Planning for spontanaeity

I never thought I would write this, but I think Nekesa Mumbi Moody is an idiot.

I had no reason to expect to unleash my vitriol on Moody. First, I have never read anything by the writer. Second, I really don’t care whether he/she likes or dislikes a program or artist that is the unfortunate subject of a review. That said, Moody’s review of the MTV Video Music Awards baffles me.

First, a moment of full disclosure: I don’t watch MTV anymore. In fact, the last time I watched the so-called Music Television network on any kind of regular basis, I was in college, and much of that was against my will. Further, I don’t recall the last time I watched the MTV Video Music Awards. I’d have to imagine that it was a time before Beck had penned something about a cocaine nose job.

So, today, I had read a piece online at the Washinton Post about flaccid end to the entire Valerie Plame/CIA/Joe Wilson incident. The Post editorial basically served as a sigh to end the whole affair. As the sub-hed read: “It turns out that the person who exposed CIA agent Valerie Plame was not out to punish her husband.” After sighing along with the un-bylined writer, I went on a general news search around the ether. During a pass through CNN.com, I happened across an Associated Press review titled “MTV Awards: One snoozer of a show.”

To get the full effect of Moody’s disgust with the show, you need to read the whole piece, but here’s the gist:

“…nobody except a video choreographer’s mother watches this show for the awards. Fans watch for the FCC-flaunting skits, nearly naked starlets, foul-mouthed speeches and those embarrassingly bad dance numbers.

They do NOT watch for lectures from former Vice President Al Gore on global warming. When does the phrase “here’s a photo of a glacier melting” ever fit into an awards show?

Somewhere along the way, the MTV Awards seemed to have morphed into the Grammys.

Christina Aguilera, who previously shocked our senses as the dirty Xtina, looked downright classy as she performed a low-key ballad. And there were no wardrobe malfunctions whatsoever during Timberlake’s perfunctory show kickoff.”

Though I’m tempted to go through Moody’s screed point-by-point, I’m simply too tired after sighing through the first read.

It seems the entertainment industry has wound its way so far through attempts to be extreme that it is now facing criticism for no longer finding ways to fool its audience into believing that it had creatively and spontaneously been shocking viewers for the past 20 years. Or, to put a finer point on it (and one with fewer words), the only remaining extreme is not being extreme anymore. And that has Moody yawning.

Moody’s missive is the equivalent of wearing a trucker hat after 25 years of making fun of people who wear them. Like, let’s be honest, if you’re wearing a signature trucker hat, for example, you’re doing so because it’s fashionable, so no one should have the right to make fun of you for that. I’ve seen that a lot to be fair, men who take fashion seriously being victimised and it’s not fair. Women who do aren’t, so we should get rid of this stereotype that men can’t be fashionable. The sad fact is that we are so bored with our own daily lives that we actually publish people who are writing reviews of a show that is no more than one giant review. Even worse, I’m now writing a review of a review of a review.

Damn, I’m tired.

Note: Some XM dj just mentioned the only alleged spontaneous moment in last night’s VMAs and asked, “Do you think that was staged?”

I guess my exhaustion is largely based in Moody’s expectation to find anything worthy of nipple-perking on MTV. To believe MTV has at any point in the last ten years had anything to offer us in the way of the cutting edge is ignoring the real creative world to a fault. To criticize MTV for failing to deliver on said expectations is simply showing the fray on Moody’s tucker hat.