Relax, Sabrina Carpenter’s album cover is just savvy publicity

Art is by nature subject to criticism. But a woman’s art – especially if it involves the artist posing on all fours like a sexy labradoodle – is subject to endless questions, including that hardy perennial: is this feminist enough?

Sabrina Carpenter, the Disney protege turned popstar with innuendo-laden hits such as Espresso and Please Please Please, has released the cover image for her new album, Man’s Best Friend, and it has sent the internet barking mad.

It shows Carpenter in doggy pose, a man yanking her along by her blond hair. The domestic violence charity Glasgow Women’s Aid has said: “It’s a throwback to tired tropes that reduce women to pets.” While well intentioned, I’m sure, it does assume the 26-year-old pop puppet now has an extra job on her CV: the representative of all women.

Carpenter’s only crime is that the image is a tad derivative, a bit boring, making me think of the line in The Holdovers, “Each generation thinks it invented debauchery.” Carpenter is doing nothing Madonna didn’t in her 1992 Sex book. Like Nicole Kidman in Babygirl, it is trying to be edgy but is too bland to get het up about.

Who knows whether Carpenter is being satirical, referencing Janet Jackson and Madonna or alerting us to the power she holds in being the one who decides her cover image – even if it is one of apparent submission. Or perhaps she had sciatica and was stretching her back.

A woman’s public sexuality is not always for the male gaze – although in this case the male gaze may rather enjoy it. To uphold every woman in the public eye as a beacon for feminist virtue is always going to be an exercise in disappointment.

If Sabrina Carpenter wants to lean into being a sex symbol, that’s fine by me. My hunch is that this is a smart strategy. If you were unaware that she had an album coming out, well, you know now. Forget man’s best friend, Carpenter’s best friend is controversy.