When I found out that Sabrina Carpenter is both starring in and producing a new Alice in Wonderland movie, I immediately was thinking this film may outperform even Wicked at the box office. My thinking is that, as amazing as Ariana Grande is, Sabrina is at such crazy heights of fame at the moment AND Alice in Wonderland is a LOT more popular than Wicked. I also personally wasn’t that big of a fan of the Wicked movie… and I’m a HUGE Ariana Grande fan. I feel like Sabrina will be such an iconic Alice that this film could be one of the biggest in a LONG time. 

At first, I didn’t realize that the same producer as Wicked was involved, but that makes so much sense. And with how over the top Sabrina’s performances tend to be, it’s going to be memorable in any case! The music festival theme sounds like a banger to me, and definitely something that Sabrina herself would pitch. She knows what works for her, which apparently is working for everyone right now, so why not capitalize on the absurdity of the moment? 

On that note, I’d say the music festival gone wild and surreal is the perfect setting for Sabrina’s Alice because, honestly, that’s kind of what Sabrina knows best. She knows all about the grind of working in a corporate entertainment culture; she’s been at it since she was a teenager, after all. This is one of the most perfect examples of “write what you know” working out to be a career-defining moment in the making.

I think the reason I adore Sabrina so much is, like me, she is constantly poking fun at all the absurdity we surround ourselves with constantly. I wrote a series of essays called Chronicles of Absurdia over the past couple years, with this idea in mind. But while I was trying to intellectualize just why this absurdity is allowed to continue, Sabrina has taken the absurdity head-on and made it the key to her success! 

I’ll be honest, ‘Espresso’ is among my least favorite of her songs, not because there’s anything wrong with it, per se. But her other songs, especially on Short N Sweet, have a lot more to say. I think if any recent music video is the epitome of Sabrina’s ability to inhabit her own version of Absurdia in which she’s in control of the narrative, that’s Manchild. I honestly think that song, despite its relative success, was underrated and underappreciated. The music video could’ve been its own feature film if it were developed… but that’s kind of the point, right? It’s not meant to be a full-length feature, because who has the attention span for that anymore, huh?

Also, for all the haters out there of my ‘Brina Boo, I don’t think that anyone can fully appreciate Sabrina’s work unless they ARE in on the joke. I think that’s why some people are so resistant to her sudden success. They simply don’t realize that satire and sarcasm are features, not bugs. Some people seem to want to take everything Sabrina does at face value, and you simply cannot do that. So, yes, the execs are definitely in on the joke; it’s their job to be fully aware and cognizant of what is happening in the moment to be able to chart a course forward, after all, to know what is most resonant. Yes, sometimes there are misjudgments, differences of opinion, and unexpected circumstances and occurrences that make projects falter and even bomb. But, yes, they are backing the hottest star on the planet right now… 

On a related note, funny enough, Taylor Swift’s Life of a Showgirl has been a massive hit and most people are still focusing on the title track that SABRINA is a part of… and yes, I think Taylor knew that this would happen. I get the sense that Sabrina is who Taylor always wished she could be. Her and Taylor are very similar in some ways, they’re both extremely theatrical performers, but where as Taylor is the exemplar singer/songwriter of her generation, Sabrina is a one-of-a-kind talent who was underappreciated for far too long, and Tay giving her the exposure of the Eras Tour was what finally catapulted Sabrina into the spotlight. And I think Tay is perfectly content with playing cultural second-fiddle to her decade-younger peer for the moment. Sabrina is going to be the Taylor Swift of Gen Z (she is literally Tay’s protege), and I think if this Alice film succeeds like I think it will, she may end up surpassing Taylor in some ways. I always saw Taylor going into musical films, and somehow, Sabrina beat her to it!

It’s important for me to point out that while it seems like Sabrina is all Aesthetics, she is a much more clever writer than people credit her to be. Yes, she works with other songwriters constantly, but this is part of her whole brand strategy. She seems to me to be a very low-key person behind the scenes. She’s fine being in the spotlight, as she’s been all her life, but she rarely takes credit for anything besides the original idea and performance. In the end, for her, it’s all a team effort. It’s actually very similar to the route that Taylor has taken, although Taylor takes full credit for her own lyrics (as she should). 

Sabrina, in my view, is more of a “big idea” sort of gal, and she leaves the specifics of hook-writing to the industry experts like Amy Allen while she crafts the narrative behind them and manages everything conceptually on a much deeper Philosophical and Critical level than people are seemingly aware of, leaving the Rhetoric to those she feels better suited to the particulars.

I don’t think it’s fair to compare my girls Chappell or Billie to Sabrina, because Brina has such a very different past than they do. Those two are both full-time musicians. Sabrina is not; she is primarily an entertainer who happens to be very good at music, but she’s the ultimate multimedia pop star in an age that has propelled her to superstardom. Billie and Chappell have their strengths, most definitely, and Chappell has proven to be quite theatrical herself. But my view is that this is Sabrina’s stage now and everyone else is just guest starring in her world. Sort of like how Taylor Swift gained the nickname ‘The Music Industry’ and that’s actually still true, Sabrina has become the ultimate IT GIRL in capital letters that are flashing in every neon color imaginable. Somehow, Sabrina has transcended both the Disney machine that “made” her and even the Music Industry itself. She is, for lack of a better word, a pop goddess that has no comparable.

[And if she wins multiple Emmys for her work on the Muppet Show, that’s going to be another major win for her!]

Taylor is marrying Travis Kelce, Sabrina is married to her work. Taylor is very much still “The Music Industry” and still has 4 tracks in the top 20 of the Hot 100 right now (mid November 2025). Sabrina’s “Man’s Best Friend” has done well enough, but unlike Taylor, Sabrina’s eyes are on the biggest stage, which is a musical blockbuster. Taylor, I’m sure, is more than happy to let Sabrina have her moment. The Eras Tour took a lot out of Tay, and it’s not like she won’t have her own musical movie in the future… We already know Taylor is a talented director, but she doesn’t feel like she has to ride the wave like Sabrina feels like she needs to… fortunately both of them are already legendary at this point. 

I sometimes believe that Sabrina underestimates herself, Taylor has always been pretty sure of herself. Tay doesn’t NEED an Alice in Wonderland film because she’s already on top in Music. [Although in 2026, Ella Langley would make a major step forward and dominate the charts, deservedly.] Sabrina wants to dominate as a true dual-threat, Music and Film. And if we’re right, and her Alice is bigger than Wicked, she will be truly at the top of the whole industry and there’s no going back from there.

I have felt that Sabrina is just what our world needs right now; someone who shines so brightly that she sets a new higher standard for pop culture, something that is desperately needed right now. Let the money people make their profits; the real value here is Sabrina converting herself into a cultural institution. And people underestimate her intelligence and self-awareness constantly, and Sabrina uses this to her advantage. Sabrina is an architect just like Taylor, but unlike Tay, Sabrina is in a place where she has a sort of momentum like we haven’t seen since… Sabrina may end up redefining the “musical movie” forever. 

… I often conflate the metaphysical with what should’ve been a grounded argument. This often happens when I shove together ideas from two very different arenas of thought and I never fully reconcile them. I’m beginning to understand why many people might seem to get confused by my writing. I have all these big ideas that I’m circling consistently, but I tend to jam puzzle pieces together and the fraying edges are left too visible for the layperson to get tangled up in, I suppose. 

… I find it amazing that one conversation from the Sublime podcast (which included the ABCD critique and pointing out many of the issues with using AI improperly for writing) and Anna Corinne continually mentioning Henrik Karlsson essays on her WIld Geese podcast has changed the entire direction of my creative work. I finally discovered not just a throughline, which the CRAP framework helped me achieve, but also a very specific focus that works with my existing process and refines all the glaring imperfections into something very straightforward that gets at the heart of my own original thought process.