography during one of her songs during her

07:00most recent tour, things really popped off when she revealed her newest album cover and title,

07:05named Man's Best Friend, and featuring her on all fours in front of a man who was pulling her hair,

07:11the cover immediately sparked controversy. Defenders pointed out that it all pretty

07:16clearly seemed to be satire, mocking how the relationships she's fallen into make her feel,

07:21and also making a joke about being a bitch. But many people, random pop listeners and fans alike,

07:27felt the cover was degrading, totally missing the mark if it was intended to be satirical.

07:32Sabrina is a very funny person and is often making fun of both herself and culture at large,

07:37so it's not at all out of place to imagine that it was indeed intended to lampoon the kind of

07:42relationship it's depicting. But just because something is intended to be satirical doesn't

07:47automatically mean that it's successful, or that it should be free from criticism. Part of satire is

07:53thinking about the intended audience and their ability to understand both what you're sending up

07:57and the point you're trying to make. So given that many of our own fans don't seem on board,

08:02it does seem to have missed the mark in terms of effective satire. It's possible that taking it a

08:08bit further into that realm could have made it more clear. For example, having a bat cover featuring

08:13her mauling that same man. To play on the idea of being a man-eater, and overall make it more clear

08:19that the intent was to lampoon these kinds of labels that have been placed on women due to their

08:23relationships. Defenders of the cover have also connected this controversy to the larger discussion

08:28about media literacy. And while there certainly is a societal issue concerning media literacy,

08:33that doesn't automatically mean that everything that doesn't land fails solely because people

08:37just don't get it. After the controversy didn't quickly die down, Sabrina released a new alternative

08:43cover, one that seems to directly reference that connection to Marilyn and her sexuality.

08:48Where Sydney's choices often feel more transactional, that is, I am knowingly doing this

08:54specifically for men because I know that it will benefit me financially, Sabrina seems to be getting

08:59an even larger negative reaction because her audience, at least initially, seemed to be other

09:04women. And now they feel like she's leaving them behind and pivoting to a more exclusively male-focused

09:10gaze. But for her last album that shot her into mainstream stardom at least, she was already doing a lot of

09:16these same things. It seems that people just initially read it as more of a winking in-joke

09:21and are now starting to realize, oh, you're for real for real about that. All of these kinds of

09:27discussions also bring up the question of choice and how much these women owe their audiences and are

09:32responsible for their contributions to the larger culture. Buried in all of this is the question of

09:37how much others should be allowed to police these young women's choices. This debate around leaning into

09:43the traditional male gaze and the larger patriarchy but framing it as being actually empowering because

09:47you want to do it has been going on for decades. It has, in recent years, coalesced in some corners

09:53into an idea that you can't critique anything any other woman does, because critiquing any woman

09:59ever is inherently anti-feminist. But that's just not the case. In her article for Cambridge University Press,

10:05titled Choice Feminism and the Fear of Politics, Michael L. Ferguson writes,

10:10Choice Feminism is motivated by a fear of politics. It enables feminists to sidestep the difficulties of

10:16making the personal political, making judgments and demanding change of friends, family, and lovers.

10:22Yet judgment, exclusion, and calls for change are unavoidable parts of politics. Regardless of what we decide to

10:29do with our lives and how we choose to live, all of our choices are still being made within the

10:34patriarchal world in which we're forced to exist. And our choices can also have larger repercussions

10:39within our communities and societies as a whole. And so while it's definitely not okay for people to

10:45be constantly looking for any reason to tear apart every woman, it also doesn't make sense to say that

10:51no woman can ever be critiqued for her choices. While some people absolutely take their scrutiny too far

10:57or just turn it into straight up bashing, that doesn't automatically invalidate others' very

11:01genuine critiques of this kind of behavior. These types of controversies become lightning rods for

11:07discussion not because what one or two random celebs does is so terribly important, but because it at

11:12times feels so impossible to have a large-scale genuine conversation about these topics the way

11:18people will pay attention to without some kind of hook like a celebrity. And having these kinds of

11:24discussions in relation to celebrities who we all know and who don't seem like they're genuinely trying to

11:28harm anyone, can also be an easier in for people who feel like they don't yet quite have the words

11:34or full understanding to dig into those larger, more far-reaching topics. While people might want

11:39to blow off these discussions as frivolous or unimportant, in our current moment when so many

11:44rights are being revoked and efforts to push women back into older, more restrictive modes of being are

11:48abound, having these kinds of discussions about how pop culture and the media at large shape our world

11:54and our understanding of it actually is important. None of this means that Sabrina and Sydney are bad

12:00people or that they've deliberately set out to harm anyone or set feminism back 50 years or anything

12:06else that's been getting lobbed their way. Thinking critically about these events just gives the

12:10audience an opportunity to think more about their own relationship with the media, how they absorb it

12:16and how it shapes them, and the degree to which they want to continue to participate in it

12:21in this way. It's cool if you like it. It's alright if you don't. Just decide for yourselves.

12:30That's the take! Click here to watch the video we think you'll love, or here to check out a whole

12:35playlist of awesome content. Don't forget to subscribe and turn on notifications.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended