Sabrina Carpenter’s Saturday Night Live performance has been called out by a fellow pop star over her use of Japanese-inspired set design.
The pint-sized “Manchild” singer performed “Nobody’s Son” on the Studio 8H stage on Oct. 18 dressed in a kimono-style robe and black belt with dancers faux-martial arts fighting, wearing sneakers, behind her.
Although Carpenter usually “arrests” people at her show, this time British-Japanese singer Rina Sawayama took a mugshot of the dancers and posted it to her Instagram story saying, “Shoes on tatami is jail.”
She was referring to the mat the dancers were performing on, which looked like a traditional Japanese tatami mat.
It is considered disrespectful in Japan to wear anything other than socks on tatami, as they are intended for peace and relaxation, and are made of delicately woven material which could be damaged by shoes.
It is unclear whether the mat on SNL was actually a tatami, or just looked like one.
Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
Sawayama sent “big love to Sabrina,” but added, “fellow artists creative teams… if we are clearly referencing a culture please can you do so with the research, respect and care it deserves.”
Her call-out received a mixed reaction online. X user ‘Nathan,’ said, “Notice how she came for creative teams and not the artist themself… very mindful very demure.”
However, TV I Say host Ashley Ray, received 22,000 likes for her X post, “i wonder if ppl had to wear shoes because they were onstage at a live show with tons of moving parts and safety concerns and they were not on an actual tatami.”
Ray added that SNL performances often get changed at the very last minute, so it is possible that the original set design looked different to what ended up on TV.
It is not the first time that Sawayama has spoken out for Asian people in the industry. In 2023 she called out 1975 frontman Matty Healy for mocking Asian women on a podcast.
Earlier that year, Healy had impersonated several Asian accents on The Adam Friedland Show, and said he watched racially-charged pornography. He later said he was “kind of a bit sorry” for some of the comments made on the show, per Pitchfork.
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