Let’s Take A Closer Look At The Most Bullshit Category Of The MTV VMAs

In 2013, the Earth was seemingly knocked off its axis by a scantily clad pop star grinding against Beetlejuice’s tailor at the MTV Video Music Awards, and the planet’s gravitational force was made heavier by the sheer tonnage of think pieces it inspired. And yet a far more nefarious event took place at that same ceremony with little-to-no outrage: the handing-out of its newest, dumbest, most secretly evil category — Best Video with a Social Message — to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. In the category’s third year, their ode to marriage equality ‘Same Love’ took the honour, despite beginning with an extended “no homo“. Lady Gaga was the inaugural victor for ‘Born this Way’ in 2011, which encourages acceptance of all stripes and sexual persuasions but then offhandedly mentions “cholas” and “orients” like it’s a fucking Andrew Dice Clay bit.

Those songs mean well, as do this year’s contenders. But we really shouldn’t be encouraging them — and by them, I not only mean Macklemore, but MTV too. For one, it’s fairly hypocritical of MTV to position themselves as the bastion of moral superiority while nominating world’s-worst-person Terry Richardson for Best Director. And while music can absolutely be a powerful tool for social upheaval, the stuff being celebrated here merely panders; these are film clips to self-congratulate to.

Notably not nominated in this category these past few years: Danny Brown’s legitimately disquieting ’25 Bucks’, anything from Against Me!’s powerful, propulsive Transgender Dysphoria Blues, or tracks from Kanye’s race-relations-exploding Yeezus. And though Janelle Monae may keep her personal orientation private, her last album, The Electric Lady, is littered with LGBTQ anthems, all toting appropriately dynamic music videos. They’ve been passed over for songs by Katy Perry (who seems to alternate between hackneyed self-empowerment anthems and videos that insult every possible culture), and Gym Class Heroes (a rap/rock group that formed in 1997, and refuse to believe seventeen years have passed since then). Shit, in 1963 MTV would have found a way to snub Sam Cooke’s ‘A Change is Gonna Come’ for ‘Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah’.

Here are 2014’s nominees, and why they both manage to blow and suck.

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Avicii – ‘Hey Brother’

Avicii is that DJ who capitalises on America’s unending, unquestioning love for country music and everyone else’s love of a good dubstep drop, even in songs apparently about dead soldiers. The video to ‘Hey Brother’ — which has a soul-crushing 63 million views on YouTube — features two young boys re-enacting Stand By Me, and releasing fireflies into the sky because poetry. It’s unclear if the boys eventually die in the Vietnam War, or if their youthful revelry and July 4th firecrackery is occurring while the war rages on in the background. The conclusion to the clip complicates things further, with one of the boys revealed to be the other boy’s dad, somehow. The younger kid grows up and becomes Avicii, a 24-year-old Swede. So the events here actually took place in 1999, in Sweden?

I could use some clarification, but that would involve rewatching the clip, and I will never do that.

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Beyoncé – ‘Pretty Hurts’

Yes, our own Sia penned the opener of Yoncé’s surprise, self-titled opus, and we should feel immensely proud of that. And yet, ‘Pretty Hurts’ sounds like the most committee-made track on the otherwise amazing album, and besides containing that hallmark of all great Sia songs — an undeniably beltable chorus — it is entirely lacking in her weird idiosyncrasies (listen to how she makes Rihanna pronounce ‘Diya-mond’ like Balki from Perfect Strangers) and brutal honesty (see: every line from ‘Chandelier’).

Instead, ‘Pretty Hurts’ traffics in trite clichés, condemning “perfection” as the “disease of a nation”, and concluding, “it’s the soul that needs the surgery”. Perhaps the shot of Beyoncé vomiting in the clip took place shortly after she was shown the lyric sheet?

The video, which is really what we’re here to discuss, sees Bey desperately seeking victory at a beauty pageant hosted by Harvey Keitel. A call to arms for all of womankind to embrace their inner beauty, it’s somewhat antithetical to her album’s mission statement: she woke up like this, bitches; bow down accordingly. For all its hypocrisy and brazen attempts to soundtrack some future Dove commercial, ‘Pretty Hurts’ will likely collect the crown.

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J. Cole – ‘Crooked Smile (feat. TLC)’

J. Cole is most famous for maybe, maybe shooting a sex tape with Rihanna, and releasing one of 2013’s most inexplicable hit records. This video sees Cole’s day-to-day life contrasted with that of a white dude with equally questionable facial hair. Except, that white dude is — twist! — a DEA agent about to snag Cole for his drug stash.

Dedicated to Aiyana Stanley-Jones, a seven-year-old girl who was killed during a raid in 2010, ‘Crooked Smile’ certainly has good intentions, and addresses the terrifying epidemic of racially charged trigger-fingers across the United States. But the content of the video has little to do with the song proper, which does that John Legend thing of spending most of its time telling women they’re gorgeous even though they have “all the pressure to look impressive and go out in heels”. It’s more than a little condescending, and not really related to what’s going on in the clip.

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David Guetta – ‘One Voice’

‘One Voice’ opens with a slide indicating it’s here to raise funds for humanitarian aid, ensuring that we should feel like real assholes for not liking it. It doesn’t do itself any favours by having David Guetta and his terrible Die Hard-villain beard talking about the unity of the universe, and Mikky Ekko emoting while hashtags advertising “teamwork”, “cooperation”, and “inclusion” are projected over him. Then, Guetta travels the world to share EDM with all impoverished people, especially the children in Africa who probably would rather he not. Yes, this is one step up from Aldous Snow’s ‘African Child’.

Yes we should be kind, cooperative, and give to those who need our help. But we shouldn’t do it because David Guetta told us to.

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Angel Haze – ‘Battle Cry (feat. Sia)’

Angel Haze made a bracing debut in 2013 with a reworking of Eminem’s ‘Cleaning Out My Closet’, in which she detailed years of sexual abuse with startling, nausea-inducing clarity. It was profoundly affecting stuff. But it doesn’t have a video, so MTV instead went with ‘Battle Cry’, her radio-ready anthem complete with Sia hook.

The clip fleetingly references her troubled past, but the song is mostly a ‘Started from the Bottom’-like tale of inspiration, ending with a Judd Nelson, fist-in-the-sky freeze frame that doesn’t even seem ironic.

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Kelly Rowland – ‘Dirty Laundry’

Okay, so maybe they’re not all bad. Kelly Rowland’s alarmingly candid ‘Dirty Laundry’ begins with her expressing how “enraged” she felt being overlooked while standing beside Beyoncé, before segueing into a personal tale of domestic abuse. It’s tough to hear, and stirring to watch her finally address it publicly. Considering how easy it would have been for a manipulative director to turn this into something far more exploitative, the visual metaphor of the video is pretty subtle too, with Rowland slowly sinking in rising water.

It probably won’t win — she is, after all, up against shadow-caster Beyoncé — but ‘Dirty Laundry’ may hold the honour of being the first truly good song and video to nab a nomination in this increasingly masturbatory, too-earnest category. There is hope for future VMAs yet. At least, until Jason Derulo uses ‘Wiggle’ to make a short film about intolerance.

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The 2014 MTV Video Music Awards will be broadcast live on MTV, on Monday August 25 from 10am AEST.

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Simon Miraudo is Quickflix’s AFCA award-winning news editor and film critic. He is also co-host of The Podcasting Couch and tweets at @simonmiraudo.