Pop star Sabrina Carpenter is drawing criticism from some over her new album cover, but on Thursday morning, the hosts of “The View” pushed back against those critics.
Carpenter’s new album is called “Man’s Best Friend,” and the cover art shows her on all fours at a man’s feet while he uses her hair like a leash. Some fans have decried the image as insensitive, given the precarious status of women’s rights in the country right now, while others simply argued that it “set us back about five decades.”
“Oh, boo-hoo! It sounds like the ’90s to complain about an album cover,” Alyssa Farah Griffin said. “They’re always provocative, you want to grab people’s eyes.”
Farah Griffin noted that she is a big Sabrina Carpenter fan herself, and pointed out that Carpenter’s actual lyrics are “all about women’s empowerment” and often mock men who deserve it.
“It reminds me of like Britney Spears in the ’90s, like ‘You shouldn’t be wearing that!’” Farah Griffin added. “Like, are we still doing that?”
For host Sara Haines, the “important distinction” in the image is that Carpenter is choosing to pose in such a manner herself. The autonomy there, combined with her lyrics, keeps her firmly in power, Haines argued, agreeing that album covers are meant to make people look.
“It’s more that you stop, not what you think of it,” she said.
Meanwhile, moderator Whoopi Goldberg admitted that the album cover reminded her of a very specific scene from “Spinal Tap,” which you can watch below.
“The girl is doing her thing, god bless her,” Whoopi added.
That said, the ABC moderator did offer up how she would’ve approached the concept, which made one audience member very audibly lose it.
“If you’re down there, you bite,” Whoopi said. “I mean, because you want to look like an angry dog. If you’re gonna be a dog on all fours, look like you’re not enjoying it!”
“The View” airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET on ABC.
