MTV Awards
Aug. 29th, 2005 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebratqueenDay late, dollar short, but random thoughts after having watched the MTV Awards on my Tivo
R Kelly has no friends, does he? I'm not saying I've got a problem with that, but if Trapped in the Closet isn't some huge, all-encompassing Andy Kaufmanesque performance art then clearly R Kelly pissed off someone in a previous life, is earning the karma for his sex life, and/or was the one who shot Suge and was being punished in advance because good GOD.
Eva's bathing suit was actually far more demure than was hyped, though I didn't need to know the status of her last bikini wax. What amazes me more is that nobody pulled her aside and told her that cracking hurricane jokes at that particular point in time was the height of tastelessness.
Speaking of clothes: I'm the millionth to say it but you gotta admire Fergie for daring to show up in a yellow dress. Also Jessica looked like she'd been raped pre-show. That she was allowed out of the house like that is probably the greatest proof of all that Nick no longer gives a flying crap about her.
I will give props for the water stage. The weak jets that winners had to walk under or around were stupid, but the rest were actually pretty. Also Shakira kicked ass, as did Coldplay. Note how when the talent actually has talent, the performance takes care of itself.
I was talking with various people last night about why VMAs suck. They didn't use to. I'd even go back as the Madonna/Britney kiss as a point where MTV still managed to hit the right note of "No they di-int!" even if said note was clearly planned in advance.
However the past two VMAs have not done that by any stretch of the imagination. Last year I thought it was the setting. Having the stages be small and the crowd swirl around them was just too chaotic and the energy was all over the place, thus undercutting anything that might have actually been cool.
This year though I'm realizing the problem is that they've turned the VMAs into the Movie Awards, only without the benefit of foreplanning.
See the Movie Awards are done well in advance and are so scripted as to be ridiculous, but funnily enough that's actually okay. You basically get to see big stars joking around and be stupid, and it's not like the Movie Awards were ever meant to be anything but a parody of real awards shows. I mean Chewbacca got lifetime achievement one year for Heaven's sake.
But the VMAs were vaguely theoretically actually awards, for all that you'll notice nobody ever tells you who votes on these things. They're obviously nothing but PR, but even so the show itself was born and raised on the wacky things that happened, going back to the time when MTV was such a nothing entity there was really no PR to be gained, so they just had fun with it.
However in the past two years - and again I'd say Britney/Madonna was a touchstone because it was both the best of getting people to talk while at the same time being totally and utterly planned - they've taken the feel of the VMAs out while still trying to maintain the appearance. Case in point, last night's show where instead of allowing random things to happen (Rage Against the Machine guy storming the stage, Eminem hating on Triumph, etc) it was scripted and controlled to the nth degree, including "Anything can happen!" as we were so often reminded.
Granted, you did get the Fat Joe/Fiddy fight, which was funny to watch on the rerun because I knew about it in advance yet for some odd reason they muted not only Fiddy but Fat Joe (who as far as I know didn't swear), but beyond that everything was planned and scripted. Even surprise things weren't really so much a surprise. Like having Hammer there was actually cool - and one of the rare moments when everybody except Kelly Clarkson finally got the stick out of their asses and allowed themselves to crack a smile (Kelly being the exception because she was the only one there actually enjoying herself the whole time, and good on her) - but old VMAs knew that if you're going to do a surprise like that you make it a surprise. Have somebody else perform first and then bring out Hammer to join in their set. Don't announce Hammer and just let him do a bit. Sure it's nice and all but announcing it kills the energy.
I think the key thing is that not only are the "shocks" of the show so clearly telegraphed and planned in advance, but in the past couple of years it has become incredibly obvious that the people dancing in front are paid by MTV. To be fair, the fact that those folks are extras has been one of the worst kept secrets for many, many years now. But with the past two VMAs it became clear that not only were these folks hired, but rehearsed. Random dancing and singing? Could be anybody. Coincidentally having Brazilian flags and starting to wave them at just the right moment of Pimpin' All Over The World? Not so much.
And I suspect that's the vibe I was really picking up on last year when I felt that the crowd energy was all wrong. There's a huge difference between a crowd that's actually getting its groove on and a crowd that has been told to act like it's getting its groove on. And when you take the latter and repeatedly use them in "spontaneous" parts of the show, it breaks the vibe of the show for the actual audience. If the viewers at home can see these supposedly random people being given highly expensive flatscreen monitors to hold aloft to help present one of the awards they can figure out on their own that the dancing and "Wooo!"ing are scripted too.
On top of that you have the actual musicians. I don't know what idiot thought it was a good idea to remove the musicians far away from the stage (thus making every walk to accept an award take five minutes) but to also put them in this little loungey area with tables and cocktails - okay, I can see why the promise of booze is fairly heady, but it removes the musicians from everything else and encourages what was in full force last night, which was every single fucking one of them (except Kelly) sitting there with a stony, too-indy/punk/hip-hop/Kanye/whatever-for-this-shit expression on their faces. Which, granted, was funny as hell when you could see them actually whispering "What the FUCK?" to each other (Hi, Destiny's Child! Yes, we lip read!) over how stupid the show was, or when you saw them attempting to kill Kelly Clarkson for winning an award they were nominated for by trying to shoot laser beams out of their eyes (Hi, Gwen!) but it just increases the vibe that all this is is a little performance and no actual live energy or emotion shall pass the gates of the dancing extras.
So at this point I think MTV needs to fish or cut bait. Either it's a totally planned show, in which case they should treat it like the Movie Awards, or it's the wacky anything can happen show, in which case they need to loosen the puppet strings a little bit.
Not that my opinion on the subject matters.
R Kelly has no friends, does he? I'm not saying I've got a problem with that, but if Trapped in the Closet isn't some huge, all-encompassing Andy Kaufmanesque performance art then clearly R Kelly pissed off someone in a previous life, is earning the karma for his sex life, and/or was the one who shot Suge and was being punished in advance because good GOD.
Eva's bathing suit was actually far more demure than was hyped, though I didn't need to know the status of her last bikini wax. What amazes me more is that nobody pulled her aside and told her that cracking hurricane jokes at that particular point in time was the height of tastelessness.
Speaking of clothes: I'm the millionth to say it but you gotta admire Fergie for daring to show up in a yellow dress. Also Jessica looked like she'd been raped pre-show. That she was allowed out of the house like that is probably the greatest proof of all that Nick no longer gives a flying crap about her.
I will give props for the water stage. The weak jets that winners had to walk under or around were stupid, but the rest were actually pretty. Also Shakira kicked ass, as did Coldplay. Note how when the talent actually has talent, the performance takes care of itself.
I was talking with various people last night about why VMAs suck. They didn't use to. I'd even go back as the Madonna/Britney kiss as a point where MTV still managed to hit the right note of "No they di-int!" even if said note was clearly planned in advance.
However the past two VMAs have not done that by any stretch of the imagination. Last year I thought it was the setting. Having the stages be small and the crowd swirl around them was just too chaotic and the energy was all over the place, thus undercutting anything that might have actually been cool.
This year though I'm realizing the problem is that they've turned the VMAs into the Movie Awards, only without the benefit of foreplanning.
See the Movie Awards are done well in advance and are so scripted as to be ridiculous, but funnily enough that's actually okay. You basically get to see big stars joking around and be stupid, and it's not like the Movie Awards were ever meant to be anything but a parody of real awards shows. I mean Chewbacca got lifetime achievement one year for Heaven's sake.
But the VMAs were vaguely theoretically actually awards, for all that you'll notice nobody ever tells you who votes on these things. They're obviously nothing but PR, but even so the show itself was born and raised on the wacky things that happened, going back to the time when MTV was such a nothing entity there was really no PR to be gained, so they just had fun with it.
However in the past two years - and again I'd say Britney/Madonna was a touchstone because it was both the best of getting people to talk while at the same time being totally and utterly planned - they've taken the feel of the VMAs out while still trying to maintain the appearance. Case in point, last night's show where instead of allowing random things to happen (Rage Against the Machine guy storming the stage, Eminem hating on Triumph, etc) it was scripted and controlled to the nth degree, including "Anything can happen!" as we were so often reminded.
Granted, you did get the Fat Joe/Fiddy fight, which was funny to watch on the rerun because I knew about it in advance yet for some odd reason they muted not only Fiddy but Fat Joe (who as far as I know didn't swear), but beyond that everything was planned and scripted. Even surprise things weren't really so much a surprise. Like having Hammer there was actually cool - and one of the rare moments when everybody except Kelly Clarkson finally got the stick out of their asses and allowed themselves to crack a smile (Kelly being the exception because she was the only one there actually enjoying herself the whole time, and good on her) - but old VMAs knew that if you're going to do a surprise like that you make it a surprise. Have somebody else perform first and then bring out Hammer to join in their set. Don't announce Hammer and just let him do a bit. Sure it's nice and all but announcing it kills the energy.
I think the key thing is that not only are the "shocks" of the show so clearly telegraphed and planned in advance, but in the past couple of years it has become incredibly obvious that the people dancing in front are paid by MTV. To be fair, the fact that those folks are extras has been one of the worst kept secrets for many, many years now. But with the past two VMAs it became clear that not only were these folks hired, but rehearsed. Random dancing and singing? Could be anybody. Coincidentally having Brazilian flags and starting to wave them at just the right moment of Pimpin' All Over The World? Not so much.
And I suspect that's the vibe I was really picking up on last year when I felt that the crowd energy was all wrong. There's a huge difference between a crowd that's actually getting its groove on and a crowd that has been told to act like it's getting its groove on. And when you take the latter and repeatedly use them in "spontaneous" parts of the show, it breaks the vibe of the show for the actual audience. If the viewers at home can see these supposedly random people being given highly expensive flatscreen monitors to hold aloft to help present one of the awards they can figure out on their own that the dancing and "Wooo!"ing are scripted too.
On top of that you have the actual musicians. I don't know what idiot thought it was a good idea to remove the musicians far away from the stage (thus making every walk to accept an award take five minutes) but to also put them in this little loungey area with tables and cocktails - okay, I can see why the promise of booze is fairly heady, but it removes the musicians from everything else and encourages what was in full force last night, which was every single fucking one of them (except Kelly) sitting there with a stony, too-indy/punk/hip-hop/Kanye/whatever-for-this-shit expression on their faces. Which, granted, was funny as hell when you could see them actually whispering "What the FUCK?" to each other (Hi, Destiny's Child! Yes, we lip read!) over how stupid the show was, or when you saw them attempting to kill Kelly Clarkson for winning an award they were nominated for by trying to shoot laser beams out of their eyes (Hi, Gwen!) but it just increases the vibe that all this is is a little performance and no actual live energy or emotion shall pass the gates of the dancing extras.
So at this point I think MTV needs to fish or cut bait. Either it's a totally planned show, in which case they should treat it like the Movie Awards, or it's the wacky anything can happen show, in which case they need to loosen the puppet strings a little bit.
Not that my opinion on the subject matters.
