A few weeks back, I got a late-night text from a friend that read, “Please tell me you’re going to write about this,” and linked to an Instagram post about Olivia Rodrigo, who caused a social-media kerfuffle last month by wearing a gauzy, flowered babydoll dress on stage. Reactions ranged from you-go-girl flame emoji to eye-rolling sarcasm to direct accusations of “pedo-baiting.”
I didn’t see anything off-brand about Rodrigo’s choice of outfit. But it’s also easy to see why, at this moment in the United States of Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, and Elon Musk, a getup like Rodrigo’s, with its micro-mini hemline and matching bloomers, would put people’s teeth on edge. Asked to respond to the controversy on The New York Times’ Popcast, Rodrigo didn’t mince words, pointing out that she’s worn much more revealing outfits on stage without getting the same flavor of pushback. The outrage over the babydoll dress “shows how we just, like, really normalize pedophilia,” she said. “You shouldn’t be responsible for some guy sexualizing you when that was never your intention.”
