As Doja Cat cautiously continues to reemerge after her “cancellation” last year (the one that occurred when an old song of hers called “Dindu Nuffin”–the mocking alt-right imitation of Black men pleading with the police–was leaked), she continues to bring us revitalized tracks from 2019’s Hot Pink. With “Streets” being the seventh single, it seems Doja wants to put the record well to bed before promoting the forthcoming Planet Her album. And perhaps some of the visual themes from “Streets” will creep into whatever she has in store next.
Ah, and speaking of store, that is where the Christian Breslauer-directed video begins. With a cab driver (in an old school taxi, mind you–because New York is determined to make everyone believe it’s still as “edgy” as it was in the 70s) looking into a giant window on Fifth Avenue–maybe it’s Bergdorf’s, maybe it’s not. But the only thing that matters is that the window reads: “Streets by Doja Cat.” As though it is the haute couture collection of the season. But obviously, the man in the cab is not concerned with high fashion, especially when the bassline of the song picks up after the sample of Paul Anka’s “Put Your Head On My Shoulder” concludes, and we see a swift cut to Doja in what amounts to her “34+35 Remix” lingerie. She does a dance amid a now red backlit window that, yes, very much reminds us of that district in Amsterdam.
Soon, the man’s fantasy has either reached new heights or Doja is just that powerful as he ends up behind the window with her. This notion of a mannequin coming to life, of course, belongs solely to the 1987 classic, Mannequin. Directed and co-written by Michael Gottlieb (who died in a motorcycle accident in 2014), the underrated masterpiece of fetishism explores the budding romance between Jonathan Switcher (Andrew McCarthy), a window dresser hired to work at a department store called Prince & Company, and the mannequin that inspires his best work, Emmy (Kim Cattrall). The sole snag in their relationship is that Emmy can only come to life when Jonathan is around. No one else can ever see that she’s anything more than a mannequin. To be sure, that’s pretty much exactly what’s going on in this Doja Cat video until she decides to switch the theme to one of the Spider-Woman/Black Widow variety.
Now writhing around on top of the cab, a slew of zombie-like men emerge from the underground, breaking through the concrete with their fists like dogs in heat (except they’re male) eager to get to the tauntingly tantalizing Doja. But her lure works all too well as she’s suddenly crawling up to the side of the building to get to the part of it where her cab driver is spun in the web she’s woven.
It’s here that the lyrics–“Tryna keep him ’cause I found him/Let a ho know I ain’t motherfuckin’ sharing”–come across as all too relevant. Doja is a black widow who wants all the delicious morsels to herself. But for an added twist to the fantasy versus reality component, we cut to a scene of Doja in 50s housewife garb resting on her husband’s lap as they watch everything that’s just played out on their TV inside a house nestled within some rural milieu. But it then begs the question, whose fantasy is this–hers or his? Probably still the latter’s. This becomes all the more pertinent as the cab driver turns “mannequin” himself and goes up in flames in that 50s-inspired living room.
“Excuse me? Hello? I have somewhere to be.” At the end, there is then a certain “Thriller” quality (with the genders reversed, of course) to Doja being in the backseat and acting as though it was all a dream, or, at best, the product of a man’s elaborate fantasy. But, ultimately, it’s as she sings: “We play our fantasies out in real life ways and no Final Fantasy/Can we end these games though?” For everybody–particularly when it comes to carnal lust–reaches the point where they want the fantasy to be real. Or at least as real as the simulation will allow.
