In early June, Olivia Rodrigo attracted controversy while promoting her newest album, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love. While creating a concert film for Spotify’s Billions Club, she drew unwanted attention to her outfit, rather than her music.
For her performance, Rodrigo donned a babydoll dress, an homage to the punk aesthetic of the 1970s. A seemingly simple choice, the dress triggered backlash due to its childlike appearance. According to Rodrigo’s critics, the dress blurs the boundaries between childish and adult clothing, thus making it inappropriate.
Rodrigo has refuted these claims, stating in an interview with Popcast that the controversy reveals how cultures “normalize pedophilia.” She renounced the “rhetoric” aimed at young women regarding their sexualization: “Don’t wear that because then a man is gonna sexualize your body and it’s your fault.” As an artist, Rodrigo has sung previously about sexist standards in songs such as ‘pretty isn’t pretty’ and ‘all-american bitch’. In the latter, she laments the pressure of having a “perfect all-American” body. As an artist, Rodrigo should be able to focus on her craft, rather than the politics surrounding her appearance.
Put simply: unduly sexualizing women cheapens art. In a series titled “Dirty Minded,” artist Evelina Silver depicts commonly sexualized moments. The series began with an innocent painting of Silver’s friend gazing up at the viewer, a pair of sunglasses on her head. In a video posted to social media, Silver expresses that the painting “can be misinterpreted as something inappropriate” due to the viewer’s angle of the young woman. In her own words, “people projected sexuality onto [the painting], which I guess maybe says more about the way we look at young women than the painting itself.” She goes on to discuss her own fear of being sexualized while performing mundane actions, such as spitting out toothpaste. The painting inspired other women to share similar anxieties and suggest future subject matter for the series.
The “Dirty Minded” series now has a dozen installments, including paintings of women with bruised knees and revealing clothing. The point of Silver’s art is clear: unwanted sexualization occurs frequently, and many actions viewed as “seductive” are not inherently sexual. In daily life, “innocence gets reframed,” especially for young women. Like Rodrigo, Silver attempted to promote her art, yet was condemned for perceived sexuality.
When viewers project sensuality onto artistic choices, creativity suffers. While audience interpretation remains important to art, warped perspectives can be invalid. Audiences’ opinions of Rodrigo’s dress or Silver’s paintings are driven not by curiosity, but by a desire to stifle young women. Close-minded opinions regarding art taint the viewing experience—the audience’s focus shifts from Rodrigo’s or Silver’s talents to their supposed sexuality.
In an age of silencing and shrinking women, audiences must continue to support female artists. Instead of sexualizing art, audiences must strive to consider their own biases surrounding sexuality, allowing mundanity to remain asexual. When art is perverted, the artist loses power over her creativity and becomes subjugated to projections of sexuality. Because audiences can change the fate of art, audiences must accept feminine creativity with no presuppositions of sexuality.
Gabby Woehr is a young writer and student. She has participated in the Adroit Journal Mentorship and been exhibited by the Scholastic Writing Awards. She is a daily writer at The DePauw Newspaper and lives in Indianapolis.
