God forbid a pop star be funny: Sabrina Carpenter and the dichotomy of pop’s depth
A dichotomy exists in pop music that too many people still can’t figure out. Simultaneously, the best pop music makers and their fans understand that at once, it’s not that deep and it is. “Hating pop music doesn’t make you deep” reads the infamous t-shirt worn by Dua Lipa and Addison Rae. That rings true, and it isn’t negated, when Sabrina Carpenter admits that her new album is “just fun”.
In recent years, that battle that surrounds the understanding of pop has been played out clearest in the world of Sabrina Carpenter.
First, it was around ‘Espresso’, where people claimed the song was meaningless and vapid, as if any song with the lyrics “that’s that me espresso” was meant to be serious. It brings up a frustrating argument that has surrounded pop since its dawn. The loudest haters take the silliest lyrics and hold them up as evidence that the genre and the people who make it are vapid. “That’s that me espresso” is stupid, and therefore so is Sabrina Carpenter.
The only defence that can ever be thrown at that is the simple truth – it’s a joke. “I just love that people get my sense of humour,” she told Rolling Stone when ‘Espresso’ was a hit and the entirety of Short N’ Sweet followed suit. Featuring lyrics like “I know you’re craving some fresh air, but the ceiling fan is so nice” or “Jesus, what’s a girl to do? / This boy doesn’t even know the difference between there, their, and they are,” the album was ladened with clear, in-your-face humour, but yet still the inevitable chorus came claiming that it was juvenile, as if Carpenter and her collaborators sat there, straight faced, and didn’t even understand their own punchlines.
Then the new album cover came out; Sabrina Carpenter on her knees with her hair gripped by a man. Man’s Best Friend was announced as the name of her next album, and a section of the internet lost it.
Suddenly, the internet was accusing Carpenter of single-handedly setting back feminism by 50 years, as if her album artwork was doing genuine damage to women. They accused her of catering to the male gaze, of damaging the youth of the future by sexualising herself, or even of promoting sexual violence because of the hand in her hair. Once again, the bottom line was that Carpenter was brainless and did not understand the implications of her artwork. She’s just a dumb blonde with nothing behind her eyes and no thoughts or desires beyond being sexy.
‘Pop music is dumb and the people, or more accurately the women, who make it or enjoy it are dumb.’ That’s the stereotype. In that light, Sabrina Carpenter is not afforded the chance to indulge her humour or afforded the intelligence to even possess humour. She’s merely a pretty girl in a skimpy outfit on her knees.
Now that Man’s Best Friend is out, it becomes her best punchline yet at the expense of all those critics, and pop critics at large. Sabrina Carpenter is funny, and if you’re not going to realise that, you’ll become the butt of the joke.
On one hand, Carpenter is specifically laughing at the misogynistic view of her and her desire to be nothing but desired. Each and every song on the album is essentially anti-man. For an album brandished before it was ever released for being subservient and male-gazed, the reality of the record could not laugh at that harder. She spins that ditzy submissive character and turns it back around, singing on ‘Tears’, “I get wet at the thought of you being a responsible guy” and playing the sexualisation of herself back into a demand for men to act right, while the music video continues her tradition of literally killing off badly behaved men in her own cinematic universe.
Carpenter makes it clear, song after song, that she knows how haters see her. She knows how limiting and sexualised that view of her is, but what those same voices seem to fail to hear every time is the way she’s pointing and laughing directly at them, mocking them through this almost drag queen-like caricature of the person they brand her as, singing “humblin’ your ass? Well, that’s some of my best work.”
But bigger than any of that is the way Carpenter laughs at the pop debate at large. “The album is not for any pearl clutchers,” she said on CBS, “But I also think that even pearl clutchers can listen to an album like that in their own solitude and find something that makes them smirk and chuckle to themselves.” To her, Man’s Best Friend is an album to make you laugh, just like Short N’ Sweet was, and just like so music pop music is.
That’s even part of the reason why she chose to release another record so quickly after her last, realising simply that it’s not that deep, and so why should she care about the ‘done thing’ with forcing her fans to wait. “This is just fun.’ And that’s all it has to be,” she said, with that not only summarising her own career, but the entire pop world.
But just because it’s meant to be fun, that doesn’t mean it’s without merit.
Carpenter’s desire to deliver music meant to turn the brain off and merely enjoy and dance to, doesn’t mean that her brain was off when she made it. Any music maker will tell you that it takes talent to create a catchy tune, and whether you love or hate ‘Espresso’, it was guaranteed to be stuck in your head. Stupidity doesn’t buy that, nor does it buy a career like the one Carpenter is forging and will further forge with this new record. A dichotomy exists in pop music, and it is one that Carpenter calls for people to come to terms with; pop music is not that deep, and hating it doesn’t make you more so.
