Olivia Rodrigo has recently been wearing babydoll dresses, which are a callback to outfits worn by female artists in the ’90s alternative rock scene, including Hole’s Courtney Love or Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna. Speaking to the New York Times Popcast, she says the criticism that she’s gotten for wearing them is both upsetting and “disturbing.”
When asked about the topic, Olivia said, “That’s been making me so upset. Not even for me. …People can say whatever they want. What’s really disturbing is I feel like I actually wear — I have worn — outfits that are maybe revealing onstage. Like, I’ve been onstage in a sparkly bra and little shorts…which is my right. That’s fine. I felt cool and comfortable in that.”
“And like, that wasn’t inappropriate? But me fully covered up in a dress that people deem to be, like, childlike, was inappropriate?” she questioned.
“I just think it just shows how we just really normalize pedophilia in our culture,” Olivia continued. “And also it’s just, like, this rhetoric that we’re fed as girls since we’re so little, which is, ‘Don’t wear that because then a man is going to sexualize your body and it’s your fault.’ Like, it’s so weird.”
She went on to say that she didn’t think she “looked sexy” in the babydoll dresses at all, noting, “I was like, ‘This is so cool. I feel like I look like Kathleen Hanna or Courtney Love, all these people who are my heroes, and I felt cool and comfortable in it.”
She added, “I just think if we start dressing in a way that’s like, ‘I don’t want some f****** freak to think that I am sexy like a baby’ or some crazy thing like that, I think it’s losing the plot a little bit.”
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