Ten years ago, at the MTV Video Music Awards, Miley Cyrus, then simply 20 years old, twerked onstage, to the discouragement of numerous, in a latex swimsuit alongwith Robin Thicke as her anthemic “We Can’t Stop” transitioned into his questionable “Blurred Lines.” It was a career-defining minute for Cyrus, trading in her Mickey Mouse ears for area buns. A years lateron, it’s a part of pop culture history.
The VMA phase has constantly been house to notorious minutes like this, providing entertainers a platform to take dangers. It’s where Britney Spears (19 years old at the time) curtained a python over her arms to sing “I’m a Slave 4 U” and where Madonna carriedout, at the first-ever VMAs practically 40 years ago, her sacrilegious mega-hit “Like a Virgin,” popping out of a cake in a less-than-traditional weddingevent gown. It’s likewise where, 20 years ago, those 2 pop icons, with Christina Aguilera in tow, locked lips, prompting a great old-fashioned ethical panic.
At the VMAs, the stakes are extremely lower than that of the Grammys, where the Recording Academy votes on who will take house the distinguished award. Here, the winners are figuredout by wild fandoms, and the award itself is shaped like an astronaut landing on the moon, a recommendation to the veryfirst clip MTV ever aired back in1981 An occasion where celebrities are understood for going off script, it’s where stars let their hair down and slip into something more comfy, like a meat gown, or into an unscripted tirade about how Beyoncé really had the finest music video of the year, or that “the world is bullshit.” In 2013, MTV cofounder Tom Freston, spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about the origins of the award program: “We simply got selected up in New York, and it appeared like a great time to have a celebration. Then the concept endedupbeing: Have a celebration, however