Sabrina Carpenter: Another Disney darling gone to the devil?

I remember her best from "Girl Meets World," the delayed sequel to the Disney classic "Boy Meets World."

I was 11 years old and the 15-year-old girl on my TV named Sabrina Carpenter seemed like the pinnacle of cool — and the epitome of beauty.

When Carpenter’s music video for her single 'Feather' dropped, the outfits were predictably risqué. What I wasn't prepared for was how gory and violent it all was.

I was hooked. I followed her career from Disney to her Netflix movies to her music. I knew all the words to her debut single and listened to the hits from every album release.

Full 'Send'

When I first heard her 2022 album “Emails I Can’t Send,” I was shocked at the contrast with her previous work. The music was catchy, the range of emotion was palpable, and the lyrics had the perfect mix of relatable and made-for-screaming-in-the-car-with-your-girls.

It was instantly on repeat in my car. After that, I was anxiously awaiting the next album.

In the meantime, she was receiving accolades for her style: a throwback, old Hollywood glamour reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe. Her hair was always impossibly perfect, her outfits — while provocative — were ultra-feminine. In an era of androgynous pop stars, the way Carpenter leaned into her womanhood was a breath of fresh air.

Disney detachment syndrome

But just before the release of her 2024 chart-topper, “Short n’ Sweet,” I started to notice something change. Sabrina’s image began evolving in the all-too-familiar edgy way that we have come to expect from ex-Disney girls.

In her case, the transformation was particularly disturbing.

When Carpenter’s music video for her single “Feather” dropped, the outfits were predictably risqué. What I wasn't prepared for was how gory and violent it all was. I can’t lie, I was shocked.

The upbeat, cheerful music is paired with a montage of men being run over, beaten bloody, and killed by an elevator. I’m not squeamish, I just don’t understand how that vibes with her girly-pop music genre.

Edgy is as edgy does, I guess.

Altar crawl

The blood spatter was not the most concerning thing, however. In the video's climax, Carpenter attends what is supposed go be a funeral for these men filmed in an actual Catholic church in Brooklyn. Wearing a lace veil and a skimpy black dress, Carpenter gyrates before the altar, which is flanked by a number of pastel coffins.

The pastor who approved the video shoot was demoted and the church reconsecrated.

But that’s not where Carpenter's interest in Christian imagery stops.

When she performed at Coachella this year, she wore an oversized white T-shirt that said “Jesus was a carpenter too.” Both she and her boyfriend, Barry Keoghan, can also be seen wearing a cross necklace in her “Please Please Please” music video.

'Taste' for violence

Her latest music video, “Taste,” indulges in even more violence, this time graphic enough to require a parental advisory. Carpenter and actress Jenna Ortega are impaled, stabbed in the eye, electrocuted, tortured with a voodoo doll, burned alive, stabbed again, dismembered, strangled, and murdered with a chainsaw. In that order.

Don’t worry, they make up at the end while at the funeral of the boy they were fighting over.

For a performer who has come to represent retro femininity with her blown-out, bombshell blonde locks and her fabulously girlish outfits, this detour into gore and anti-Christian mockery comes as a bit of a surprise. It could be for shock and awe, or it could be a sign of something more sinister.

X-spresso

While I generally advise mindful consumption, I’m also not one to assume evil intentions in an artist. Carpenter's trajectory from seemingly wholesome entertainer to shameless provocateur, however, is all too familiar. Lil Nas X — who began his career appealing to a young audience only evolve into a literal stripper for the devil — comes to mind.

Maybe if the audience at large had paid closer attention to the warning signs, we could’ve caught that sooner. It seemed so innocuous in the beginning.

I’m not writing off Sabrina Carpenter just yet. It could be that the Disney detachment syndrome is rearing its head as she tries to build her own brand. The pendulum tends to swing too far for the Disney girls, and sometimes they calm down and go on to have perfectly normal careers (Zendaya, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Hilary Duff).

Or she could take a darker turn. Moms, be on the lookout. We just have to wait and see.