Britney OMG

I made a point to watch the MTV Video Music Awards last night. I’ll be honest. I’m not a frequent viewer. I can’t hum one single note of any of the winners’ songs. But I try to do my best to stay “culturally relevant.”  I read gossip blogs, and watch Extra (EX-tra!). And of course I wanted to see Britney Spears’ much-hyped “comeback.”

I sweartagawd it was one of the most horrific things I’ve witnessed in a very long time. My brain nearly exploded out of my nostrils for the following reasons:

1. It’s one thing to see the aftermath of a trainwreck while the debris is still smoldering and survivors are staggering around. It’s quite another thing to watch it unfolding before your very eyes. Some very well-paid “professionals” apparently believe ridiculously overt sexual posing and posturing – no matter how well choreographed and costumed – will still be exciting and unique and groundbreaking. But when it’s used to back up a dazed and confused “star” in a tacky and unflattering cheap spangled get-up, it’s just embarrassing. I was cringing. I wanted to cover my eyes and make it go away. THIS is the best our country has to offer? THIS is the pinnacle of our musical culture? But it got worse!
2. Did ANYone find Sarah Silverman’s “jokes” remotely funny? Tell me, when IS a shaved vagina funny? And then she had to demonstrate what it looks like?? Who laughs at this crap? (Other than burned-out gynecologists?) My GAWD I have never heard a “comic” take so many cheap shots and low blows in such rapid succession. In the Wikipedia entry under “tasteless” I’m going to add Sarah Silverman.
3. Despite reviews to the contrary, I found the rest of the show (the remainder I could bear to watch) a jumbled mess. I wanted to see performers performing. But instead the show lurched back and forth between tantalizing snippets of sex and booze-filled parties we weren’t invited to, and presentation of insanely worthless awards like “Quadruple Threat” – based on WHAT? And according to WHOM?
4. And other than the public humiliation of Brit, the ONLY highlight of the evening was two saggy has-been rockers with man-boobs fighting over their artificially enhanced ex-wife? Even now I’m shuddering at the thought.

But there’s one other thing that terrified be about the whole experience.  Something I can no longer deny.

I mentioned it before here,  but now I know it’s true.  I truly have become an old fogie. Look, I understand the whole point about being young is going out of your way to not be like your parents. And you want to do stuff that’s risky, or risqué, or both, to demonstrate how daring and uninhibited you are.

But at some point, it just crosses over the line to being plain STOOPID. At some point there is no art in your artlessness. And that to me was one of the biggest disappointments. The lack of “art.”

 If you keep going down and down and down to shock, at some point, you have to go up just to be different.  I mean, Even “Fiddy Cent” showed up to the show bare-headed in a tailored jacket and neat jeans (after all, he a bidnessman now). Perhaps the tide will turn. Perhaps the fact that Alicia Keys and Rihanna showed up in elegant long gowns is a good thing. Perhaps Britney will get with the program. I hope so. I’m not getting any younger…but then, neither is she.