 |
| Miley Cyrus |
This year’s MTV Video Music
Awards seemed positioned for success. MTV deftly marketed last night’s awards
show around their selection of Miley Cyrus as a host, a pick that served as a
one-two publicity punch: it reminded viewers of the tongue-flapping, gyrating,
outspoken celebrity culture the show is famous for showcasing (no one can
forget the sight of Cyrus on stage with Robin Thicke in 2013), and it also
pulled Cyrus out of the woodwork and positioned her for a comeback—one that was
thwarted by the VMAs desperate, cloying attempts to be controversial and relevant.
Cyrus has, after all, been
relatively under wraps in the celebrity world, up until her publicity for the
VMAs—in her own words she hasn’t really worked for two years while she engages
in self-discovery. That self-discovery, perhaps came out of a need to recover
from her wild-girl debut of a few years ago, when she shocked everyone by
cutting her hair, ditching her fiancé, straddling a wrecking ball and releasing
her fourth album, Bangerz.
Perhaps because it’s a move we’ve
seen before, the clean, young pop-star girl turning to statement-making,
sexualized woman (“I’m a Slave 4 U,” anyone?), this didn’t feel particularly
ground-breaking or original, but what does seem significant, is the Cyrus we’d
been seeing as of late. While she still sports the same avant-garde, Jeremy
Scott clothing, she has spoken calmly and clearly about issues like her
pansexuality and her recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel felt fresh and
relatively unexpected.
While she engaged in her typical
performative garb and behavior on Kimmel (she arrived wearing pasties and
discussed her time on nude beaches), she also did a hilarious bit where she
disguised herself as an Australian reporter and questioned pedestrians on their
opinions of Miley Cyrus. It was a bit that harkened back to her days of being
Hannah Montana, and a reminder that Cyrus is, actually, a pretty fun, hilarious
performer—a zany, fun-loving character that reminds you of the best friend you
had as a kid who was the best at playing pretend, even if she always got you in
trouble. Cyrus, it seemed, had come into her own, nip slips and all.
But then, last night’s VMAs
happened, and the world experienced Cyrus not as entertaining and glib, but as
awkward, over-scripted and boxed in, dragged along for the bleak, drawn-out
charade of a tired awards show desperate for viewers.
Cyrus’s monologues and sketches
felt insincere: her bit with Snoop Dogg, in which they shared “brownies” and he
turned into her pet pig, was so PC it could have been played on Nickelodean,
and Cyrus’s final performance of her song. “Doo it!”, felt like a familiar acid
trip visited so many times before that it’s lost it’s hallucinogenic spark.
The two moments of press-worthy,
genuine tension where Miley could have improvised and hit her stride were
weirdly glossed over in a grit your teeth, get-through the show kind of way:
her answer to Justin Bieber’s tears was to tell him to call her when he’s
legal, and her confrontation with Nicki Minaj was over in a blink of an eye.
The internet and the public, of
course, have attacked Miley’s presentation skills the day after the awards
ceremony—my friend posted on Facebook about it, calling her “trash” that
inspired her to change the channel. But I’m not so sure— I think, given the
proper platform, Cyrus could become her own sort of wilder Katy Perry/Lady
Gaga, an androgynous, loud-mouthed musician (who still has an incredible voice,
by the way) so bizarre and fun that she beats out her competition.
Her shakey performance last night
is not her own fault, but that of MTV and the VMAs, who so forcibly tried to
make Cyrus act like Cyrus that her essence was lost. Instead of allowing
comedic, outrageous moments to occur organically—having Cyrus go into the
audience to interact with her peers, for example, or having blocks of minutes
allotted for her to go off-script—they poorly exaggerated her familiar
character traits until even her signature Jeremy Scott garb grew tired.
What MTV seemed to forget is that
the best moments of awards shows—and the reason they’re appealing to watch
live—are the mistakes and loose lips, the unscripted performances and speeches
of celebrities and musicians who usually only communicate through
publicist-dictated sound bites. Now, perhaps, they’ll know better, and Cyrus,
freed of the award show shackles, will go on to continue her comeback and just
be Miley. After all, she can’t be tamed.
