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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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