Don’t Tell MTV, But It’s Been Boring for 30 Years

Don’t Tell MTV, But It’s Been Boring for 30 Years August 31, 2015

David French, over at National Review, says what most of us are thinking:

As if anyone cared, MTV hosted its flagship program last night — the Video Music Awards. Every year, the VMAs represent MTV’s desperate bid to stay relevant, usually by either trying to engineer “beefs” between key stars (Ooh look, Nicki Minaj told off Miley Cyrus!) or by asking young starlets to be as sexual and/or blasphemous as basic cable allows. Considering that pop music is supposed to be about the “now,” it’s a pitiful irony that MTV’s been appealing to this basic formula since 1984, when Madonna writhed on stage in a white wedding dress singing “Like a Virgin.”

Since then, it’s been all Madonna, all the time. When the original began to fade, her successors rose to the challenge, with a symbolic passing of the sexual torch more than a decade ago as Madonna kissed Madonna Junior (Britney Spears). After Britney, the pop world has brought us Madonna in a meat dress (Lady Gaga), and young, twerking Madonna (Miley Cyrus). And each time they’ve hilariously cast The Same Old Thing as something “fresh” and “transgressive.” Last night was no exception, featuring Miley flashing the audience for less than a second and then talking and singing about — and this is so original for a pop star — how much she likes weed. The formula is the same. Only the production values have changed.

Read all of it here.

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