Sabrina Carpenter’s Feminine Swagger

Carpenter’s vision of womanhood isn’t swaddled in sepia toned sadness; it’s covered in bright pink confetti.

Discussed: Sabrina Carpenter, Lana Del Rey, Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth, Mae West, Samantha Jones, Doja Cat, Chappell Roan, sad girls, femme fatales, pop music, nostalgia

Her album may be called, “Short n’ Sweet” but in the candy-colored cinematic universe of Sabrina Carpenter, femininity is as big and bold as it gets. Carpenter’s music videos scream playful sensuality. In “Espresso” the runaway summer hit that helped catapult her recent success, we watch as Sabrina and her friends are fanned by hunks who turn away discreetly to avoid seeing any flashes of nudity they shouldn’t. With the help of the credit card that she steals from an ardent admirer, Sabrina and her friends enjoy a day of pampered delights, as they receive massages, eat ice cream, ogle attractive men, and dance in sunshine. In the end, when she’s arrested for her criminal behavior, she pouts for a moment before flashing her viewers a wink and a smile.

This effervescent vision of old school Hollywood glamour feels like an exciting counterpoint to the sad girl brand of 20^th century nostalgia that has dominated airwaves since Lana Del Rey emerged on the musical scene. Unlike Del Rey, Carpenter’s vision of womanhood isn’t swaddled in sepia toned sadness; it’s covered in bright pink confetti.

This is especially apparent in footage from her Short n’ Sweet tour, which opens with a ‘60s retro cartoon character version of herself welcoming audience members to “The Short n Sweet Show” before shifting to footage of the real Sabrina Carpenter luxuriating in a bubble bath. She smiles, blows bubbles, and winks at the camera, before the voiceover reminds her that she is forgetting she needs to be on stage. The screen rises and we watch as a panicked Carpenter races on stage in a bath towel only to coyly reveal a glamourous outfit underneath. The show is interspersed with retro advertisements that can also be found throughout her websites, offering audiences “Oasis Fans” for those who want to stay inside and a number to call the “Honeybee Hotline” if you can’t sleep.

Carpenter’s over-the-top performance of femininity has a vaudeville quality that is sexy, campy, and constantly breaking the 4^th wall. Her influences are varied: Carpenter’s persona combines the softness of Marilyn Monroe in Some Like it Hot and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the brazen sexuality of Sex and the City’s Samantha Jones, the flirtatious hair flip of Rita Hayworth in Gilda, and, of course, the curtain bangs of Brigitte Bardot.Her sassy one-liners rival Mae West for their delectable humor, from her hilariously sexually explicit outros at the end of “Nonsense” to the way she coos, “The ceiling fan is so nice,” while warning her boyfriend to stay inside and out of trouble in “Please Please Please.” She even offers a seductive threat to an ex’s new lover in “Taste,” purring, “You’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissing you.”

It's Carpenter’s metacommentary that makes her an interesting counterpoint to a moment when girliness is seen as synonymous with being a “bimbo.” Her “twisted humor” (as she herself calls it in “Espresso”) infuses her frothy pop hits with wry intelligence. Carpenter’s campy vision of the coquette is beloved not just because the aesthetic is beautiful but because it offers a world where femininity is both fun and powerful.    

Certainly, Carpenter isn’t the only female pop star who embraces unabashed girliness. You could argue that Ariana Grande, similarly petite and doe eyed, has also built a career winking at the camera, but even when her videos embrace parody, her style is to pout sexily, rather than flash a knowing smile. And Taylor Swift also includes moments of silliness into her act, but her songs are always safely self-deprecating when they play with dark humor. Carpenter’s approach is a little more subversive— she has an edginess that endears precisely because it deliberately butts up against her blond bombshell image. In many ways, her act has more in common with performers like Doja Cat and Chappell Roan, who also infuse their work with a raw theatricality that feels fresh precisely because it’s so funny.  

Unlike Katy Perry, whose latest album felt like a repeat of what earlier artists (including herself) have done better, Carpenter’s ascent is a reminder that star power doesn’t come from simply remixing nostalgic images, but in creating something unique out of them. In fact, one of the other reasons that Carpenter has been so successful is because she comes across as incredibly authentic, so much so that even her commercials are a pleasure to watch. In her add for the 2024 Olympics, Carpenter banters with a cartoon bird while drinking too many cups of coffee. She laughs hysterically while a waitress confides to another in French that, “I think she’s had too much espresso.” In another ad for Redken, Carpenter shows off her iconic curtain bangs to the viewer, while introducing herself saucily. “I’m Sabrina Carpenter, and I know a thing or two about a great bang” she says before flashing her now iconic million-watt smile.