A Look Back at the MTV Video Music Awards

Maybe I'm just getting old, but the MTV Video Music Awards aren't what they used to be.  Okay, I am getting old.  MTV doesn't care about me anymore.  I've zoomed out of their target demographic.  They don't care if I flip the channel to some oldie-fogie network.  The sad thing is that I keep tuning into MTV, trying to convince myself that I'm still hip (if I ever actually was) or that the one-time-mecca-of-Music-Television might still be entertaining.  My wife and I watched the VMAs Sunday night, and apparently it was the highest rated award show MTV ever broadcast, and I dare say all those viewers weren't just teenyboppers. I've complained about MTV's metamorphosis and begged it to return to its roots, but, alas, why would they listen to me, or countless others like me who say the same thing. I must agree with Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine when he criticized the network that used to make or break music stars by saying that the Video Music Awards are the "one day a year when MTV pretends to care about music."

My wife, who used to intern at MTV, commented that the show was "weird."  It certainly had a strange vibe to it.  Almost everyone was spewing out profanities, trying no doubt to be edgy. It made me feel nostalgic for the day when Andrew Dice Clay was banned (for life!) from the network and all affiliated enterprises for dropping the F-bomb while reciting the adult nursery rhymes from his well-known act back in 1989.  How quaint.  I guess he was a man ahead of his time. 

Lady GaGa seemed to steal the show in her reverse-drag attire, never breaking character as the vulgar and creepy Joe Calderone in a performance that would have made Andy Kaufman proud.  I certainly liked it better than her meat-dress, but I wasn't the only one to remember that Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics did it first (and maybe better) way back in 1984 during a Grammy Awards performance of "Sweet Dreams."

I love my pop culture icons, but I was left scratching my head in befuddlement. I adore Katy Perry and have risked my reputation (such that it is) to defend her, but why was she wearing a cube on her pretty pink-haired head?  What the heck was that entire waste of time with Cloris Leachman and the "ladies" from Jersey Shore?  Britney Spears being awarded the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award was anti-climactic, and I wish they had picked someone else besides Russell Brand to lead the tribute to Amy Winehouse.

I can go on and on, but I will just sound more and more like an out-of-touch guy who doesn't get it any more. If you want more, Shirley Halperin of The Hollywood Reporter wrote an excellent critique of the broadcast. Check it out.

The news that seems to have made all the headlines was Beyonce announcing that she was pregnant.  Congratulations to her and to daddy-to-be Jay-Z.  I'm not that much of a grumpy cynic not to find some joy in new babies being made, especially by such talented superstars.  Two decades from now, the fruit of their loins might very well be on stage in a future VMA -- and I'll probably still be watching.