Did we miss the joke? Sabrina Carpenter's "Man's Best Friend" controversy

A CD of the Album "Man's Best Friend" by Sabrina Carpenter.

Grammy’s night was stacked with much-deserved awards and amazing performances. Sabrina Carpenter’s performance of “Manchild,” a hit from her latest album “Man’s Best Friend,” was one of the many amazing shows put on that night. But even with Carpenter’s album being the face of pop music, she did not win her six grammy nominations.

When the album cover was released in June 2025, the illustration incited much controversy. The cover depicted Carpenter in a small black dress, on her knees, having her hair pulled by a suited man who we cannot see the face of. Paired with the title of the album, the internet found the album provocative and a symbol of internalized patriarchy. This controversy sparked arguments between waves of feminism and also inquired on media’s miseducation on satire.

To understand the following interpretation, the tentative definition of feminism is highly important. Feminism is usually defined as a movement and advocacy that aims to achieve political, economic and social equality for all individuals. Feminism theories have been around for much time so there are many different ways it has been practiced. To be clear, there is no right way to be a feminist, each one is a different perspective in itself.

That being said, I will be defining feminism in a different way. All genders, races and humans are important to the feminist movement and all play an important role, deserving to have equal standing in all aspects of life. This perspective is not man-hating or identity erasing. In fact, this belief is influenced by the 3^rd wave of feminism.

The history of feminism has generally been described in waves. The first wave was the suffragette movement in the 20s, the second wave is the women’s liberation movement in the 70s and 80s, the third wave carries through the 90s and early 2000’s to focus on intersectionality of race and queerness in feminism and the fourth wave starts with the #MeToo movement and a resurgence of the women’s rights movement in the mid-2010s and meets us in the present day.

Nonetheless, there is a very important issue within second-wave feminism. Pornography split the feminist wave in two: one side arguing that sex workers are porn actresses have the right to do what they pleased, while the other side believe porn is inherently harmful to all women. Public sexuality wasn’t considered as liberation. Instead, it was putting women directly into harm’s way. In the HBO documentary Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print, the issue of pornography is explained through the experiences of women in the movement in the 1970s and 80s, who were working on the first feminist magazine Ms. Pornography split the feminist movement in its later years, all the way up to governmental lobbying.

Concerning the third and fourth waves, the sentiment seems to be that of the more supportive sides that presented themselves in the second wave. Women have the right to do with their bodies as they see fit; it’s their choice to be in such industries. Many believe there should be legislation to protect sex workers.

With this framework, we return to Carpenter. The arguments boil down to one question: Is the cover sexually empowering due to Sabrina’s unnoticed control, or is she submitting to the whims of men? Arguments against Sabrina even say teens should not be allowed to look up to her or her album, because of some of the underlying sexual content.

            As quick and fierce as the internet usually responds, people came to Carpenter’s support, often noting that the music Carpenter puts out turns the modern ingénue on its head. Carpenter presents this hyper-feminine, ditzy and sweet persona, but her music is rife with sexual innuendos, satire and intelligent commentary. The single she released before the album was titled “Manchild” and made fun of the uselessness of the men she finds herself interested in. The rest of the songs on the album follow a similar formula.

            Not only did this debate bring in historical feminist issues that went unnoticed by the general populace, but it also brought up a possibly concerning point. Are we as a media-consuming society starting to lose the ability to detect satire and nuance? Or, does satire, even when it intends to tear down certain ideals, reinforce the ideal it’s portraying because it’s now cute and aesthetic? Either way, are we back to a form of “slut shaming” women into prudent submission? Are women artists going to be constantly damned if they do and damned if they don’t? I encourage you to dive into Carpenter’s work and decide for yourself.