Worldwide pop icon Sabrina Carpenter’s latest album was released on August 29th. Since then, Man’s Best Friend has secured its spot as one of the biggest albums of the year. It’s 2025’s largest debut of any female artist on Spotify, and Amazon Music’s most-streamed pop album of 2025. These accomplishments were unsurprising to many, as this has been one of the most highly anticipated albums as of late. Her lead single “Manchild” spent several weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 Chart in the US, as well as finding international success in the United Kingdom. Glitzy disco-pop and 1970s influences bring a light, airy, and fun vibe to the singer’s seventh studio album. Carpenter’s recent Instagram Live explicitly stated that ABBA, Donna Summer, and Dolly Parton were some of her main inspirations. Despite these fan-favorites, and the adoration of many of her previous albums, Man’s Best Friend has sparked intense controversy and heated debates between listeners.
It’s no secret that Sabrina Carpenter has built much of her music platform around an audacious, provocative style in the past. Explicit lyrics and not-so-subtle innuendos are just as prevalent now as they have been throughout her entire career. However, many people feel that this time she’s taken it too far. The Man’s Best Friend album cover was especially inflammatory, featuring Sabrina kneeling at the feet of a faceless man holding her hair, evoking the image of a dog and owner. Sexual themes are also distinctly present in most tracks on the album. Many of the songs contain lyrics degrading Carpenter herself, as well as women in general. It’s unclear to many whether she’s walking the line between satire and self-expression, or flaunting her willingness to demean herself and undermine significant feminist messages.
Much of the controversy surrounding Man’s Best Friend stems from its blunt, somewhat startling imagery. Viewers said that the album cover was degrading, anti-feminist, and “setting back” women everywhere. In the current political climate of America, there are many challenges surrounding female liberty, rights, and esteem. The cover, though arguably satirical, is easily misinterpreted as an endorsement of the sexism many Americans believe the country is regressing into. Hadley Haroza (‘28) says, “I think it’s extremely harmful that her fans peg her as a feminist icon even though she has done literally nothing to uphold herself as a feminist besides being a man-hater, which, at the end of the day is still centralizing men in her life.” Male centralization is definitely a prevailing pattern in Man’s Best Friend. Despite the album’s obvious sexual themes, with songs like ‘Never Getting Laid” and “When Did You Get Hot?”, a lot of the content could be viewed through a second lens of female oppression. Some lyrics seem to make excuses for the “manchildren” in her life, like in “My Man on Willpower”: “He’s busy, he’s workin’, he doesn’t have time for me,” or Manchild: “Why so s*xy if so dumb? And how survive the Earth so long? If I’m not there, it won’t get done, I choose to blame your mom.” Others seem to demean her in the face of men, like these lyrics in Go Go Juice: “Ring, ring, ring, yeah, it’s super important, (How many shots in an ounce?), I might have double vision, but that is irrelevant right now, (Answer me, baby, um, are you in town?).” All of these lyrics are samples of the controversial album, which seems to put men and sex on the forefront in a somewhat uncomfortable way.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who argue against the critics. They claim that the album is an obvious satire of modern dating culture, even going so far as to call it feminist. The takeaway from the album for these supporters is the story of a woman in the 21st century, searching for companionship and being consistently thwarted by the lazy, dumb, clueless, and insufficient men in her life. Though the underlying patriarchal themes of the album are hard to ignore, is it fair to blame Carpenter for the system of female sexuality which has been built around youth and submissiveness? They believe that Carpenter’s comfort with her sexuality and critique of her male partners gives the album a feminist message, and the degrading undertones are simply the imaginings of an anti-feminist audience, not Carpenter herself. As one internet user, saramics.pottery, put it, “I think Sabrina’s goal is to make good art about her experiences and that her experiences are extremely reflective of the predicaments facing women in the US…her sexuality doesn’t exist in a vacuum it exists within malicious, violent, patriarchy, so what we see in her music are conflicting desires to … destroy men, be desired by men, and frustration that men won’t just be better.” In summary, the music seems to reflect Carpenter’s personal experiences, and those will be inherently linked to the patriarchy in an uncontrollable (and potentially uncomfortable) way regardless.
There are clearly two sides to the story of Sabrina Carpenter’s latest work and the impact it’s had on today’s culture. However, it also goes without saying that Man’s Best Friend could easily live in some kind of grey area between the two. Another Southwest student, Cameron Tibbits (‘28), says, “I think [the album] is inappropriate at times, but I also think it’s fun and playful…It brings a side to music that we don’t always see.” This is a good summary of many people’s feelings. A piece of art should be allowed to exist in the world without being labeled feminist or anti-feminist, as it so often is when produced by a female figure. It’s also worth keeping in mind that the most anti-feminist course of action would be expecting Carpenter to censor her sexuality and self-expression to blend in with the oppressive patriarchal norms of our time. Despite this, a case could be made for labeling the release of the album untimely and irresponsible. Polarized political parties and intense overall tension is clearly not going to be the most welcoming atmosphere for a provocative, semi-satirical spark such as this one. Carpenter knew this and chose to release it anyways, fully aware that it would undoubtedly be taken poorly by many. She had a right to do so, but must also accept the backlash that comes with it.
At the end of the day, it is virtually impossible to untangle the web of female sexuality and patriarchy that this album exists in, and thus impossible to ever definitively conclude a “correct” side to this controversy. The album may very well be both anti-feminist and feminist, man-hating and man-promoting, and other paradoxical (but sincere) feelings that exist in the modern dating sphere. Nonetheless, it is important to analyze albums and controversies like this, because they provide a window into the deeply woven social norms and opinions that make up our society, complexities that are crucial to explore. We may never know the true intent behind Carpenter’s latest album, but we can continue to explore the themes that she so boldly presented to the world today.
