Doja Cat Walks Back Timothée Chalamet Diss: 'Virtue Signaling' or Genuine Reflection?
Doja Cat reflects on her previous criticism of Timothée Chalamet's remarks about opera and ballet, admitting to 'virtue signaling' for connection.
Doja Cat is retracting her previous comments directed at Timothée Chalamet, after the actor received backlash for stating that “no one cares” about opera or ballet.
In a recent TikTok video, the rapper addressed her reasons for initially calling out the actor in defense of the two art forms. She concluded, “What I was doing yesterday was virtue signaling, because I wanted to connect, and I knew that Timothée’s goof-up was something that I could leverage in order for people to connect with me and f–k with me.”
“I’ve never been to a ballet,” Doja confessed in the video. “I’ve never seen an opera. And I took it upon myself yesterday to kind of give it to the man, because there is a culture based around outrage and things like that, and people want to feel like they’re part of something. It’s a need to connect, whether good or bad.”
She continued, “And it’s easy. It’s a modern way to garner clicks, likes, approval and all kinds of things like that from people. And so I did that yesterday, and I didn’t really think about why I was doing it. Am I proud of it? No.”
When a commenter pointed out that her previous video about Chalamet wasn’t necessarily incorrect, she responded, “I’m not saying it was I’m saying I wasn’t coming from a genuine place.”
This clarification follows Doja’s initial reaction to the Marty Supreme actor's comments made during a Variety and CNN town hall a few weeks prior, where he quipped, “I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera or things where it’s, like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive, even though, like, no one cares about this anymore.’”
After the clip circulated online, many defended the ballet and opera industries. In her original video, Doja retorted, “Hey, by the way, opera is 400 years old, ballet is 500 years old. Somebody named ‘Tim-ohtay’ Chalamet had the nerve — big guy, by the way — had the nerve to say, on camera, that nobody cares about it.”
She added, “It doesn’t matter if the industry is having a tough time at any time, which a lot of industries have a tough time. Your industry has a tough time, my industry has a tough time. Doesn’t mean people don’t care about it … There’s still an audience. People give a f–k. You show up in a nice outfit. You sit the f–k down and shut the f–k up. That’s the usual etiquette around those things. Maybe learn something from that.”
Reflecting further, Doja now says she simply wanted to join the trend. She also suggested that Chalamet might not have been entirely wrong, although he could have expressed his thoughts more diplomatically.
“It just kind of furthers the fact that sometimes I think s–t and then I’m like, ‘Never mind,'” Doja concluded. “So never mind.”
While Doja walked back her comments, two ballet/classical veterans double-down. Speaking on a panel on March 8 at the AVeeno/ TOGETHERXR launch of The Strength Issue, retired American Ballet Theatre dancer Misty Copeland said Chalamet’s comments were interesting in light of the fact that he “invited me to be part of promoting Marty Supreme with respect to my art form.” That social media promo shared on the movie and Copeland’s Instagram accounts in November with a photo of a young Copeland with the movie tagline “Dream Big” scrawled across it, as well as her wearing a windbreaker with the movie’s title on it.
“But I think that it’s important that we acknowledge that, yes, this is an art form that’s not ‘popular’ and a part of pop culture as movies are,” added the dancing legend who became the first Black principal ballerina in ABT’s history in 2015. “But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have enduring relevance in culture … There’s a reason that the opera and ballet have been around for over 400 years.”
In addition, New York Philharmonic music director Gustavo Dudamel said on Tuesday (March 10) that, “Sadly, sometimes it’s a little bit of ignorance but, look, that is why we have to open more spaces for people to connect with classical music,” according to the Associated Press. “Everybody has the right to say, but you have to do things with knowledge, with facts. I think we have to say to the young generation, the opposite. It’s very funny. Cinema is a result of opera, of music, of all of these kind of things.”
Watch Doja’s TikTok below.
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