Olivia Rodrigo is Trying Very Hard to Grow Up. I Think We Should Let Her.
Because acting like girlhood is forever is Taylor Swift's schtick.
Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS Era reads like an experiment. Every move she’s made since the release of her second studio album works toward shedding all of the expectations she’s had to carry thus far.
Rodrigo’s core fans are a group of children, tweens and teens that have idolized her every move since she graced their TV screens as a child actor on the Disney Channel show Bizaardvark. The feral, obsessive energy of these young fans is as frenetic as it is puritanical: though they go to war for her, they also place the heavy burden of the Disney brand’s squeaky-clean reputation on her.
And now Rodrigo, a 21 year-old woman who has grown up faster than most people during her attempts at becoming the biggest pop star in the world, is ready to let them go.
As an album, GUTS is a rugged attempt at growing up: Rodrigo stumbles through the heartbreak, embarrassment and shame that comes with the transition from teendom to adulthood with a measured amount of rebelliousness.
On the first track of the album, which is aptly-named “all-american bitch,” and acts an anthemic examination of the challenges presented to women transitioning from adolescence to adulthood, Rodrigo boldly proclaims “I know my age / And I act like it.” The line rings out loudly, and seems like an attempt at preemptively addressing much of the criticism that has been lobbed at her since this album’s release.
Yet, I still refer to this album as an attempt at rebelliousness because there are moments on it where she fails to truly commit to the bit.
She vaguely references her sexuality without being explicit in her lyrics, choosing to omit raunchier remarks about boys and her body. On the studio version of the song “all-american bitch,” she sings “I'm a perfect all-American bitch / With perfect all-American lips / And perfect all-American hips,” instead of using the raunchier version “With perfect all-American lips / And perfect all-American tits” that she sometimes pulls out for her live shows. And on the wide-release of her deluxe track “obsessed,” she swaps out the more sexually-explicit line “Is she friends with your friends? / Does she give great head?” for a tamer version: “Is she friends with your friends? / Is she good in bed?”
All of these toned-down changes point to a real sense of trepidation from Rodrigo and her team on their decision to push children out of her fanbase. The album is not a massive “fuck off and leave me alone.” Instead, it delivers a much simpler warning to her younger fans: “I am no longer for you.”
On this album, she also showcases a real desire to break away from the confines of her youthfulness. On songs like “teenage dream,” she explores the ways her success as an artist has been devalued based on her age: “When am I gonna stop being wise beyond my years and just start being wise? / When am I gonna stop being a pretty young thing to guys? / When am I gonna stop being great for my age and just start being good? / When will it stop being cool to be quietly misunderstood?”
If the GUTS album is a treatise on Rodrigo’s desire to break free from her child star past, then the GUTS tour is her attempt at actually doing it. On the tour, she gains the confidence necessary to effectively enforce the boundaries regarding her artistic persona that she draws on the studio album. Thus far, she’s taken risks while on the road that place her out of the Disney conversation entirely.
Even before she chooses to take the stage every night, Rodrigo’s opening act, Chappell Roan, creates a thoroughly-adult ambience within each venue. Roan is the up-and-coming pop star behind the debut album “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.” At 26 years-old, Roan’s music is filled with empowered, brazen nods to her sexual exploration. With lyrics like “Knee deep in the passenger seat / As you’re eating me out / Is it casual now?” being sung out each night in every arena on the GUTS tour, Roan fuels the space with a kind of unapologetic adulthood that elevates the environment.
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Once Rodrigo finally graces the stage, she takes the uninhibited and ribald energy of Roan to the stadium, using it to unleash some of the riskier, more adult themes left restrained on her studio album.
On tour, all of the raunchier lyric changes mentioned earlier take their rightful places within her songs, leaving nothing to the imagination.
Her costume choices are much riskier than they were during the tour for her debut album SOUR. Whereas on her first tour Rodrigo wore glittery mini dresses and midi dresses adorned with lace that didn’t show much of her chest or midriff, on GUTS, she comes out in bralette tops and short-shorts. She even goes as far as taking her crop top (which is usually adorned with sexual innuendos) off mid-show to reveal her firetruck-red bra.
Most notably, Rodrigo and her team have been partnering with organizations like the Missouri Abortion Fund to hand out contraceptives like condoms and morning after pills at her shows. While this has garnered lots of pushback, it’s exactly the kind of attention she’s looking for right now.
It might seem like overkill, but I think this overt sexuality is essential to Rodrigo’s transition into adulthood. Besides the fact that she is a child star, Rodrigo is also Asian-American. A lot of her songwriting acknowledges that she is held to entirely different standards than her white counterparts within the industry due to anti-Asian racism. Her attempt at breaking free from her girlhood is also impacted by this racism. Part of the reason why Rodrigo is infantilized and shackled to her girlhood is because of the long standing infantilization of Asian women within the United States. The reality is that she must work twice as hard to have her womanhood taken seriously by the music industry at-large. Whereas her white counterparts, like Sabrina Carpenter, are allowed to transition seamlessly between girlhood and adulthood, there is a real, vested interest by many in holding Rodrigo hostage within her girlhood. And that interest is reliant upon racist stereotypes.
And due to this infantilization, it is that much more important for Rodrigo to assert her sexuality on stage and remind people of her age.
Because the reality is that Olivia Rodrigo is a grown woman. She’s new to adulthood, yes, but she’s an adult nonetheless. Throughout the GUTS era, she has tried to tell us that she’s happy with her adulthood, and wants to engage with all aspects of this transitory experience within her art. And it seems that she wants her fans to be old enough to understand and, more importantly, to accept her womanhood. In order for her to truly grow up as an artist, she has to make her music, tours and entire brand hostile to the children in her fanbase.
And honestly? It’s about time we just let her.