Any grown person's commitment to pedobait under the guise of the "harmless" coquette aesthetic is very "you either die lolita or live long enough to see yourself become the humbert."
Not gonna lie I was taken aback by the title and its potential implications, so I started off reading this a bit defensively. But I'm so glad I kept going. You present your arguments so compellingly, backed by such sharp research, that I changed my mind pretty quickly. There's something very troubling about the cultural obsession with white, small, innocent women that isn't discussed enough. Examining this through Sabrina's example is both important and relevant, it shows how pervasive cultural pedophilia is. Most cultural discussions focus on past contexts, but no one seems willing to acknowledge that this is still very much happening. This is an amazing piece—everything is so quotable. Thank you for writing such an important essay 🫶
When it is discussed, it is generally a shallow, bitter condemnation and shaming of men. This piece goes much deeper, and is so much more thought-provoking
A lot of this post was really interesting to read. But as a fellow short woman (5’1”), I found parts of this piece frustrating. I’ve been talked down/condescended/infantilized my whole life due to my height. Are short women with round faces not allowed to be sexual adults? Or am I and Sabrina perpetuating some kind of pedophilic fantasy by simply existing?
hey erin! so fair to feel this way. I see sabrina's height as one aspect in a larger ecosystem of attributes and decisions (made by her and/or her team) that make up her brand. when we remove her height or face shape from the equation, her outros, her lyrics, the staging of her Skims and W magazine shoots, and her media quotes still reference and play with concepts of childhood. while her height might, grossly, add some "oomph" to these branding decisions for some people in her audience, i find the intentional decisions her and her team make as the core culprit of all of this--not the qualities she was born with.
Your essay is deligthful and very relevant, BUT feltl slightly uneasy about the same thing.
There is no doubt about all the marketing you describe, but there is as a fellow short woman with a baby face, I really agree that anytime you let genuine adulthood and sexuality appear, you can be put on trial for this. Including by yourself. It's an odd situation, because compared to other people, any sign of cheekiness or playfulness can be considered as self-infantilization.
If I totally agree with your point and the disturbing lolification, I really feel like the impact of Sabrina is that she appears genuine about sexuality, and she also happens to have energy and playfulness that can, or can not, be interpreted as childlike.
I really like the last point you made. I really enjoy Sabrina’s music because of how cheeky and playful it is! I have a very similar sense of humor and it’s very refreshing to see someone (especially a woman in a heterosexual relationship with a man) be so sex positive in the mainstream media, so I really connected to her new album. I think people forget that sex is supposed to be fun! I am 31, I’m an adult woman - I’ve spent so much of my adult life trying to put myself into a box. I wish that I’d been as confident in my sexuality at 25 the way that Sabrina does. I refuse to spend the rest of my life worrying that other people think I’m pretending to be some kind of pedophilic fantasy.
i feel like though that the essay established that there's danger specifically in how this imagery/subliminal messaging is provided to an audience below 18. of course you're able to take on the entirety of this topic and remain self-assured in your identity and your truth, but the girls below 18 are horrifically vulnerable to this. that's where the impact is most visceral. the essay really isn't saying that "sex shouldn't be fun", and that you should worry if you're pretending to cater to a pedophilic fantasy. it's asking you to recognize the context, the impact, and the history on a macro-level, rather than a micro-level, i.e. your relationship with sexuality.
Out of curiosity (because, like Erin, I’m a woman with a round, young-looking face who’s been infantilized constantly, and have struggled to present myself as an adult because of my appearance), how do you factor Sabrina Carpenter’s music videos into your critique of her overall brand and what she/her team are trying to accomplish with her image?
i actually would love to do a follow up piece exploring this! i haven’t close-watched her videos or seen them with a critical eye, but from my memory they play more with the vintage/pin-up style than they do with the types of imagery she used in the photoshoot and the skims campaign. what’s interesting to me about sabrina is how her lyrics offer the most strong examples of pedobait, and serve more than the images do as confirmation of the brand her team is selling. i also do think though that, sadly, nowadays music videos aren’t as easy of an entry point to an artist as they once were! fashion campaigns, social media content, and collaborations are the way artists find new fans in an oversaturated market, so i do find the texts and images i reference to still be extremely relevant.
I do think a follow-up essay would be interesting, because I do think her music videos play with completely different themes. Yes there's a vintage / pin-up aesthetic to them, but I went back and watched them all again after reading your essay, and saw a thru-line of Sabrina Carpenter owning then subverting the "psycho b*tch" trope, too. That trope is antithetical to the Lolita trope (where Lolita is docile and too young to fight back, the psycho b*tch will kill you for your credit card or sneak into your house to kill your new girlfriend), and I wonder if perhaps she's leaning into that trope to try and counter the visual impression she can't help but creating of looking, and therefore being perceived as, younger than her real age. And re: music videos in general -- they may not be an entry point to younger fans, but they're absolutely how an artist gains some control over their own image, and I think they're far more impactful in gaining then holding the attention of fans over the age of 25 than brand campaigns. (Like, I'm 33, and I know half the songs on her album by heart, but I had no idea she even did a SKIMS campaign until I read your essay.)
And re: this term of "pedobait," I think the casual usage of that word is what I'm seeing many of us on this thread respond to. Like, can Carpenter help looking like "pedobait" if she wears things like lace or bows or even just pale pink? I sincerely doubt Gracie Abrams or Billie Eilish wearing the exact same outfits that Carpenter wears in her SKIMS campaign would garner the same reaction, because Abrams and Eilish both look older (or at least their own age, 22-25). Utilizing the critical eye effectively requires us to strip away the images we're being shown by society and unearth our own biases, and I think the theme in this thread is wondering if perhaps your own critical eye has been clouded by our Lolita-loving society.
And just one other thing to consider, regarding the W Magazine spread, yes it unequivocally evokes Kubrick's visuals from Lolita, but why? To assume that Carpenter is automatically "selling pedobait" jumps over a pretty key part of her biography, which is that she's a grown-up child star. By now, I think we've all seen how damaging our culture's sexualization of children can be -- Lindsay Lohan, Demi Lovato, and Selena Gomez have all gone through brutal mental health collapses in the public eye, for example -- and there's no reason to think Carpenter hasn't had it just as bad as they did. Is she "selling pedobait" or -- even if unsuccessfully -- attempting to own the cultural forces that have harmed her as she's grown up? Just something else to consider on a follow-up essay!
i mean this entirely seriously and with loads of excitement: i would honestly love to see YOU write this!!!
all these points are so deliciously complicating of my main claim and give me so much to think about. i do think it’s a fascinating exploration to wonder: she was a child star, can she not subvert that? CAN she subvert that in a way that doesn’t have negative consequences for her fellow woman? is it excusable because she is a child star, or would it be MORE excusable if she went public with a story like jeannette mccurdy or demi lovato (and why do we NEED that trauma porn)? and even bigger: can ANY woman represent her sexuality in ANY way without it subliminally feeding into male fantasy or white heteropatriarchy? (the end of my article articulates that the answer is, for me, likely, no: you’re just eaten by the snake.)
i really admire and like the way you’re challenging me on this and backing it up with your own close reading of her content. i would absolutely welcome a critical response article (and i think fellow commenters would as well)! message me if you wanna make it into a collab or something!! ❤️
I want to read that essay! I'm also not tempted to automatically think about infantilisation as necessarily coding literal paedophilia. (Desire is v complicated; I'd like to see a reading of this that picks up some careful deployment of theories from sex/gender studies. Something I'm interested in, when you get to deconstructing the music videos aesthetic, is a "think across" to porn video aesthetics. And ohmygod the whiteness - there's so much more to say about skin tone, hair texture, use of lighting and makeup. Crikey, but cishet fantasy worlds are interesting, eh?
Oh I’m not Erin, but I’m also kinda short and have a cherubic face. To my guess, her music videos have been tame so far, so I’m shocked by this article. You would think if this was her brand, they would try to be giving off those pedophilic vibes in her music videos, because they are the most accessible to showing her aesthetic, but she hasn’t.
I don't think she is implying that short women with round looking face cannot be sexual. This is my take on the read: she is implying that Sabrina has used pedophilic references to allude that it is what she is selling.
Ariana Grande is short, Gwen Stefani is relatively short, H.E.R is short, Adrian Baillon is short, I also think Missy Elliot is short (not sure sure). The point is, there are different women in different capacities and mediums of expression of their craft. Light skinned, white, dark skinned...varied. However, the way they present their art is sexual in some but, not the same way as Sabrina's recent works. I think if Sabrina has created satirical music, what we would be talking about now would have been so different. Who knows, maybe that's where she started until popularity and phrasing took things away from the intention. I think the writer is saying that her work seems to be promoting and accepting pedophilic sexualization with play using her stature for the audience to reference. Which she has exemplified in the way she does her outros. Have you seen it, she doesn't do them as if she condemns something about it, but rather as is she is rejoicing in it. That, combined with teenager who will never look like her seeing that that's what is celebrated is the thing being put to question. Long term repercussions after her concert to the teenager who grow up with her music and art presentation. She is a reference point to the ideal that is both fantasized and celebrated by multitudes. That's the jist of how I understood this piece. And I quite agree with a few questions. Like you, I was defensive a little bit but I read through because I wanted to know why I just couldn't stomach watching a full video of her songs or get through one complete outro video of her concerts. I tried, I juts can't. I have tried again and I really can't.
Exactly what I was looking for. I questioned after rereading this piece whether Sabrina was trying satirical expression. Or is she doing a biographical kind of like body of work? I saw her references to horror movies and the allusions of forever young trope and the support of the other woman after self mutilation! I liked that song, I don't remember the name.
Maybe her next piece will tie to this one, and affect the way we will look back and see it. At the same time, it's quite expected that there will be reactions from both sides, now. Shouldn't post album management cater to promoting what she is selling and the image she want to potray?
Supporting and questioning her choice of expression is a good discussion. But who wins is the part that's important for the teenagers who see her today, not tomorrow.
Can what she sells now be undone? That's the thing, I think the writing has provoke, for me atleast.
On the other hand, I hear you.
Yes, I wonder if she is fighting back.
But I have not seen that! That's not the story she has been selling pre-album or post album. Which brings me to question my own internalized fear over our own reactions. Are we afraid to marginalize a group because we want to be all inclusive. Is it valid that every filter in personal opinion has to be done through the eyes of someone neutral? I gotta go think some more....
But, I like that you joined in with your take, I lived reading your xomment. It's amazing to see someone questioninh an opinion myself included as those who agreed with it.
You're right on this, as a fellow short girly I hate myheight but this makes me hate it more for some reason. But the fact she even said she doesn't even like sex that much, nor the concept of it its just her image is so weird. Like your concept image is to sexualize and infantilize yourself in the name of feminism? Wild
I read this essay as more of a "you can be short with round faces and sexy" and also not actively play into pedo-fantasies as part of your brand. The fact that men and people in general infantalize you, oversexualize you is not your fault or in your control.
I understand your point, as a fellow short woman who always looked younger I've always been talked down and considered naive/silly, but the thing is that Sabrina markets this her brand and tries to use this as a good thing, I mean obviously she can't change the fact that she is small and it is nice having representation lol, but it is a fact that she chooses to market this all the time and that's not a coincidence, she knows that it is good in our patriarcal society to be small and considered cute, I don't think that she is just existing (like you and me) she is also curating an image and a product by being a singer, so it is a bit more complex than that
I was about to comment this as well! I agree with that op wrote, but I've always felt insecure about my height and hate it so much because I don't look feel like an adult women because of this
Me too people think I’m 17 as if I’m not a fully grown sexually active 31 year old adult. I’m constantly mistaken as being too young. The real issue is when young women are mistaken as being older than they are.
Jade this was incredible — also got me thinking (and lots of caveats here bc we don’t need to pit women against each other etc etc — but also I think pop stars are partially products offered into the cultural market and represent larger forces so some comparison is justified, idk) about the Olivia v Sabrina thing and how, at this point, we seem to have collectively “chosen” Sabrina’s version of young womanhood (overtly femme, cheekily sexual, cute and unthreatening) over Olivia’s (dramatic, painfully honest, aggressive, rougher around the edges). Kind of mirrors the Jagged Little Pill -> Britney and co. trajectory of the late ‘90s/early aughts. And obviously yes both of these are versions of an overtly white womanhood and both are enacted by wealthy thin women so truly the distance between them is not THAT far, but Olivia’s brief dominance 2ish yrs ago did represent a slight departure from femininity in the most traditional sense being marketed to young girls — and her “replacement” by Sabrina (again caveat caveat caveat) seems like a collective choice to be like lol nope, we want our women docile and manageable again!
I was a teenager in the late 90s, and I remember so clearly when the riot grrrls and outspoken singer-songwriters I adored (Shirley Manson, Alanis, Fiona Apple, Sarah McLachlan and her hard-won Lilith Fair) started to be eclipsed by Britney and Christina and Jessica. I think about that a lot. It felt like going backward, even as a young girl I could sense it. I remember feeling so disappointed and sad realizing this was the beauty standard that girls my age would now be held to.
kiks and kylie--you both just gave me so much to think about!
Kylie: completely, beyond agree that the Olivia vs. Sabrina thing plays a role here--I would love to see someone else flesh it out (eyes). there's actually a line in one of the W mag interviews where the journalist says sabrina was "attacked for her blondness," and it reminded me of the utter TikTok uproar that ensued when driver's license came out. I also think Olivia's mixed identity makes things even more complicated: just as Sabrina inherited her own, culturally-specific lessons on femininity, I wonder if Olivia inherited something different (or at least adjacent), and how that plays out in her music? just riffing here but you hit on something big methinks
kiks: this has been echoing in my brain all day. "it felt like going backward, even as a young girl I could sense it." I think you're right on the money, and clearly, this is all cyclical! while gen z loves to think we are very special, so much of this has been done and has been seen before.
yes to all the comments on this thread! also, it is fascinating to me that one of the common critiques i hear of olivia's music from internet reactors is that it's "immature" and only enjoyable by people her age and younger. whereas sabrina and her music are often seen as mature and enjoyable for adults of any age even though (or perhaps especially because) she's cosplaying a sweet/"innocent" child 😭 i sense adultism is involved (in addition to racism, misogyny, etc). many adults prefer to be able to control children, and i think the rage and intensity in olivia's music reminds some adults of teenagers and young adults, who are often harder to control as they differentiate from their parents/caregivers and develop skills and access to resources that can help them access more freedom (money, driving, etc). as a society, teenagers are absolutely disrespected. sabrina is perfectly on the tightrope of "white, feminine, fun, nonthreatening, not angry, and also a freak in the bedroom" which seems to be exactly what many men want, based on those disgusting comments from the Ask Men subreddit.
"attacked for her blondness" is WILD. i had not read that one. jfc. definitely the "innocent white girl damsel in distress" thing going on there.
your mind !!! this was a delicious read! your writing is expansive and your research is thorough and so refreshingly intersectional. as someone who doesn’t know much about sabrina carpenter beyond the ear worm-y songs and the generally ‘off’ vibes i could never put my finger on — thank you for bringing me up to speed. may need a surgical team to lift my jaw off the floor after reading those nonsense outros though x
dru!!! thank you so much for the kind words: it means the world to me ❤️ you articulated exactly the kind of writing i love and am proud to do: thanks for seeing it!!!
Right! She confirmed that weird off feeling Ive had about her. I found her annoying but didnt know why. and now as a mom to an almost 11 year old girl, i know why.
I was shocked for a different reason because I always thought her Nonsense outros were sexual but seeing the increase in overt innuendos made me realize a lot
You have no idea how cathartic and vindicating this was for me lol. It's also... interesting people think gender non-conforming people don't belong in the feminist movement. Just because I'm not feminine doesn't mean I don't face objectification and misogyny. The patriarchy effects everyone and the type of "femininity" that exclusionary femininists vouch for is usually very patriarchal.
thank you for reading, rose! i completely agree. like i wrote, the guardrails of “femininity” ensure only a certain type of woman could be involved in the movement: exactly the aim of first + second wave feminists (and the exclusionary feminists of today). in her attempt to not use binary language (my read), the quoted came off very TERF-y!
Incredible read! As a black woman I often feel like I'm just watching this discourse on the sidelines but this is a reminder that these identities are all being triangulated at the expense of my and other black woman's humanity.
i have a page in a notebook of phrases that speak to me, and your entire second sentence is now in there. TRIANGULATED indeed. thank you for reading and being here ❤️
So I don't follow popstars and I had absolutely no clue who this was before reading it, I use Substack for one politics writer I'm subscribed to. But dang. I was a teenager at just about the time when this started becoming a problem (for reference I'm 21) for teenage girls, though I never participated in it or really followed along with the trends (I was a "weird kid"). But at that age, seeing my peers doing this infuriated me in part because I knew that we weren't supposed to be doing this sort of stuff, but mostly because to my teenage self it was shallow, trashy behavior and it didn't help that many of the ones behaving in this way clearly saw me as a freak. It wasn't until my late teens did I realize that my peers---my own classmates---were being groomed, either by social media or men sometimes a decade older than we were.
Another thing worth noting is that fascism often utilizes nostalgia as a tool.
NOSTALGIA AS A TOOL!!!! excuse me while I reformat the nostalgia / pandemic essay I've been toying with for over a year because... you just lit up some brain synapses. thanks for reading and engaging maddie!!!
Wow. I just stumbled upon this and I am so f*cking impressed with not only your analysis but also your deft rhetorical style. You kept me invested when I was sure that this was going to be another hot take by someone dismissing a talented artist and really pulled back all the layers of your thought process surrounding this topic. An incredibly valid take, hot but also enduring. I especially appreciated your inclusion of how race plays into all of this, and historical context. I love Sabrina's music but something was feeling off for me. You helped me put my finger on it. Excellent work here and I can't wait to read more from you.
I really resonated with your "Kobayashi Maru" line. It wraps everything up nicely. We are so conditioned to be into these things that feed into the male fantasy, and the question always remains...where do we go once we're already there? Beautifully written.
Beautiful analysis. Be careful with statistics and information from the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. They are essentially a conservative astroturfing organization that serves Christian ideology. Many many “missing” children ran away from abusive parents, and NCMEC serves the conservative abusive (often homophobia and Christian) child parents, not the children. They also consider every sex worker trafficked. Almost all “trafficking” numbers are fake too.
THANK YOU for telling me, Nicole!! it feels so tough and strange to even research this topic sometimes--something im sure orgs like this bank on so their research is uplifted even more--so I appreciate the context fr!
This was absolutely brilliant and opened up a lot of the thoughts i’ve been having lately!! I think the clinging to girlhood is also driven by a fear of ‘womanhood’. We were raised on media were women are nags and shrill and boring, we know once we stop being girls we become women & mothers and to the world we take a back seat. I think a lot of people feel calling themselves girls even when they are women is a way of trying to prevent that feeling of existing in decline, and all that is tied into Western sexualisation of young girls like you said. Your explorations of society’s obsession with the right sort of femininity and just the whole essay was brilliant, so well put!!
Damn, you hit the nail on the head. This makes me think of the Susan Sontag quote: The great advantage men have is that our culture allows two standards of male beauty: the boy and the man. The beauty of a boy resembles the beauty of a girl. In both sexes it is a fragile kind of beauty and flourishes naturally only in the early part of the life-cycle. Happily, men are able to accept themselves under another standard of good looks — heavier, rougher, more thickly built. A man does not grieve when he loses the smooth, unlined, hairless skin of a boy. For he has only exchanged one form of attractiveness for another: the darker skin of a man’s face, roughened by daily shaving, showing the marks of emotion and the normal lines of age.
There is no equivalent of this second standard for women. The single standard of beauty for women dictates that they must go on having clear skin. Every wrinkle, every line, every gray hair, is a defeat. No wonder that no boy minds becoming a man, while even the passage from girlhood to early womanhood is experienced by many women as their downfall, for all women are trained to continue wanting to look like girls.
Absolutely. While a woman aging naturally in the public eye is viewed as “brave.” Attempts to hold onto her youth via plastic surgery/fitness as “desperate.” What other choices do women have but to age into invisibility or embrace her own “monster.” Have you seen the new movie “The Substance”? About this very topic (although extremely hard to watch, very successful in its depiction of an aging Jane Fonda-like TV aerobics instructor attempting to hack the aging process and revive her sparkling youth).
Hey so I totally agree with this but also want to add my own findings as I get older. For me becoming a woman so far has been about caring less what others think (men esp and women that love men but hate women) and with that comes this ability to shamelessly embrace joy. This has allowed me to feel more like myself and less like what I am unbecoming (youthful) and I can just feel the glow I emit. Your comment makes me see that for me this is the second standard I am setting as I grow and I hope for this for other women as well.
Which goes back to the demure trend on social media. I didn't know why it took over bit of key to note, it is within the same time frame of Sabrina's album promotions and post promotional content... It just hit me now.
Wow this is stunning; you pinpoint exactly that uneasy feeling that I have regarding Sabrina’s child-like qualities. Even some of her lyrics (tho catchy and funny) sound reminiscent of a child’s scrawl, for example “that’s that me” like what??? Considering her early childhood stardom (and thinking of the true stories we so often hear about child abuse behind the scenes, for example Jean Benet Ramsey, Alanis Morisette, too many kid stars to count), the queasy pedophilia angle becomes all the more disturbing and unsettling. Men compare women to pets, wtf guys it just keeps getting worse? In 30 rock there’s a guest appearance by a female comedian who presents herself as Sexy Baby, and Sabrina’s image is playing those cards but minus the dark comedy. Your essay is incredibly astute and brave. Many people don’t like to hear painful, uncomfortable truths. But you’ve put into words exactly what is going on here imo, regardless of Sabrina’s iconic status and popularity. Thank you for sounding the alarm.
thank you so much for reading and engaging, jessica! thank you for reminding me of that 30 Rock episode, too: so many cultural touch points of the “sexy baby,” far before the taylor swift lyric!!! you’re thinkin how i’m thinkin and i appreciate it ❤️
i often think abt that thing that’s like “children r the most oppressed group in society” and how the ideal of “woman” is so similar (and based off) those childlike traits that make them so vulnerable; being meek and quiet, physically weak and easy to overpower, not financially independent, viewed as less credible, being inherently subordinate/having someone to answer to ect.. the same way toxic parents/adults want control over their child, men and patriarchal society wants control over women- there’s so many parallels (like feeling entitled, the concept of “chivalry” “i do x things so you owe me y”-even tho x is just the bare minimum). the way many men view women (even the same age or older) is like a child, they talk to us like children, underestimate us like children ect.
this could also bleed into religion and the abrahamic view of god, the most popular one, is the ultimate patriarchal vision of paternal power over a subordinate, one that soothes the male ego convincing him that life is at a male-coded entity’s whims not a person with the ability to birth which most often women. but idk
whoaaaaa this was bar after bar. i feel like there’s also a parallel to orientalism in here, and broader fantasies of colonialism (africa/asia/the middle east being referred to in exclusively feminine or sex terms by colonizers). hmmmm you gave me so much to think about! thank you!
thanks! the colonialism thing is such a good observation with so much to think about as well, like wanting to “penetrate” other countries and being emasculated by the threat of their country being “penetrated” by others. the power dynamics/patriarchal roles and symbolism is in so much rhetoric
I had this thought when listening to “Juno” … Carpenter is 25 years old and dating (?) a man who literally has a baby, not the teenage girl she pretends to be in it
omg. And then imagine all the young girls like 18 and even younger going to her concerts because they share some... thing?. Some idea that Taylor has forever and probably will forever play into about love and relationships because it sells and she cant let go of that sense of youthful naive unknowingness about love. and in reality if a 40 year old and a 16 year old were hanging out as everyday people it would just be weird.
Omg I loved this so much ! Made me think about my own relationship with femininity as a transfemme.
For a lot of transfemmes, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of hyperfemininity and overly sexualising yourself, because that’s all you’ve consumed and been exposed to growing up, so you think that’s the only way to have your femininity and transness validated.
The conflation between woman and girl is also so interesting. I think the idea of “lost girlhood” makes a lot of transfemmes latch onto the identity of “trans girl”, even well into adulthood.
Really great insight!!
Any grown person's commitment to pedobait under the guise of the "harmless" coquette aesthetic is very "you either die lolita or live long enough to see yourself become the humbert."
i wish i could have opened the entire essay with that sentence ❤️ thank you principal investigator, love your writing
wow ur last line is such an incredibly witty line! and sums what you mean saying so, so well
Not gonna lie I was taken aback by the title and its potential implications, so I started off reading this a bit defensively. But I'm so glad I kept going. You present your arguments so compellingly, backed by such sharp research, that I changed my mind pretty quickly. There's something very troubling about the cultural obsession with white, small, innocent women that isn't discussed enough. Examining this through Sabrina's example is both important and relevant, it shows how pervasive cultural pedophilia is. Most cultural discussions focus on past contexts, but no one seems willing to acknowledge that this is still very much happening. This is an amazing piece—everything is so quotable. Thank you for writing such an important essay 🫶
WOW, this is exactly the kind of discussion i was hoping for. thank you so much for remaining open and engaging with my ideas ❤️
When it is discussed, it is generally a shallow, bitter condemnation and shaming of men. This piece goes much deeper, and is so much more thought-provoking
A lot of this post was really interesting to read. But as a fellow short woman (5’1”), I found parts of this piece frustrating. I’ve been talked down/condescended/infantilized my whole life due to my height. Are short women with round faces not allowed to be sexual adults? Or am I and Sabrina perpetuating some kind of pedophilic fantasy by simply existing?
hey erin! so fair to feel this way. I see sabrina's height as one aspect in a larger ecosystem of attributes and decisions (made by her and/or her team) that make up her brand. when we remove her height or face shape from the equation, her outros, her lyrics, the staging of her Skims and W magazine shoots, and her media quotes still reference and play with concepts of childhood. while her height might, grossly, add some "oomph" to these branding decisions for some people in her audience, i find the intentional decisions her and her team make as the core culprit of all of this--not the qualities she was born with.
I think Erin had a good point though!
Your essay is deligthful and very relevant, BUT feltl slightly uneasy about the same thing.
There is no doubt about all the marketing you describe, but there is as a fellow short woman with a baby face, I really agree that anytime you let genuine adulthood and sexuality appear, you can be put on trial for this. Including by yourself. It's an odd situation, because compared to other people, any sign of cheekiness or playfulness can be considered as self-infantilization.
If I totally agree with your point and the disturbing lolification, I really feel like the impact of Sabrina is that she appears genuine about sexuality, and she also happens to have energy and playfulness that can, or can not, be interpreted as childlike.
I really like the last point you made. I really enjoy Sabrina’s music because of how cheeky and playful it is! I have a very similar sense of humor and it’s very refreshing to see someone (especially a woman in a heterosexual relationship with a man) be so sex positive in the mainstream media, so I really connected to her new album. I think people forget that sex is supposed to be fun! I am 31, I’m an adult woman - I’ve spent so much of my adult life trying to put myself into a box. I wish that I’d been as confident in my sexuality at 25 the way that Sabrina does. I refuse to spend the rest of my life worrying that other people think I’m pretending to be some kind of pedophilic fantasy.
i feel like though that the essay established that there's danger specifically in how this imagery/subliminal messaging is provided to an audience below 18. of course you're able to take on the entirety of this topic and remain self-assured in your identity and your truth, but the girls below 18 are horrifically vulnerable to this. that's where the impact is most visceral. the essay really isn't saying that "sex shouldn't be fun", and that you should worry if you're pretending to cater to a pedophilic fantasy. it's asking you to recognize the context, the impact, and the history on a macro-level, rather than a micro-level, i.e. your relationship with sexuality.
Out of curiosity (because, like Erin, I’m a woman with a round, young-looking face who’s been infantilized constantly, and have struggled to present myself as an adult because of my appearance), how do you factor Sabrina Carpenter’s music videos into your critique of her overall brand and what she/her team are trying to accomplish with her image?
i actually would love to do a follow up piece exploring this! i haven’t close-watched her videos or seen them with a critical eye, but from my memory they play more with the vintage/pin-up style than they do with the types of imagery she used in the photoshoot and the skims campaign. what’s interesting to me about sabrina is how her lyrics offer the most strong examples of pedobait, and serve more than the images do as confirmation of the brand her team is selling. i also do think though that, sadly, nowadays music videos aren’t as easy of an entry point to an artist as they once were! fashion campaigns, social media content, and collaborations are the way artists find new fans in an oversaturated market, so i do find the texts and images i reference to still be extremely relevant.
I do think a follow-up essay would be interesting, because I do think her music videos play with completely different themes. Yes there's a vintage / pin-up aesthetic to them, but I went back and watched them all again after reading your essay, and saw a thru-line of Sabrina Carpenter owning then subverting the "psycho b*tch" trope, too. That trope is antithetical to the Lolita trope (where Lolita is docile and too young to fight back, the psycho b*tch will kill you for your credit card or sneak into your house to kill your new girlfriend), and I wonder if perhaps she's leaning into that trope to try and counter the visual impression she can't help but creating of looking, and therefore being perceived as, younger than her real age. And re: music videos in general -- they may not be an entry point to younger fans, but they're absolutely how an artist gains some control over their own image, and I think they're far more impactful in gaining then holding the attention of fans over the age of 25 than brand campaigns. (Like, I'm 33, and I know half the songs on her album by heart, but I had no idea she even did a SKIMS campaign until I read your essay.)
And re: this term of "pedobait," I think the casual usage of that word is what I'm seeing many of us on this thread respond to. Like, can Carpenter help looking like "pedobait" if she wears things like lace or bows or even just pale pink? I sincerely doubt Gracie Abrams or Billie Eilish wearing the exact same outfits that Carpenter wears in her SKIMS campaign would garner the same reaction, because Abrams and Eilish both look older (or at least their own age, 22-25). Utilizing the critical eye effectively requires us to strip away the images we're being shown by society and unearth our own biases, and I think the theme in this thread is wondering if perhaps your own critical eye has been clouded by our Lolita-loving society.
And just one other thing to consider, regarding the W Magazine spread, yes it unequivocally evokes Kubrick's visuals from Lolita, but why? To assume that Carpenter is automatically "selling pedobait" jumps over a pretty key part of her biography, which is that she's a grown-up child star. By now, I think we've all seen how damaging our culture's sexualization of children can be -- Lindsay Lohan, Demi Lovato, and Selena Gomez have all gone through brutal mental health collapses in the public eye, for example -- and there's no reason to think Carpenter hasn't had it just as bad as they did. Is she "selling pedobait" or -- even if unsuccessfully -- attempting to own the cultural forces that have harmed her as she's grown up? Just something else to consider on a follow-up essay!
i mean this entirely seriously and with loads of excitement: i would honestly love to see YOU write this!!!
all these points are so deliciously complicating of my main claim and give me so much to think about. i do think it’s a fascinating exploration to wonder: she was a child star, can she not subvert that? CAN she subvert that in a way that doesn’t have negative consequences for her fellow woman? is it excusable because she is a child star, or would it be MORE excusable if she went public with a story like jeannette mccurdy or demi lovato (and why do we NEED that trauma porn)? and even bigger: can ANY woman represent her sexuality in ANY way without it subliminally feeding into male fantasy or white heteropatriarchy? (the end of my article articulates that the answer is, for me, likely, no: you’re just eaten by the snake.)
i really admire and like the way you’re challenging me on this and backing it up with your own close reading of her content. i would absolutely welcome a critical response article (and i think fellow commenters would as well)! message me if you wanna make it into a collab or something!! ❤️
I want to read that essay! I'm also not tempted to automatically think about infantilisation as necessarily coding literal paedophilia. (Desire is v complicated; I'd like to see a reading of this that picks up some careful deployment of theories from sex/gender studies. Something I'm interested in, when you get to deconstructing the music videos aesthetic, is a "think across" to porn video aesthetics. And ohmygod the whiteness - there's so much more to say about skin tone, hair texture, use of lighting and makeup. Crikey, but cishet fantasy worlds are interesting, eh?
So many fabulous questions!!! And important ones! I'm going to DM you to chat more :D
Oh I’m not Erin, but I’m also kinda short and have a cherubic face. To my guess, her music videos have been tame so far, so I’m shocked by this article. You would think if this was her brand, they would try to be giving off those pedophilic vibes in her music videos, because they are the most accessible to showing her aesthetic, but she hasn’t.
I don't think she is implying that short women with round looking face cannot be sexual. This is my take on the read: she is implying that Sabrina has used pedophilic references to allude that it is what she is selling.
Ariana Grande is short, Gwen Stefani is relatively short, H.E.R is short, Adrian Baillon is short, I also think Missy Elliot is short (not sure sure). The point is, there are different women in different capacities and mediums of expression of their craft. Light skinned, white, dark skinned...varied. However, the way they present their art is sexual in some but, not the same way as Sabrina's recent works. I think if Sabrina has created satirical music, what we would be talking about now would have been so different. Who knows, maybe that's where she started until popularity and phrasing took things away from the intention. I think the writer is saying that her work seems to be promoting and accepting pedophilic sexualization with play using her stature for the audience to reference. Which she has exemplified in the way she does her outros. Have you seen it, she doesn't do them as if she condemns something about it, but rather as is she is rejoicing in it. That, combined with teenager who will never look like her seeing that that's what is celebrated is the thing being put to question. Long term repercussions after her concert to the teenager who grow up with her music and art presentation. She is a reference point to the ideal that is both fantasized and celebrated by multitudes. That's the jist of how I understood this piece. And I quite agree with a few questions. Like you, I was defensive a little bit but I read through because I wanted to know why I just couldn't stomach watching a full video of her songs or get through one complete outro video of her concerts. I tried, I juts can't. I have tried again and I really can't.
Exactly what I was looking for. I questioned after rereading this piece whether Sabrina was trying satirical expression. Or is she doing a biographical kind of like body of work? I saw her references to horror movies and the allusions of forever young trope and the support of the other woman after self mutilation! I liked that song, I don't remember the name.
Maybe her next piece will tie to this one, and affect the way we will look back and see it. At the same time, it's quite expected that there will be reactions from both sides, now. Shouldn't post album management cater to promoting what she is selling and the image she want to potray?
Supporting and questioning her choice of expression is a good discussion. But who wins is the part that's important for the teenagers who see her today, not tomorrow.
Can what she sells now be undone? That's the thing, I think the writing has provoke, for me atleast.
On the other hand, I hear you.
Yes, I wonder if she is fighting back.
But I have not seen that! That's not the story she has been selling pre-album or post album. Which brings me to question my own internalized fear over our own reactions. Are we afraid to marginalize a group because we want to be all inclusive. Is it valid that every filter in personal opinion has to be done through the eyes of someone neutral? I gotta go think some more....
But, I like that you joined in with your take, I lived reading your xomment. It's amazing to see someone questioninh an opinion myself included as those who agreed with it.
You're right on this, as a fellow short girly I hate myheight but this makes me hate it more for some reason. But the fact she even said she doesn't even like sex that much, nor the concept of it its just her image is so weird. Like your concept image is to sexualize and infantilize yourself in the name of feminism? Wild
I read this essay as more of a "you can be short with round faces and sexy" and also not actively play into pedo-fantasies as part of your brand. The fact that men and people in general infantalize you, oversexualize you is not your fault or in your control.
I understand your point, as a fellow short woman who always looked younger I've always been talked down and considered naive/silly, but the thing is that Sabrina markets this her brand and tries to use this as a good thing, I mean obviously she can't change the fact that she is small and it is nice having representation lol, but it is a fact that she chooses to market this all the time and that's not a coincidence, she knows that it is good in our patriarcal society to be small and considered cute, I don't think that she is just existing (like you and me) she is also curating an image and a product by being a singer, so it is a bit more complex than that
I was about to comment this as well! I agree with that op wrote, but I've always felt insecure about my height and hate it so much because I don't look feel like an adult women because of this
Me too people think I’m 17 as if I’m not a fully grown sexually active 31 year old adult. I’m constantly mistaken as being too young. The real issue is when young women are mistaken as being older than they are.
Jade this was incredible — also got me thinking (and lots of caveats here bc we don’t need to pit women against each other etc etc — but also I think pop stars are partially products offered into the cultural market and represent larger forces so some comparison is justified, idk) about the Olivia v Sabrina thing and how, at this point, we seem to have collectively “chosen” Sabrina’s version of young womanhood (overtly femme, cheekily sexual, cute and unthreatening) over Olivia’s (dramatic, painfully honest, aggressive, rougher around the edges). Kind of mirrors the Jagged Little Pill -> Britney and co. trajectory of the late ‘90s/early aughts. And obviously yes both of these are versions of an overtly white womanhood and both are enacted by wealthy thin women so truly the distance between them is not THAT far, but Olivia’s brief dominance 2ish yrs ago did represent a slight departure from femininity in the most traditional sense being marketed to young girls — and her “replacement” by Sabrina (again caveat caveat caveat) seems like a collective choice to be like lol nope, we want our women docile and manageable again!
I was a teenager in the late 90s, and I remember so clearly when the riot grrrls and outspoken singer-songwriters I adored (Shirley Manson, Alanis, Fiona Apple, Sarah McLachlan and her hard-won Lilith Fair) started to be eclipsed by Britney and Christina and Jessica. I think about that a lot. It felt like going backward, even as a young girl I could sense it. I remember feeling so disappointed and sad realizing this was the beauty standard that girls my age would now be held to.
kiks and kylie--you both just gave me so much to think about!
Kylie: completely, beyond agree that the Olivia vs. Sabrina thing plays a role here--I would love to see someone else flesh it out (eyes). there's actually a line in one of the W mag interviews where the journalist says sabrina was "attacked for her blondness," and it reminded me of the utter TikTok uproar that ensued when driver's license came out. I also think Olivia's mixed identity makes things even more complicated: just as Sabrina inherited her own, culturally-specific lessons on femininity, I wonder if Olivia inherited something different (or at least adjacent), and how that plays out in her music? just riffing here but you hit on something big methinks
kiks: this has been echoing in my brain all day. "it felt like going backward, even as a young girl I could sense it." I think you're right on the money, and clearly, this is all cyclical! while gen z loves to think we are very special, so much of this has been done and has been seen before.
yes to all the comments on this thread! also, it is fascinating to me that one of the common critiques i hear of olivia's music from internet reactors is that it's "immature" and only enjoyable by people her age and younger. whereas sabrina and her music are often seen as mature and enjoyable for adults of any age even though (or perhaps especially because) she's cosplaying a sweet/"innocent" child 😭 i sense adultism is involved (in addition to racism, misogyny, etc). many adults prefer to be able to control children, and i think the rage and intensity in olivia's music reminds some adults of teenagers and young adults, who are often harder to control as they differentiate from their parents/caregivers and develop skills and access to resources that can help them access more freedom (money, driving, etc). as a society, teenagers are absolutely disrespected. sabrina is perfectly on the tightrope of "white, feminine, fun, nonthreatening, not angry, and also a freak in the bedroom" which seems to be exactly what many men want, based on those disgusting comments from the Ask Men subreddit.
"attacked for her blondness" is WILD. i had not read that one. jfc. definitely the "innocent white girl damsel in distress" thing going on there.
in what world did sabrina replace olivia?
your mind !!! this was a delicious read! your writing is expansive and your research is thorough and so refreshingly intersectional. as someone who doesn’t know much about sabrina carpenter beyond the ear worm-y songs and the generally ‘off’ vibes i could never put my finger on — thank you for bringing me up to speed. may need a surgical team to lift my jaw off the floor after reading those nonsense outros though x
dru!!! thank you so much for the kind words: it means the world to me ❤️ you articulated exactly the kind of writing i love and am proud to do: thanks for seeing it!!!
Right! She confirmed that weird off feeling Ive had about her. I found her annoying but didnt know why. and now as a mom to an almost 11 year old girl, i know why.
Or maybe you just found her annoying and now finding this, is using it as justification.
or maybe its both
Or maybe it’s just what I said. Hope that helps.
I was shocked for a different reason because I always thought her Nonsense outros were sexual but seeing the increase in overt innuendos made me realize a lot
I got off vibes too but could never place it! This made it make sense
My thoughts exactly!!!
You have no idea how cathartic and vindicating this was for me lol. It's also... interesting people think gender non-conforming people don't belong in the feminist movement. Just because I'm not feminine doesn't mean I don't face objectification and misogyny. The patriarchy effects everyone and the type of "femininity" that exclusionary femininists vouch for is usually very patriarchal.
thank you for reading, rose! i completely agree. like i wrote, the guardrails of “femininity” ensure only a certain type of woman could be involved in the movement: exactly the aim of first + second wave feminists (and the exclusionary feminists of today). in her attempt to not use binary language (my read), the quoted came off very TERF-y!
Incredible read! As a black woman I often feel like I'm just watching this discourse on the sidelines but this is a reminder that these identities are all being triangulated at the expense of my and other black woman's humanity.
i have a page in a notebook of phrases that speak to me, and your entire second sentence is now in there. TRIANGULATED indeed. thank you for reading and being here ❤️
❤️🔥
So I don't follow popstars and I had absolutely no clue who this was before reading it, I use Substack for one politics writer I'm subscribed to. But dang. I was a teenager at just about the time when this started becoming a problem (for reference I'm 21) for teenage girls, though I never participated in it or really followed along with the trends (I was a "weird kid"). But at that age, seeing my peers doing this infuriated me in part because I knew that we weren't supposed to be doing this sort of stuff, but mostly because to my teenage self it was shallow, trashy behavior and it didn't help that many of the ones behaving in this way clearly saw me as a freak. It wasn't until my late teens did I realize that my peers---my own classmates---were being groomed, either by social media or men sometimes a decade older than we were.
Another thing worth noting is that fascism often utilizes nostalgia as a tool.
NOSTALGIA AS A TOOL!!!! excuse me while I reformat the nostalgia / pandemic essay I've been toying with for over a year because... you just lit up some brain synapses. thanks for reading and engaging maddie!!!
See, this is why I’m so glad I have self-awareness. I know when im being cringe, you have no idea how embarrassing you come across
babe get a hobby? work on your writing? stop thinking about me if i piss you off so bad!!! we don’t know each other!! LMAO
Wow. I just stumbled upon this and I am so f*cking impressed with not only your analysis but also your deft rhetorical style. You kept me invested when I was sure that this was going to be another hot take by someone dismissing a talented artist and really pulled back all the layers of your thought process surrounding this topic. An incredibly valid take, hot but also enduring. I especially appreciated your inclusion of how race plays into all of this, and historical context. I love Sabrina's music but something was feeling off for me. You helped me put my finger on it. Excellent work here and I can't wait to read more from you.
thank you river 😭❤️ this comment means the world to me. thanks for being along for the ride!
Excited to see you find success on Substack! You are a really amazing writer and thinker imo, just judging from this piece. Can't wait to read more.
🫂🫂🫂
I really resonated with your "Kobayashi Maru" line. It wraps everything up nicely. We are so conditioned to be into these things that feed into the male fantasy, and the question always remains...where do we go once we're already there? Beautifully written.
thank you so much for reading (and for the extra uumph on my star trek reference) ❤️ appreciate you as always
Beautiful analysis. Be careful with statistics and information from the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. They are essentially a conservative astroturfing organization that serves Christian ideology. Many many “missing” children ran away from abusive parents, and NCMEC serves the conservative abusive (often homophobia and Christian) child parents, not the children. They also consider every sex worker trafficked. Almost all “trafficking” numbers are fake too.
THANK YOU for telling me, Nicole!! it feels so tough and strange to even research this topic sometimes--something im sure orgs like this bank on so their research is uplifted even more--so I appreciate the context fr!
This was absolutely brilliant and opened up a lot of the thoughts i’ve been having lately!! I think the clinging to girlhood is also driven by a fear of ‘womanhood’. We were raised on media were women are nags and shrill and boring, we know once we stop being girls we become women & mothers and to the world we take a back seat. I think a lot of people feel calling themselves girls even when they are women is a way of trying to prevent that feeling of existing in decline, and all that is tied into Western sexualisation of young girls like you said. Your explorations of society’s obsession with the right sort of femininity and just the whole essay was brilliant, so well put!!
Damn, you hit the nail on the head. This makes me think of the Susan Sontag quote: The great advantage men have is that our culture allows two standards of male beauty: the boy and the man. The beauty of a boy resembles the beauty of a girl. In both sexes it is a fragile kind of beauty and flourishes naturally only in the early part of the life-cycle. Happily, men are able to accept themselves under another standard of good looks — heavier, rougher, more thickly built. A man does not grieve when he loses the smooth, unlined, hairless skin of a boy. For he has only exchanged one form of attractiveness for another: the darker skin of a man’s face, roughened by daily shaving, showing the marks of emotion and the normal lines of age.
There is no equivalent of this second standard for women. The single standard of beauty for women dictates that they must go on having clear skin. Every wrinkle, every line, every gray hair, is a defeat. No wonder that no boy minds becoming a man, while even the passage from girlhood to early womanhood is experienced by many women as their downfall, for all women are trained to continue wanting to look like girls.
Absolutely. While a woman aging naturally in the public eye is viewed as “brave.” Attempts to hold onto her youth via plastic surgery/fitness as “desperate.” What other choices do women have but to age into invisibility or embrace her own “monster.” Have you seen the new movie “The Substance”? About this very topic (although extremely hard to watch, very successful in its depiction of an aging Jane Fonda-like TV aerobics instructor attempting to hack the aging process and revive her sparkling youth).
Hey so I totally agree with this but also want to add my own findings as I get older. For me becoming a woman so far has been about caring less what others think (men esp and women that love men but hate women) and with that comes this ability to shamelessly embrace joy. This has allowed me to feel more like myself and less like what I am unbecoming (youthful) and I can just feel the glow I emit. Your comment makes me see that for me this is the second standard I am setting as I grow and I hope for this for other women as well.
Love this!!!
Which goes back to the demure trend on social media. I didn't know why it took over bit of key to note, it is within the same time frame of Sabrina's album promotions and post promotional content... It just hit me now.
Wow this is stunning; you pinpoint exactly that uneasy feeling that I have regarding Sabrina’s child-like qualities. Even some of her lyrics (tho catchy and funny) sound reminiscent of a child’s scrawl, for example “that’s that me” like what??? Considering her early childhood stardom (and thinking of the true stories we so often hear about child abuse behind the scenes, for example Jean Benet Ramsey, Alanis Morisette, too many kid stars to count), the queasy pedophilia angle becomes all the more disturbing and unsettling. Men compare women to pets, wtf guys it just keeps getting worse? In 30 rock there’s a guest appearance by a female comedian who presents herself as Sexy Baby, and Sabrina’s image is playing those cards but minus the dark comedy. Your essay is incredibly astute and brave. Many people don’t like to hear painful, uncomfortable truths. But you’ve put into words exactly what is going on here imo, regardless of Sabrina’s iconic status and popularity. Thank you for sounding the alarm.
thank you so much for reading and engaging, jessica! thank you for reminding me of that 30 Rock episode, too: so many cultural touch points of the “sexy baby,” far before the taylor swift lyric!!! you’re thinkin how i’m thinkin and i appreciate it ❤️
i often think abt that thing that’s like “children r the most oppressed group in society” and how the ideal of “woman” is so similar (and based off) those childlike traits that make them so vulnerable; being meek and quiet, physically weak and easy to overpower, not financially independent, viewed as less credible, being inherently subordinate/having someone to answer to ect.. the same way toxic parents/adults want control over their child, men and patriarchal society wants control over women- there’s so many parallels (like feeling entitled, the concept of “chivalry” “i do x things so you owe me y”-even tho x is just the bare minimum). the way many men view women (even the same age or older) is like a child, they talk to us like children, underestimate us like children ect.
this could also bleed into religion and the abrahamic view of god, the most popular one, is the ultimate patriarchal vision of paternal power over a subordinate, one that soothes the male ego convincing him that life is at a male-coded entity’s whims not a person with the ability to birth which most often women. but idk
whoaaaaa this was bar after bar. i feel like there’s also a parallel to orientalism in here, and broader fantasies of colonialism (africa/asia/the middle east being referred to in exclusively feminine or sex terms by colonizers). hmmmm you gave me so much to think about! thank you!
thanks! the colonialism thing is such a good observation with so much to think about as well, like wanting to “penetrate” other countries and being emasculated by the threat of their country being “penetrated” by others. the power dynamics/patriarchal roles and symbolism is in so much rhetoric
I had this thought when listening to “Juno” … Carpenter is 25 years old and dating (?) a man who literally has a baby, not the teenage girl she pretends to be in it
thanks for reading, caroline!!!!! i couldn’t agree more.
You just blew my fucking mind omg??
It's like when I found out Taylor Swift is about half a decade away from 40
And still singing like she’s 19-24
omg. And then imagine all the young girls like 18 and even younger going to her concerts because they share some... thing?. Some idea that Taylor has forever and probably will forever play into about love and relationships because it sells and she cant let go of that sense of youthful naive unknowingness about love. and in reality if a 40 year old and a 16 year old were hanging out as everyday people it would just be weird.
Omg I loved this so much ! Made me think about my own relationship with femininity as a transfemme.
For a lot of transfemmes, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of hyperfemininity and overly sexualising yourself, because that’s all you’ve consumed and been exposed to growing up, so you think that’s the only way to have your femininity and transness validated.
The conflation between woman and girl is also so interesting. I think the idea of “lost girlhood” makes a lot of transfemmes latch onto the identity of “trans girl”, even well into adulthood.