Remember When the VMA's Didn't Suck?

There are certain evolutions in popular culture that I've totally gotten myself onto the band wagon for, many, in fact. I'm not the type to bitch about reality t.v. or the media's changing of landscape increasing subjectivity over hard facts or celebrity over talent (celebrity is a talent in by its own merit, media manipulation is a lucrative and challenging skill to develop). But the VMA's is a tradition in entertainment that I feel has shifted its appeal to be one that is, well, really unappealing.

The VMA's were always to me pop culture's shameless mockery of itself. It was like the night where everyone that had been feature in an issue of US Weekly throughout the curse of that calendar year could show up and act as complete caricatures of themselves and the identities that the had guided the media in having constructed for them. It was like a costume party where every celebrity in attendance went as themselves. For example:



Do you think that Geri Halliwell would ever wear that nauseatingly patriotic, leather bathing suit thing with a faux-fur coat unless she wanted to be self referential in that she, and her group, has become a commodity for the American public? Absolutely not. But the VMA's provided celebrities and viewers with circus style exaggerations of entertainers' personal brands.

Last year, when I watched the VMA's with a room full of friends who were, like me, expecting the typical freak show of celebrity that we look forward to each year, we were at the very least disappointed in what we saw. It was as if everyone had pre-partied for the award show by having a group bible study and moving furniture around for the post-party hoe down they were planning. I mean, when the most highly antcipated appearance at an event is the Jonas Brothers, you hafta just expect cold oatmeal. When was the VMA's anything more than a mildly pathetic obligation on your social calendar and guarantee that something excusably inappropriate and outlandish might occur? Why do these nit-wit baby tween idols take al this so seriously?

Wwhen watching the low brow cultural enthusiast's event of the year, I don't want Jordin Sparks lecturing me about sexual habits weaing an unflattering strapless dress. I want something harmlessly riskier. I want Vanessa Hudgeons out there in a nude suit making jokes about how the only way she can get press is if she keeps "accidentally" showing up naked all over the internet. I want celebrities spitting back in the faces of the American public trying to police their behavior, not trying to further their appeal and make themselves accessible to the straight laced, midwestern twelve-year-old girl.

Bring back the absurdity MTV! It's just not a sufficient amount of absurdity that you're hosting an award show based on music videos when you don't even show them anymore. I want shameless self-mockery! I want you to show me just how self aware you are of the product that you and the media and their interactons with the public have helped to shape! Just do eaxctly what you used to do, have britney and Christina present an award together, have Mariah and Whitney do it wearing the same dress! Have a mob of Eminem look alikes swarm Radio City. Something that will regain my faith in your programming.

You could start with bringing back a hell of a lot more performances like this:











And a lot less of anything involving Katy Perry or anyone who got their start on the Disney Channel post Mickey Mouse Club. Thanks, good luck tonight, I'll be watching.