By Luis Santana / Staff Writer
In the twenty one years that I’ve been on this earth I have never watched the MTV VMA ceremony. I’ve never been too keen on most of the pop music on the radio and I never really watched MTV as a kid. But yesterday I sat down beside my girlfriend and her mother to watch the 2014 awards. And what an awkwardly entertaining show it was.
Now don’t think I mean awkward as in “Oh, I am so above this genre of entertainment that I find no pleasure in watching it,” in fact I did enjoy the show. Nicki Minaj’s stage was an expertly crafted forest with people painted as snakes, 5 seconds to summer sounded was a Blink 182 style show without sounding like they were a rip off, and while Beyonce’s performance was longer than any prog rock song, (in which time I was able to go to McDonald’s grab a bite to eat, shower, and finish my FAFSA all while still being able to catch her sing a song to her daughter,) it was a very well-orchestrated show. But there were things said and done that just didn’t belong in this sort of show. The show was confused of whether it wanted to take a political stand, support the homeless, pay a homage to a comedian or just be an awards show.
First things first, let’s point out the moment of silence that was held for Ferguson. Why? Why are we politicizing a musical awards ceremony? None of these artists are being nominated for their politically charged songs. This event isn’t giving 10% of what’s it has earned to Ferguson. This event is supposed to be simple fun entertainment but instead is being turned into the evening news? Imagine if during one of Obama’s speeches, Iggy Azalea were to come swinging from the sky held aloft by a giant spider web and start having a concert in the middle of an important speech. It would completely throw you off and make you wonder why a political event is being turned into someone singing about their name in bold. I understand music has been used in the past to push political ideas, but an awards ceremony is the wrong place to have a moment of silence.
Next we had Miley Cyrus asking a homeless youth to accept the reward on her behalf while reading from a script about his plight. Really Miley? You didn’t seem to care so much about this last year when you made twerking into America’s favorite past time. The only thing you seemed to care about was breaking out from your Disney channel look and swinging from wrecking balls. The homeless youth asked us to go visit Miley’s Facebook page to get informed about this issue and how the music industry will make seven billion dollars and how we should all really care and look how Miley’s crying she must be such a sweet heart and she really cares I mean just look at her. It’s pathetic when you twerk on Robin Thicke as a way to try and gain infamy. It’s even more pathetic when you then try to revert back to convince everyone that you care about this plight more than you care about releasing your newest album.
The Robin Williams 20-second tribute was completely irreverent and disrespectful. Played after a loud performance this tribute was no tribute at all. No words were spoken. No ceremony given. Only a Coldplay song and a couple of Google image search pictures. That’s it. Words can’t describe how offended I was. If you’re going to give Ferguson a moment of silence, then I’m sure you can afford to give Robin Williams an actual ceremony.
This blatant abuse of his death to stir up feelings from the audience was definitely the icing of uncomfortable merengue on the cake of the VMA’s. Whoever scripts the VMA’s really needs to take lessons in what to bring up at a dinner table or in this case at an awards show. Because the: death of a comedian, plight of the homeless and the slaughter of an innocent man are not things to bring up when handing out a little silver astronaut.
-Luis.Santana@fiusm.com
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