Doja Cat's Scarlet Tour and Alt-right Chic
A review of Doja Cat's Scarlet Tour and an analysis of her recent controversies
About halfway through the first track of Doja Cat’s Scarlet Tour at the Prudential Center in Newark, I had decided that all of this was, in fact, satanic.
The silhouettes of Devil horns in the crowd certainly aided in the exaltation of the opening flickering monochrome shots of doorways lit by flashlights from a cheap horror gimmick to a scene of genuine terror. Doja Cat opened with the two most energetic songs on the set list (“WYM Freestyle” and “Demons”) - accompanied by fireworks and, of course, cultic cheering at her arrival.
Maybe Andrew Tate (describing festivals as a “crowd of sweaty peasants” ) and the evangelicals were right – and maybe it wasn’t too late for me to repent.
As “Tia Tamera” began, red lights blanketing the pentagram-overlayed stage and a portrayal of the Devil akin to Rosemary’s Baby twirling its claws in a close-up shot on the jumbotrons, I noticed for the first time how menacing the beat can sound. Here, despite sounding exactly the same (unlike “Say So” which is stripped of its disco roots in favor of a jazzy cover later in the show), the song takes on a completely new identity - far flung from any association with its nauseatingly colorful music video that playfully parodied cheesy 90s aesthetics and fixations, released in 2019.
This became almost a theme of the remaining setlist: mostly new songs, and when older songs were played, they felt mostly divorced from the form they took during their original album releases.
Prior to the concert, I didn’t consider myself a Doja Cat fan by any means – but, after the following theatrical, Eyes-Wide-Shut-inspired, performance of “Shutcho”- I found myself fully converted. In that moment, I truly understood why fundamentalist religious sects are reluctant to expose their children to secular music.
Many a Gen Xer would sigh deeply at the following statement, but the constant references to horror movies and internet culture in the Scarlet Tour elevated it to an unexpectedly refined place – like The Simpsons, there were pop culture references that you could feel “in on”.
With a set of mock stained glass windows accompanying lyrics like “how you hatin’ on the Lord’s day?”, with a circle around her of backup dancers in red robes thrashing about, Doja Cat was proving what the “tradcath” influencers knew all along: religion is sexy. She was actually a lot like them, with her puzzlingly opaque political views dressed up in terminally online right-wing in-jokes and aesthetics – and the fact that no one cares because of how hot she is.
When I caught a better glimpse of her during the more well-lit, cool-toned (think Paranormal Activity) rendition of “Agora Hills”, Doja Cat appeared to have colored contacts on- still playing into the demonic bit she is very obviously devoted to manufacturing and maintaining. She was dressed like the backpack that I wished I was allowed to bring into the venue, with all kinds of nets and straps dangling off her white outfit that defied categorization, in a good way (perhaps the way she wished her music to), but bared equal resemblance to a corset, body suit, and mini skirt all at once. Like the outfits she wore in other shows, it was superhero-esque, but maybe with more of a sexy paramilitary vibe.
She also sported a $330 Rhude “Off-Road Rally” trucker hat, clearly meant to mimic the rural American aesthetic of a hat approximately 100x cheaper.
The crown jewel of her “costume” was her underwear. It was white, with bold black capital letters reading “PSYOP” printed on the front.
She had a wig on, a curious choice, considering lyrics like “I look better with no hair”. But then again, the whole point of the theatrics around her haircut seems to be asserting her self-determination to her cloying “stans”, regardless of whatever their favorite “look” of hers may be.
The acceptance of this self-determination by some of her fans is clearly still in progress. Regarding fans being upset about the lack of outfit changes between songs during her show, Doja Cat recently said on Instagram, “i’m not a f**kin barbie doll i’m a human being and I’ll change my outfit when I want to change my f**kin outfit.”
Personally, her lack of costume changes between songs, combined with the fact that she wore different outfits at different shows, made her feel more relatable. It conjured up the image of her rolling out of bed in the morning and giggling to herself as she indulged in the spontaneous impulse to slip into a pair of panties with PSYOP written on the front.
This begs the question: how many people even got (or were supposed to get) this bizarre easter egg? I asked a few people outside of the show, but most just stared at me vacantly as I tried to explain what a “psychological operation” was by using MK Ultra as an example.
Why would she even choose to wear such an accessory, when she’s already faced so much flack during the recent Sam Hyde shirt controversy? As mentioned already, perhaps this is just another rebellion, albeit a much more subtle one (that is highly unlikely to get her in any trouble, or at least shouldn’t, unless the word PSYOP is wildly misinterpreted) – or just a simple way of entertaining herself during the monotony of touring.
Or maybe she feels like her poppy hits have attracted the wrong fan base. In Doja Cat’s mind, both the PSYOP underwear and the Sam Hyde shirt could simply be ways of paying homage to her past, or they could serve a more practical purpose. She could be slowly trying to correct her course, treating her fans sort of like babies who need to be gradually weaned off their mother’s breast milk or engaging in a Darwinian form of branding (weed out the weak to make way for the strong).
It's also possible that she just wants to revel in the self-satisfaction of knowing she’s different from other pop stars, which is true (and can be charming, in the right doses) – but probably not as much as one might think.
Ironically, being that Scarlet is being hailed as a more rap-centric reinvention, the show included its fair share of pop star staples and Madonna-esque antics. For instance, during “Attention” dancers in plain trench coats and hoodies (like something you might find in the H&M men’s section) simulated a violent abduction of Doja Cat before holding her up like Jesus on the cross (Madonna has done the same, but more explicitly), before turning their attention to her Carrie-inspired alter-ego “Scarlet”. Whether her backup dancers were dressed as journalists, rapists, or anonymous internet accounts is up to interpretation.
Regardless, if Satanic Panic is back, maybe Nazi Chic is too? Like Siouxsie Sioux aimed to shock the Silent Generation with Nazi iconography – maybe Doja yearns to shock a new generation (Millennials?) of liberals, by pioneering “Neo-Nazi Chic” (or more accurately to the Sam Hyde fiasco, “Alt-Right Chic”). Maybe after decades of the rinsing and repeating of this formula (by Marilyn Manson, Madonna, and even Lady Gaga), regular old Nazi imagery is just no longer shocking enough for mainstream audiences. Now is maybe a good time to tangentially mention that Doja Cat is Jewish, unlike many of the original 70’s fascist-clad punk rabble-rousers.
“Often” was much less flashy- kicking off what was supposed to be the more “intimate” part of the show, but just ended up being fairly unremarkable. Subsequently, a man dressed in a punk kilt (these costumes persisted for several songs, never quite managing to grow on me or even convince me of their utility) handed Doja Cat a stool.
She sat with her legs resting on either side of a bright red microphone and did a cover of a song that’s indie enough to play in Van Leeuwen (a trendy ice cream shop)- that is, somewhat indie but has already lost some alternative credibility. Doja Cat’s take on “Red Room” (by Hiatus Kaiyote) was good, if not a bit too high-pitched. Upon hearing a recording, my girlfriend (who sings in a band) diagnosed Doja Cat’s problem as a lack of faith in her ability to hit the notes, saying that she was “unnecessarily in her head voice when she could’ve been in her chest voice.” Overall, this segment pleased fans but was unlikely to convert anyone.
During a lull she did the usual regional concert routine- “We’re in fucking Newark” she said, and everyone cheered (probably the most anyone has ever cheered for Newark). “I’m just happy I’m here and happy everyone’s here tonight,” she remarked. Whether she really was or is just a good actress– I believed her. As someone savvy with social media, even if she has a tumultuous relationship with it, she is clearly used to all eyes on her. She is a contrarian at heart, but for someone who occasionally comes off like an angry, self-sabotaging teenager pushing people who care away– or maybe just someone who hates fame, she did seem like she was having fun.
Despite this, she subsequently posted on her Instagram story that she was “not happy with [her] energy tonight”. Going by the comments on a Reddit post about it, everyone who attended the show was perplexed. Some theorized it was because she accidentally said, “Thank you, New York” instead of Newark in the final moments of the show (everyone cheered again anyway), before finally settling on “Thank you, New Jersey”. One of the most relatable things about her might be her overwhelming insecurity (in the past she’s said that her rap verses were “corny” and that she wasn’t good, not on her own anyway, at making beats).
There was an unnerving intro to the most bubblegum pop track on the set list, “Kiss Me More” (being that Say So was already castrated in its mass appeal), like something truly frightening was coming. This was essentially a fake out, as “Kiss Me More” was one of few older songs left unadulterated. As she sang, WebCore animations and meme references (notably an Illuminati sign) crowded the jumbotrons. It was as if the whole thing was being played for laughs- an ironic joke, that you would be the fool to take seriously. To me, it seemed like a polite, even cute, way of echoing the sentiments she expressed in a much-maligned tweet: that Planet Her and Hot Pink were mediocre pop “cash grabs” that her audience “fell for”.
Her fans seem to have forgotten, or at least forgiven, those comments because the mood in the crowd was joyous. Not even someone getting injured halfway through the song deterred them- I simply heard someone shout “Get up queen!”
Of course, after this little interlude, her new persona was reiterated by the placement of one of the most (in)famous songs of her comeback: “Paint The Town Red”. She twerked in front of a giant eyeball with legs, and even the straight guy (it was even easier to tell than usual, as if they had anticipated the question and dressed accordingly) next to me sang along (this was clearly the only song he knew by heart). It all felt very symbolic.
The show concluded with an energetic rendition of “Wet Vagina”. During the line “I wanna have really really really rough sex”, Doja Cat’s backup dancers form a line, and she pretends to pull all their hair at the same time. The irony of such a direct line is that, in the context of the show, the scene is comparatively quite insipid and tame.
She tries so hard to be offensive, that she often becomes inoffensive along the way. This is the central tension at the heart of Doja Cat. She is a woman of contradictions: stunningly beautiful and terminally online, a Black and Jewish woman who flirts with the alt-right (figuratively and literally), authentic but never too intimate or vulnerable (maybe never even genuine).
Like everything she does, the show was filled with humor, pop culture references, vivid sexuality, cheap shock value, mesmerizing theatrics, and undeniable charm. Her songs can be a little boring and derivative, but the performance worked remarkably well.
Throughout the concert the straight guy next to me had his arms crossed, looking more like a teacher watching a student’s presentation, than someone at a concert– deep in thought, with maybe a touch of contempt. Even he- who arrived late and was on his phone about as much as I was (and I was furiously taking notes) - eventually had to concede: “Wow shit was dope man.”
Like a drug comedown in the early morning, the lights came on harshly. I could barely see or hear. Also, like a drug comedown, Doja Cat has brought up some existential feelings in her fans. “What do you have to look forward to now?” I hear as I leave the stadium. “Going again.”