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Tag: Doja Cat Demons

  • Dolls Kill and Billie Eilish Aesthetics Permeate the Apocalyptic L.A. of Doja Cat’s “Agora Hills”

    Dolls Kill and Billie Eilish Aesthetics Permeate the Apocalyptic L.A. of Doja Cat’s “Agora Hills”

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    As Doja Cat persists in her determination to prove she is “art rap” personified, she’s enlisted the help of Hannah Lux Davis (known for creating sumptuous videos for such pop stars as Ariana Grande and Charli XCX, as well as previously working with Doja on “Say So”) for her latest visual, “Agora Hills.” A video that feels almost like a companion piece to “Demons,” which Doja Cat co-directed with Christian Breslauer. Building on the same “backrooms” aesthetic from that video, Davis opens on grainy VHS footage of an empty row of showers as the camera then drops to the floor and we see a woman (probably “Scarlet”) in red heels approach the drain. The red heels being emblematic of Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz. For, after all, even though it’s spelled wrong (one wants to believe “intentionally”), the single is named in honor of Agoura Hills, the Los Angeles suburb where Amala Dlamini grew up before she was Doja Cat. Perhaps spelling it without the “u” is some kind of high school dropout flex, who knows? Anyway, it seems apparent that she wants to get the point across that “there’s no place like home.” No matter how fucked-up and apocalyptic it looks when you go back to it. 

    The harbinger of that post-disaster state is foretold by the blood soon washing down the drain of the aforementioned shower—further proof that it’s “Scarlet,” as we’ve only ever seen her covered in blood during her various cameos throughout other Doja Cat videos (including “Attention” and “Paint the Town Red”) of this era. Lux then cuts to a suburban neighborhood gone literally topsy-turvy, with Doja suspended in mid-air in the distance before descending upon the ruined L.A. earth. All in all, it has the same feel as Billie Eilish’s “all the good girls go to hell” video. But that’s not the only Billie video it appears noticeably “inspired by,” for Doja also wields the backdrop of the “dead mall” the way Eilish does in “therefore i am,” taking advantage of the Glendale Galleria’s emptiness in late 2020, during the notorious pandemic.

    But before Doja gets to the mall (a staple of “Valley culture”), she lands on the asphalt with the toes of her ballet shoes setting off sparks against the concrete, a bevy of zombie-like women behind her who, just as Doja, also look like they’ve been styled in Dolls Kill attire. And yes, although originally started in San Francisco, Dolls Kills has become something of an honorary L.A. fixture, complete with its brick-and-mortar outpost on Fairfax. And so, with these two overt L.A. icons—Dolls Kill and Billie Eilish—already so overtly at play within the video’s visual universe, Doja isn’t being quite as original or subversive as she would like to believe she is. Though, perhaps it’s only fair to “steal” the Dolls Kill vibe considering how well-known the company is for stealing from other, lesser-known designers. 

    Sampling from Troop’s 1989 hit, “All I Do Is Think of You” (itself a cover of Jackson 5’s version), Doja then proceeds to get positively mushy on this single. And, while many want to comment about how “sweet” the song is, it seems everyone has conveniently forgotten that it’s likely about her racist, sexually predatory boo, J Cyrus. So while maybe it would be sweet, it doesn’t come off that way when the listener pictures J as she sings, “Whether they like or not/I wanna show you off/I wanna show you off/I wanna brag about it/I wanna tie the knot/I wanna show you off.” The video, still in occasional “VHS style” mode, then takes us inside a seemingly abandoned house (for this entire cul-de-sac neighborhood is an eerie wasteland) where “another” Doja, this one with black hair and disgusting/haunting long acrylic toenails, is talking on the phone in a decidedly “80s teen girl” bedroom to her boyfriend in a peak “Valley girl” accent, delivering such cliches as, “No, you hang up, you hang up.”

    The scene then morphs into a new tableau with a “new” Doja. This time, the bald-headed one we’ve grown more accustomed to seeing of late. And, what a surprise, she and some of her doppelgängers (including an alter ego who’s dressed like “Kandi,” the Dolls Kill persona for their raver lines) are in another fluorescently-lit backroom. This more basement/dungeon-like than the ones prior. An interspersed scene of Bald Doja wearing a cast boot on one foot while atop a knockoff Hollywood sign that instead reads “AGORA HILLS” adds to the overall randomness. But what “logic” can be had in the post-apocalypse? And perhaps, on some level, Doja Cat realizes that one’s personal life, as a celebrity, can only be truly accepted when nobody else (apart from her arbitrarily-materializing fellow Dolls Kill models) exists on Earth to judge and condemn it. 

    As the video draws to a close, Doja takes full advantage of the dead mall setting that was initially alluded to in the shower scene that commenced “Agora Hills” in the first place. Showing up with all her fellow “Dolls,” the Eilish homage feels complete now. And, for those convinced that Doja couldn’t possibly be influenced by Billie, let it be noted that she even name checks the “other” Angeleno in “Ouchies” by saying, “A hunnid billies, I’m the G.O.A.T, no Eilish.” While it might sound like a “dig” to those who want to constantly stir the pot by creating celebrity beef where there isn’t, Doja Cat and Eilish (as fellow L.A.-born celebrities) are friendly enough, with the former attending Eilish’s twenty-first birthday last year. And perhaps the only thing that’s missing from this grab bag of a video is a cameo by Eilish herself. But, pointedly, it’s a no white girls allowed scenario. For surely, the delicate whites (no laundry pun intended) could not survive any apocalypse (despite what The Last of Us would have people believe). Unless, they’re the rich kind who pre-bought all that bunker space in New Zealand to ride out the end times.

    But for the non-rich whites, survival seems less secure. Least of all in L.A. or its outer reaches. But anyway, after Doja and her surviving sisters scurry out of the mall, Davis caps (not to be confused with what Doja means when she says, “You just cap so hard, it’s—I don’t know what to do”) the video with a scene of Doja riding her bike on a deserted street at night with a shirt that reads: “Queen of Blow Job.” Alas, there aren’t many men around to test whether or not that’s true. Except the one Doja’s hiding somewhere in a backroom until more people miraculously reveal themselves so that she can make better use of the phrase “I wanna show you off.”

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Doja Cat’s “Paint the Town Red” Video Recalls Die Antwoord-Inspired Visuals, Continues to Challenge the Notion of “Cancellation”

    Doja Cat’s “Paint the Town Red” Video Recalls Die Antwoord-Inspired Visuals, Continues to Challenge the Notion of “Cancellation”

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    While Doja Cat continues to miraculously prove that some people can remain “beyond cancelability,” her video for “Paint the Town Red” itself merely reminds one of the things Die Antwoord has already done. And yes, those things often included faux avant-garde posturing…all in the name of, naturally, “shock value.” Something Yolandi Visser and Ninja have courted many times over the years in their always memorable music videos (whatever one might think of the actual music). With “Paint the Town Red,” Doja appears to want to achieve the same shock and awe through her demonic visuals (which, yes, are intensified in her video for “Demons,” featuring satanic beings similar in aesthetic to the ones in “Paint the Town Red”). Of the very same ilk that have appeared in Die Antwoord’s videos for such songs as “Ugly Boy” and “I Fink U Freeky.” Usually embodied by a black-eyed Yolandi. 

    Perhaps with Doja’s own South African roots via her father (who is from Durban), Die Antwoord crept into her consciousness at some point or another. And yes, like that duo, Doja Cat has played with some extremely racist tropes in her work. Except that, unlike that duo, she has the armor of biraciality on her side to “get away with” more. How else could one explain her continued ability to skirt the controversy of such acts as tweeting (back when it was Twitter), “Thinking about being black can make any sensible person depressed. Like just think about it wouldn’t being white make soo much more sense. Life would have value.” It begs the question that the New York Times asked, “Is Doja Cat Uncancelable?” And this was in 2022, when she still had yet to go out of her way to alienate fans by essentially calling them freaks and losers (which we all know is how most celebrities actually feel about their fan base, it’s just no one ever dared to say it out loud like that before). 

    Some want to believe it’s part of her so-called alter ego, Scarlet, for the upcoming album of the same name. Either way, it doesn’t seem to matter…that is, if the success of “Paint the Town Red” in the wake of her anti-fan rant is any indication. Besides, Dionne Warwick didn’t seem to mind either, perhaps too far gone at this point to care if her 1964 hit, “Walk On By,” is being repurposed by someone so controversial and, well, frequently anti-Black (as indicated not just by the tweet above, but so many other things she’s done and said in the past, one of which really did almost get her canceled). But when you’ve got Dionne on your side, what does it matter?

    The continued “brushing aside” of Doja’s behavior, which lately feels on par with the kind of over-the-top controversy-seeking that finally did get Ye canceled, has only appeared to embolden her all the more. And, as someone who has spent ample amounts of time gabbing with and indulging racists on platforms like TinyChat (in the name of “trolling,” supposedly), perhaps some of the rhetoric has slightly infected her. As Damon Young put it in a 2020 article for The Root (just after the “Dindu Nuffin” fiasco), “She seems to be an edgelord [and, presently, an admitted “demon lord” in “Demons”]—which is a (usually white and male) person who says trollish and taboo shit online to appear cool to other trolls. They build community by shitting on other communities, and Black people are their most frequent target. Basically, edgelording is Spades for incels.” If this is the logic that has prompted Doja to up the ante on her deliberately offending (primarily to the conservative and religious set) aesthetics, then it might explain some of “Paint the Town Red.” Though, by and large, Doja is part of a generation of pop culture that doesn’t really “try” at something like “meaning” (though it’s great at the “art” of the arbitrary ripoff from something that came before). This being perhaps a more macabre reflection of how most people have come to realize that nothing means anything. Except, of course, the meaning that society has indoctrinated us all with: fame and money are all that matters. 

    Although Doja often proffers the notion that she doesn’t care about fame or success (especially lately) and is just “here for the music,” “Paint the Town Red” admits freely to her enjoyment of the trappings that come with fame. Even if it’s notoriety. Elsewhere playing with the idea that all fame is secured through a Faustian pact, the devil imagery she relishes as much as Die Antwoord also reflects lyrics like, “She the devil, she a bad lil’ bitch/She a rebel/She put her foot to the pedal/It’ll take a whole lot for me to settle.” At least, now that she’s secured her “cash grabs” through Hot Pink and Planet Her. Albums that played up a conventionally “femme” side of Doja that she’s now seeking to destroy all memory of, calling Scarlet a record that takes “a more masculine direction.” Fittingly enough, in the previously alluded to article from The Root, Young added, “…for Black people who grew up in predominantly white spaces… whiteness—particularly the cool and edgy white boys—is fetishized, and to assimilate, some flatten themselves into the Black kid who isn’t offended by slurs and can be just as edgy as they are.” It seems as though Doja has reached that masculine state, by her own estimation, via not just the kinds of scandals she provokes but even the kinds of men she gravitates toward. 

    Causing more outrage than Taylor Swift did by “consorting with” Matty Healy, Doja’s dalliance with Jeffrey “J” Cyrus, known for being a conservative (read: white supremacist) “pundit” on Twitch and having numerous sexual harassment accusations against him, is something like her pièce de résistance for “performing whiteness.” A “pièce” that certain fans might like to call “performance art” in and of itself. Again, wishful thinking as a means to justify Doja’s behavior for the sake of being able to listen to her music in peace. And yet, a great many people have become so desensitized to the notion of “cancellation” that they do, in fact, still enjoy their favorite musicians (or actors, what have you) in peace. Tuning out the deafening noise of those would would decry such people as, let’s say, “unholy.” Although Doja lost a large number of followers after telling her fans to “get a job” (the implication being, obviously, that to have time to dissect a celebrity’s business is to have no life…even though having a job actually means having no life), it hasn’t slowed down her chart success by any means. Whether on the radio or through streaming.

    In the days of yore, maybe some detractors would have hollered “payola” about that. As for now, maybe her constant airplay can be attributed to Doja simply having the gift for creating earworms (a term one can imagine she might take literally based on some of the grotesque scenes she favors showcasing in “Paint the Town Red”). Even if the lyrics of said earworms don’t necessarily track. For example, “Fame ain’t somethin’ I need no more” directly counteracts Doja’s chant of “I’d rather be famous instead” (of worshiped by fans, one can only assume; since, evidently, Doja has found a way to be famous without being beloved…a feat usually only accomplished by dictators). But who can be bothered with things “tracking” in an epoch like this, right?

    What “sense” is there to be had in this modern existence, wherein even a celebrity feels inclined to cavort with Death (as Doja does in the video to, among other things, refer to the death of her previous “persona”/Planet Her era)? What with life lately feeling so fleeting (even more than it did in 2012 a.k.a. the end of the world/a period of greater Die Antwoord dominance), who can blame a girl for being “immune” to the fear of cancellation? A gamble that’s paid off quite well for Doja as she paints the town (devil) red. Until, perhaps, one day it doesn’t and she joins Ye in another kind of underworld.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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