What Does it Mean to be a “Man's Best friend?”

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Man's Best Friend album cover. Image credit: Sabrina Carpenter, 2025



"HEY MEN!"


    A woman kneels at the foot of a suited figure, her hair pulled upwards by the figure in front of her. She wears a short black dress with matching black pumps. The woman’s face is turned to the camera/audience, but her body points forward in interest of the figure holding her. Her expression is one of a mischievous nature mixed with some sort of “seduction.”  Despite being held by her hair, it would appear that she is the one in control of the situation.

     This image is the album cover for Sabrina Carpenter’s most recent album, Man's Best Friend. Prior to the album, Sabrina Carpenter released the featured single, the song “Manchild,” on June 5th. The album cover was released along with the full album announcement on June 11th, 2025. However, the public’s initial response to this album verged more on the negative side, as many saw that the message Sabrina was conveying with her advertisement was the subordination of women in relationships. Many viewed her marketing and storytelling as a very conservative view and promotion of “traditional” relationships between men and women. This main debate started through social media (as it usually does), but in particular, the debate was spiraling through TikTok:


video credit: kiraghmarlentz on TikTok, published June 12th 2025

(some of the comments under this post)

                                                                                                                                 


    From assessing the album BEFORE the full release, the reactions of the public were basically trying to deduce if this concept was meant to be satirical or if it was promoting traditional relationship stereotypes. Her position in the picture: she’s on all fours, kneeling before the man in this submissive pose. This image, in correlation with the album name (“Man’s Best friend”), implies that Sabrina is the man’s companion. Meaning her subordination is just where she wants to be, there for his command. This was the interpretation most critics and fans perceived. Words described her album concept as “regressive,” “degrading,” and that this was a “troubling” marketing campaign for her work. However, without the full release of the album, it was easier to make more interpretations of the overall message she was trying to convey. Once the album was actually released, public opinion switched. By listening to the album, examining the music videos, and even watching her live performances, the message becomes much clearer that she was not trying to promote the regression of feminism. The album’s title can be connected to the original satirical idea that she tried to promote without context. In a way, she writes about her experiences with men, and therefore some of the songs on the album almost serve as “guidelines” or instructions for men on how to correctly treat a woman romantically. The album is the man’s perfect instrument to treat a woman, a literal “best friend.” Listeners can comprehend that Man's Best Friend provides a satirical take on modern-day relationships that also includes freedom of feminine sexual expression. 



video credit: v1sf0rv4mp1re, published November 17th 2025.
(Video was published AFTER full album release. Below are comments on this video)

















    In Marianne Weber’s “Authority and Autonomy in Marriage,” she discusses how authority and autonomy form principles of romantic relationships between men and women. Within the categories of authority and autonomy are the corresponding sub-categories: Primitive patriarchalism and legally protected predominance (authority), and Freedom of conscience and Life partnership (autonomy). In particular, I wanted to focus on the ideal of a form principle and authority. Primitive patriarchy is the idea of what could be labeled as a relationship of “absolute power” (Weber 86). The traditional housewife centers on obedient traits. Women were forced to stay home and take care of the kids while their husbands worked. The woman becomes the man’s property because of the socially constructed idea of men's superiority. Tradition, consisting of this primitive patriarchal structure, normalized the inferiority of women to men in relationships to the point of restriction in feminine freedom of speech. The women's rights campaign has been a long and continuous movement, so the thought of moving backwards and losing progress is frightening. It is easy to claim we have moved away from tradition, but the topic of feminine expression is still scrutinized. The fear that Sabrina’s portrayal is a step back to this tradition is fueling these perspectives, as it partially revolves around promoting a step back, or the opposite of being too crude a portrayal.
    This idea of a form principle could explain the way there were different perspectives on the satirical nature pre-release. Marianne claims that the further we progress as a society and move away from this idea of an original structure, there becomes a shift in morals based on changing principles; “Every great cultural age has formed and built on this original structure, and everywhere, namely, in the same fundamental direction. Wherever civilization grew, the aspiration grew as well to somehow protect the woman from the barbaric arbitrariness of the husband” (Weber 87). First impressions of the album and its marketing revolved around the fear that, as a society, we would regress back to the norm of women's obedience in relationships. If a celebrity, especially one who has a large feminine fan base (such as Sabrina), is advocating for the subordination of women, then it should be a worry that regression could happen. The context of expression coming with the full release gives the album comprehension as an extension of women’s free speech rather than advocating for women’s suppression. Sabrina’s enthusiastic transparency about her sexuality as a woman in her art encourages comfort and normalization of thoughts previously suppressed due to primitive patriarchy.






​

References

Weber, M., & Bermingham, C. R. (2003). Authority and Autonomy in Marriage: Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Sociological Theory, 21(2), 85–102. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9558.00179


The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (2025, October 21). What was the controversy surrounding Sabrina Carpenter’s 2025 album Man’s Best Friend, and how did she respond?. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/question/What-was-the-controversy-surrounding-Sabrina-Carpenters-2025-album-Mans-Best-Friend-and-how-did-she-respond


Comstock, F. (2025, October 21). Sabrina Carpenter. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sabrina-Carpenter











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