BAD FEMINISM
Our reaction to Sabrina Carpenter’s new album cover says a lot more about us than it does about her.
Sexy AF. Hot. Damaging. Dangerous. Degrading. Genius. Depends who you ask.
We’ve spent so long being spoon-fed media that’s neat, literal, and moral-to-go, we’ve kind of forgotten how to sit with something provocative without needing it to explain itself.
But if you've been paying attention to her meteoric rise over the last 18 months, listened with intent to any of her lyrics, or seen a glimpse of her on your FYP, you know the following to be true:
Sabrina plays the object with a smirk, winks at you while she does it, and then kicks the whole idea square in the you-know-whats💥
Then…there’s Bonnie Blue.
She really tests the limits of how much feminism the internet can handle. Bonnie does the wink and the smirk part, but the objectification sticks, and so do the critiques.
And the public doesn’t just critique her, we reject her entirely. She’s not glossy. It doesn’t feel ironic. Nobody approves this. It’s loud, messy (literally 💦), and in-your-face.
If Sabrina’s album art is satire in a studio, Bonnie’s proposed petting zoo performance is the raw, live-streamed version - and people hate it.
And honestly, I don’t love it either. I’m no prude, but I can’t shake this feeling that there’s something cold, empty and just really, really sad about Bonnie Blue.
But I don’t feel that way about Sabrina, and I’m not sure why.
Which makes me feel like a bit of a bad feminist. But maybe that’s the whole point - there’s no right way to react to any of this 🤷🏼
Is it because Carpenter’s performance is ironic, curated, and subversive; whereas Blue’s is chaotic, unfiltered, and a bit “too much”?
Is it because Carpenter plays with suggestion, whilst Blue makes the subtext literal?
Who is “worse” for feminism? The industry-approved sexpot with mainstream influence over impressionable young girls and boys (or adults for that matter), who don’t have the critical thinking skills to read between the lines? Or the unpolished sexpot without the mainstream influence and (likely) no real staying power in terms of cultural relevance.
I think what we’re really arguing about is what it means to be a feminist in 2025 - and who’s allowed to wear the title. Because whilst Carpenter’s carefully controlled “badness” is debated; Blue’s uncurated extremity is punished. But in both cases our reaction reveals how deeply moral panic around sex, especially female-performed and unapologetically public sexuality, still runs.
IMO - Sabrina and Bonnie are two sides of the same coin, and our reactions to them reveal all the uncomfortable ways we still measure “good” vs. “bad" feminism.
Maybe it’s time we admit we’re all just doing our best - messy, contradictory, brilliant - and stop pretending there’s only one right way to be empowered.
Sometimes it’s art. Sometimes it’s subversion. Sometimes it’s both. But that discomfort? That’s the point.
This piece first appeared in Excessive Consumption - a weekly dispatch on culture, branding, politics and whatever other modern internet brain rot the algorithm has emotionally assigned me that week.
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