The once-anarchic – and outrageous – awards ceremony is now just another bacchanalia of backslapping. But at least Taylor Swift had fun
During Tuesday night’s MTV Music Video Awards in New Jersey, Justin Timberlake stood on stage flanked by four bodyguards in varying states of mid-life burliness. Closer inspection revealed the quartet were, in fact, his old bandmates from NSYNC. The troupe – a subprime Floridian forerunner of One Direction – had convened to present the gong for Best Pop Video to Taylor Swift.
“I had your dolls!” the Queen of Pop exclaimed as she received the accolade for her single Anti-Hero in a ceremony at the Prudential Centre in Newark. “You guys are pop personified. To receive this from your golden pop hands…it’s too much.”
It was too much – how excited could Swift have been about meeting Timberlake and his dad-pals? – but also too little. In an awards calendar defined by its self-congratulating and speechifying, MTV’s VMAs have long been notorious for their unpredictability, spats, and semi-naked snake dancing.
True, the Oscars have recently raised the stakes thanks to the La La Land/ Moonlight mix-up and Will Smith and “the slap”. However, until those two towers of catharsis, the VMAs stood apart as the awards show where anarchy ruled. Kanye West stage invasions, Nicki Minaj beefs, Lady Gaga in a pork-chop gown – with the VMAs, there were no limits.