If there’s one thing MTV’s Video Music Awards thrive on more than anything, it’s controversy. A single eyebrow-raising moment or risque performance has the ability to dominate the news cycle and lift MTV’s brand into the headlines.
From 2003’s Madonna-Christina Aguilera-Britney Spears three-way kiss, to Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift in 2009, and Robin Thicke and Miley Cyrus’s twerkgate performance from 2013. Those outrageous moments are increasingly MTV’s only moment in the cultural spotlight.
This year’s show is shaping up to be an interesting one. While many have lamented the current performance lineup, you could chalk that up to it being more of a transitional year, with numerous VMAs first timers on hand to make their debut, from The Weeknd, to Tori Kelly and Twenty One Pilots. That’s not to mention Pharrell, Macklemore and Kanye West – who are rumoured to be unveiling new songs – as well as Justin Bieber, who may continue his rebirth as an EDM figure.
Photograph: Julie Jacobson/AP
I’ve personally worked on the big show twice, once as a production assistant in 2009 and the next year as a writing consultant, mostly writing presenter banter. Each time I was struck by the amount of money and manpower that goes into the show, and how each segment is meticulously planned and scripted – only to be completely overshadowed when something off-script happens.
It’s like planning a big party. You can make sure the food is hot, the drinks are plentiful and the decorations are just right, but once an acquaintance pees in the punch bowl, that’s all everyone remembers. I worked backstage the year Kanye hopped up on stage to infamously point out that Beyoncé should have won instead of Swift – making the then marginally known singer an object of tabloid fodder for days to come.
But now MTV needs those headline-grabbing moments. For one, the VMAs in the social media age are a much different viewing experience than the VMAs of the 80s or 90s. More tweets mean more viewers, more viewers mean that they’ll presumably watch spots for MTV’s other shows during the breaks – and if one thing is clear, it’s that the network desperately needs a hit.
Sure, they have watered-down, sexualized soaps such as Teen Wolf and the TV version of 90s slasher flick Scream, but Scream’s premiere garnered only a million viewers, compared to 10.1 million for AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead. Not even their other annual awards show – the MTV movie awards, hosted by Amy Schumer – generates much buzz anymore. The VMAs are increasingly one of MTV’s last grasps at mainstream relevance, and network executives have figured out long ago that controversy creates chatter, and chatter translates directly into ratings.
Fortunately for the network, there are controversies brewing even before the proceedings kick off. Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift got into a bit of a spat when this year’s nominations were announced. Minaj, angry she didn’t nab a video of the year nod for Anaconda, made it clear she was none too pleased with the decision. With their millions of fans observing the back and forth and the media eating up every word, Minaj and Swift both concocted a perfect storm of controversy; dragging race, feminism and even body-shaming into one beautifully wrapped package of hype leading up to the broadcast. If people weren’t talking about the VMA’s before, they were now.
Also amping up the attention around this year’s show is MTV’s choice to have Miley Cyrus host the proceedings. In the past, the big show was helmed by whoever was hot in comedy in the time, whether it was Eddie Murphy in the 80s, Dennis Miller in the 90s or Chris Rock in the early 00s. Capitalizing on the headlines Cyrus generated during her aforementioned performance with Thicke – and a self-made reputation as a party girl – throwing her into the mix is like throwing gasoline onto a campfire. Even the ads surrounding the ceremony feature everything from Cyrus with her famed tongue sticking out, to one of her literally crying pills. If that sounds like it makes no sense, it doesn’t and it’s not supposed to.
The VMAs have always been more spectacle than awards show, anyway. The Moonman holds little-to-no stature – I bet you can’t name a single artist who won an award during last year’s ceremony – and MTV knows this full well. The big joke every year is that the show that honors music videos is thrown by a network that doesn’t even play them anymore. The only people who truly care about who wins are the nominees themselves, and even that is debatable (besides Minaj, of course). The biggest trick MTV ever pulled was fooling the world that the VMAs were actually about awards for music videos.
