Popstar Sabrina Carpenter’s new album cover (with her on her knees as a man holds her hair), has sparked a conversation about women reclaiming their sexual agency. Three SMD team members, all belonging to different generations, tell you if Sabrina’s on the right side of history
Sabrina Carpenter is known for her burlesque outfits and sexy concert performances. Pic/Getty Images
Every generation has a shocker, or many!
Vidya Heble, 58, Generation X
What Sabrina Carpenter has done is nothing new. Sure, the pose may be, but the act of defying conventions and even morals, such as they may be, is something women in public life have been doing for eons. And I’m not even talking about Mamta Kulkarni’s topless Stardust cover in the 1990s or Protima Bedi’s streaking on Juhu beach in 1974. Way back in the 1930s, Devika Rani scandalised cinegoers for generations subsequently with a passionate on-screen kiss that is reported to have lasted — get this — four minutes!
Second version of the album cover uploaded by Sabrina Carpenter. Pic/Instagram@SabrinaCarpenter
We’ve seen Madhu Sapre and Milind Soman interlocked, starkers, a snake wrapped around them, for a shoe ad in 1995. We’ve seen Madonna’s conical bra (I still don’t get why people got riled up over that in 1990). Sharmila Tagore raised eyebrows in the 1960s — before even I was born! — with a bikini photoshoot. There was Devika, Sharmila, Madonna, now there’s Sabrina. Gen Alpha will have someone else.
‘It’s not shocking, it’s disappointing’
Arpika Bhosle, 38, Millennial
As a millennial, I can never forget Britney Spears and Madonna back in 2003 at the MTV Movie Awards, French kissing. I was 16 at the time and every magazine had the kiss splashed across it. It was steamy, but it also reeked of rebellion to my teenage brain. A year later, we saw Justine Timberlake rip off the costume bra off Janet Jackson to reveal an unforgettable nipple.
So, when I see Sabrina Carpenter, on a cover on her knees, with the name “Man’s Best Friend”, it doesn’t shock me. But, it does disappoint me a bit. There has to be an element of autonomy. I am fed up with the “tradwife”, “so demure” era that women seem to be going through and it being masked as women’s liberation. All those people managing artists in this particular way — get over yourself, don’t shove this fake sexual liberation down our throat (quite literally).
Don’t jump to conclusions… it’s ironic
Akshita Maheshwari, 20, Gen Z
Pop girlies will always be sexualised no matter how pure of an image they curate. A part of the appeal of pop is sex. So, it is no surprise that pop stars are claiming this sexual imagery on their own, where they can control the narrative themselves.
What’s most disappointing is that men are not given the same treatment when they pull this. A Harry Styles can make songs like Watermelon Sugar (a song about performing cunnilingus on a woman) , brand himself like a casanova figure, and that only makes him more of an icon. But when Sabrina Carpenter does it, suddenly she is setting women back 50 years.
From what we know of Sabrina, she is a satirical person, who never submits to men. In Taste, both the women join hands to kill off the guy. In Feather, she again kills a man for wronging her. Time and time again, she has told us through her music that she is never going to submit to a man’s whims. Then why is it that we are so eager to assume that she will be a man’s pet? It’s meant to be ironic, guys.
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