This weekend, I was one of the 7.1 million American’s that watched the MTV VMA’s. And yes, I watched mostly because I heard the Britney Spears was opening—but I felt guilty the whole time, sort of a pop culture version of the “watching-a-car-crash-and-can’t-look-away” phenomenon. Spear’s introduction was only the beginning of a very chaotic, over stimulated, at times totally satisfying, and at others completely disorienting show.
Speaking of disoriented…that is perhaps the best word I can come up with for Britney Spears bizarre bit. Not only did she stumble multiple times, but her famous ability to lip-sing without you even caring because the performance was so dominating had been completely lost. And yet, even through this startlingly hazy performance the only thing the media seemed to care about was her less than sculpted figure paired with the barely-there bikini outfit.
Even after acknowledging the star’s complete dejection over her own act, news sources from E! to aol.com to Countdown with Keith Oberman on MSNBC failed to take the high road with their critiques. The New York Post said Spears, “Jiggled like Jell-O,” Oberman strangely giggled when mention of her “belly” arose and only the sleazy tabloid blogger, Perez Hilton, seemed to actually focus on the right issue when he typed, “We are disgusted and insulted by your performance at the VMA’s.” Oh right. She is an entertainer. Maybe we should care about that more than her cellulite.
The rest of the night certainly was entertaining, but no less riddled with conflict and brawling—perhaps too many MTV ego’s in one place at one time. More than two actually fists fights are said to have taken place (also still talked about in news programs as late as yesterday) and Kanye West has since denounced MTV as racist, all the while, paparazzi were catching yet another glipse of a panty-less Spears as she fled the building. Did people actually win awards at this thing?
Aside from the behind-the-scenes nonsense, the show itself seemed a giant ball of pop culture—as though MTV took all entertainers, all modern technologies, and every sensory stimulation possible and jammed it into a two hour program.
At times it was completely enthralling: take Chris Brown’s dancing paired with Rhianna’s lovely ballad; clips from the constant live music MTV had set up around the Palm’s hotel; wit and humor from the ever-raunchy Sarah Silverman. Much of the show really was entertaining and MTV seemed to bring the music itself to the foreground, a nice change for a channel that features more celeb-reality than musical inspiration these days.
However—and maybe I am getting too old at the ripe old age of 23—for much of the show, I felt simply overwhelmed. Throughout the whole show you could text, email, call, or IM your own picks for the awards, a metaphorical jumble of technologies that MTV felt obligated to acknowledge. And while the live music was great, it was hard to concentrate on one performer while the show flashed from room to room, crowd to crowd, all the while panning the chaos in the main stage of the hotel. At more than one point, my friend watching next to me had to close her eyes because, “there [was] just too much! Ahhhhh!” And she is only 25. Not exactly a part of the anti-MTV era.
In general, the VMA’s were nothing if not a bizarre cultural experience. Sometimes it is a culture that terrifies me with its potential implications, but I think that is the thing of MTV—you just can’t take it too seriously or you will find yourself discussing Britney Spears cesarean scars on CNN.
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