Nauseating VMAs

Last night I watched the entire Video Music Awards for what turned out to be only about a 3-minute preview of the documentary about Michael Jackson's "This Is It" tour, and found out I must be getting old, because much of the show disgusted me.

One of the first performers was the much-lauded Lady Gaga, in what started out to be a very pretty skit with costumes and choreography--a new song of hers called “Paparazzi”. But then things just got weird. She was all in white, dancing with and in between others in white, but then one member of her entourage wheeled another actor onto the stage in a wheelchair, and everyone surrounded Lady G.. When she emerged “blood” started pouring from her chest. It was shocking and very strange. I've seen a lot of interpretations of "art" in all its forms, and gotten something out of it; if this was supposed to be art or some kind of statement, it was completely over my head.

The performance ended with the singer being hoisted up on a noose like she’d been hanged or hanged herself--weird. On a night where much was said about making the event a tribute to Michael Jackson, Lady G. seemed to have ignored the message, and made her whole performance about being chased by the paparazzi, who it’s common knowledge hounded Michael Jackson, spewing rumors and innuendo about him until it was obviously too much to take, until even an acquittal was not enough to undo the damage done by a horrendous, slanderous, heart-breaking trial.

I think Lady G. is only about 17 years old, so there’s a good chance she missed most of what Michael Jackson had to put up with. But somebody should have told this child that what she had in mind for a performance was just a little off-color considering what happened in June and that some of MJ's family would be at the show. Of course most of her audience were probably too young to know what MJ endured, but some of them must know about Princess Diana, right? She couldn't have known MTV was previewing MJ's documentary that night and that it would draw a lot of "old timers" like myself who loved him. Still...MTV should have been a little more cognizent of the diversity of their audience--in the end, all just music lovers.

Not to mention, there have been a long, long stream of celebrities hounded by the paparazzi to within--or beyond--an inch of their lives. How could she make light of that? Am I just not getting it? Am I that old and jaded at 27 that I have completely missed the point of what Lady Gaga was trying to say?

When she won an award later that night, she at least had the decency to declare it “for the gays,” which I took as an affront to the media that has lately accused her of being a hermaphrodite. I was glad she at least had the sense to be humble in that victory. But her performance seared itself onto my memory, and ruined the rest of the show. Luckily I found out when coming online to write this blog that the MJ preview is available for viewing--so in the future I can skip the whole head-pounding, stomach-churning, inappropriate, insensitive VMAs and just stay on the ironically "safe" side--the Internet the day after.