Despite the fact that the season seems to be a complete loss I am having an inordinate amount of fun with the Notre Dame football team this year. Specifically, the NCAA Football 2008 version of the team, whose starting quarterback defaults to that dude who was thrown off the team over the summer. As a result, I have decided to rechristen Notre Dame’s starting quarterback “Doctor Wang” or D Wang for short. I swear to God, tonight I was able to get Brad Nessler to say “Wang down with a sack” during tonight’s game against Missouri (which I lost thanks to Travis Thomas fumbling on the goal line in overtime). It might be childish but right now it’s more enjoyable than my typical Saturday afternoons.
Anyway, though I’m a little late to the blogsphere party I guess that it is my duty as a fifth tier pop culture analyst to talk about Britney’s appearance at the VMA’s. First off, while I didn’t watch the show directly I have on strong authority that John Norris hosted the pre-award show. If you’re my age you are going “That John Norris? The dude who was like the sixth best VJ in 1990?” Yep, he still apparently has a job at MTV. I’m not sure why, maybe he didn’t rat out Kurt Loder to the cops and is kept on the way they do in the mob. I can’t see what he would do day to day at the MTV offices other than hang out by the coffee and talk about how he hit on Cindy Crawford to nineteen year old interns who have no idea who he is talking about. And a nineteen year old would legitimately not know who Cindy Crawford is, if you think about it.
On to Britney. I will go on the record that I am not going to make any comments as to whether Brit is fat or not. If she’s fat then it’s no doubt as to why women have such mind screwing body image issues. Plus, I can’t call anyone out on a little softness around the midsection. That said, her wearing the matching bra and panties set as her comeback outfit was not a very good call. It really did not work to her advantage.
Neither did showing up to the VMAs drunk and not rehearsing. If you’ve seen the footage, which I’ve now watched twice for six minutes of my life that I will regret wasting when the ice cream truck runs me down in the middle of the road, you know it is a train wreck of incredible performances. It’s all lip synched, of course, though it makes you wonder why they even bothered with the rather ungainly microphone battery pack stuck to her backside. But worse than being lip synched it is horribly lip synched, which is odd given that the song pretty much consists of her singing “Gimme More” over and over again. It’s not like she has to memorize a Sufjan Stevens lyric or anything.
The performance was…how shall I put this? Ok, the song is not going to be a radio hit or even a dance club hit. It will probably be a hit at a place named Vixxxen where dancers named after either minerals or cocktails will embrace it. Britney’s performance would be what you would therefore expect from a dancer named Talc who you tip just to get her to go away (or so I’ve been told.) She had no rhythm and barely moved. When she did move she was out of step and often moving in the opposite direction of everyone on stage. She had no energy, no life and seemed to be someone who had no desire to be up there in front of a crowd. She basically looked like the punch line to a joke and even in her vaguely wasted state she was slowly figuring out that she was the joke.
It’s this last bit that I’m struggling through. While we all may question her sanity, sobriety and talent this is still someone who has an opportunity to rebound and salvage her image and she pretty much ruined it in one fell swoop. This is rather incredible as both Michael Jackson and Pee Wee Herman were able to use the VMAs for image rehab. I can’t believe either her or her handlers thinking on this. You have only one opportunity to make a comeback and nail a first impression. You want to have every single second orchestrated and planned so that nothing could possibly go wrong. Hell, I wouldn’t even do it on live television if I could avoid it. Instead we have this fiasco. So I must go with the rest of the nation now turning its eyes to Kevin Federline for guidance. He may be our only hope.
(Oh, and MTV gave out awards for videos that they don’t show. Really, the VMAs have been pretty much meaningless ever since they got rid of Arsenio Hall.)
1 comment:
Britney no longer has handlers. That's part of the problem. She fired her managers and insists on managing herself. Obviously this is working out well for her.
Isn't it strange how MTV still holds the VMAs even though they don't show videos anymore?
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