A Crying Shame

Last night brought us the train wreck that is the completely irrelevant MTV Video Music Awards (and I am delighted to report that I did not watch them). Why irrelevant? Um, let's see...first when was the last time MTV featured music and B) when was the last time MTV actually played a music video? That would be a quarter to never, but I digress. The MTV VMA's have a long history of being a forum for outrageous behavior, mostly from young women who have decided that being raging skanks is the greatest thing they could ever do. But what happened last night was the crowning achievement of skankdom and given how low the bar has been set, that is really saying something.

Believe it or not, this is the least offensive of the lot

Former Disney (the Disney people may want to look at the training program and what it's yielding- Britney Spears, Xtina, and now Miley, unless of course it's some secret program for producing walking testbeds for free clinics) child songstress Miley Cyrus used the event to perform, and I use that word as loosely as her morals, a spectacle normally reserved for seedy strip clubs. There is no point in describing it. It's being replayed at a vomit-inducing pace so you'll get to see it, if you so desire.

Her father, Billy Ray Cyrus, no stranger to causing the nation to bouts of explosive vomiting (I give you 'Achy Breaky Heart' and dare you to argue), sent out a text after his daughter's routine, imploring the nation to pray for world peace. Given his daughter's performance, I think he meant piece, since that is what she was giving away. Upon reading that, I actually felt a little bit sorry for him. It was a crying shame. A shame that he had to witness that and an even greater shame that he seemed to be more concerned about world peace than his daughter's implosion broadcast to a worldwide audience. The whole spectacle was an enormous shame.

Mika Brzezinski, co-host of MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' was having none of it this morning. None. Of. It. She was on a tear this morning. At one point, she said the following, "The whole thing was cringe-worthy, but I feel bad for her. She is a mess. Someone needs to take care of her." Cringe-worthy is a bit of an understatement. It was, and is, sad. Sad that a young woman feels that turning herself into an obscene parody is the way to jumpstart her career and create an impression. Sad that the shame of it all will be lost on her and those around her.

The whole thing was a crying shame. Makes you miss the days when the worst thing the VMA's produced was a writhing Madge Madonna lip-synching badly to 'Like a Virgin.'