Alright, "Driver's Licence" has become the most played song and, thanks to TikTok, Olivia Rodrigo's success on Spotify is something that they "have never seen anything like this" before. (https://uproxx.com/pop/spotify-olivia-rodrigo-drivers-license-success/)
Obviously, the song is a hit, and rightfully so. The lyrics are emotive and meaningful and the instruments create a whimsical yet powerful sound.
But the real success has come from the so-called drama BEHIND the song. Joshua Bassett breaking Olivia Rodrigo's heart by moving on with "that blonde girl" (which has pretty much been confirmed to be Sabrina Carpenter) has led to major support for the 17 year old as she has her first heart break. Although funnily enough, the fact that all three Artists came out with songs about the situation within a few weeks of each other seems all too good to be true.
Aside from the fact that this has been one of the best PR stunts pulled in recent times, something about this "drama" doesn't sit right with me.
Why, in 2021, are we continuing to pit the women of a love triangle against one another? Sabrina Carpenter, despite not posting publicly about her relationship with Joshua, has been labelled as the enemy and "homewrecker", despite a somewhat flawless reputation that she had built for herself for years now.
Somehow, this feud has become more about the tension between Olivia and Sabrina than Olivia and Joshua.
If anyone is at fault, wouldn't it be the boy who screwed her over? Who made promises that he didn't keep? If we are taking this drama as factual, why has the focus been placed on possible tension between Olivia and Sabrina, rather than the boy who the song is truly about?
The media love a good cat fight and to pit women against each other. This feud is a literal carbon copy of drama that went down with the early 2000s stars of Disney with Lindsay Lohan and Hillary Duff feuding over Aeron Carter.
And it's always the women who get the worse end of the stick in media coverage. More recently, speculated tension between Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton was seen in all of the tabloids for attention. This trope in entertainment media has been played out time and time again and it really needs to stop. How many times are the media going to use this sexist, female focused drama before we look at the repercussions that it has on girls in their lives?
How can "girls support girls" when this is the media that we are constantly consuming?
But like I say, this situation seems a little too slick to be anything other than a PR stunt for all of the artists to benefit from. Maybe, despite so much negative attention, this situation has made Sabrina's reaction song "Skin" far more successful than it otherwise would have been on the back of "Driver's Licence". Even so, we've seen this story play out time and time again in the media and it disappoints me that we haven't moved on from this sexist mentality yet.
We are once again promoting to young girls and fans of these artists that women should be competing with one another for a man's attention rather than holding men accountable for their actions.
It's the media's misogyny for me.
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