The 2012 VMAs

“If she did, so what? It’s over! Move on! Look on the bright side…they now a part of the seven dwarves. You got Sleepy, Grumpy, Adultery, Cheaty. They all part of it! They in one big bubble. The point that I’m making is this: if you made a mistake, so what!”

It seems like everybody that followed him took Hart’s advice to “heart.”

The question is, are young people beginning to simmer in this kind of thinking and take this advice to heart?

Hart’s monologue is timely. In my (Jonathan) parent workshop this weekend, I’m going to spend quite a bit of time talking about the “so what” attitude so prevalent in teenagers today, an attitude that might just be one of the catalysts to risky behaviors.

Are concerned parents just overreacting, or is MTV right? Was all the raunchy, racy content packed into the VMAs really “no big deal”?

You be the judge.

Setting the Bar Low
After calling Frank Ocean’s homosexual identity “brave” and dismissing the marital infidelity of two adults, Hart introduced the show’s first award, and the night regressed from there. But what are we to expect from a TV program with such a colorful past?

Remember 2010’s “dangling penis”? 2009’s “prayer to Satan”? How about 2008’s “slam on celibacy”?

Yet, I have to say, that in comparison to former years, 2012’s show didn’t really drop our jaw to the ground. Don’t get me wrong, MTV hasn’t gone soft; there were still plenty of elements to make parents and youth workers groan. For instance…

1. Way too many expletives. It’s hard to highlight the presence of such mindless vulgarity without sounding like a prude, but it’s a risk we’re willing to take. Let’s be honest for a moment; our world has turned swear words into household vocabulary, so their presence rarely turns heads. But when the frequency of vulgarity becomes so great that it actually draws attention to itself, you know it’s bad.

   Kevin Hart’s standup routines were dripping with expletives (especially his opening monologue). Several of the live performances, for instance, Green Day, Lil Wayne & 2 Chainz, and P!nk, were muted so often due to inappropriate language that there was as much silence as there was sound during their mini-concerts. But MTV’s best efforts on the bleep button were undone by shots of the crowd; everybody in the house was singing along, giving voice to the words producers knew they needed to cut.

   Of course, the show’s presenters and award recipients met their quota of filth behind the mic, as well. For example, Drake was making a somewhat touching speech about being yourself when he ended it on a very low note. And even the commercials offered up their fair share of vulgarity. (For instance, MTV used snippets from the full trailer for their new show “Underemployed” throughout the awards show.)

2. Plenty of sexual references. MTV isn’t going to let one of their biggest nights of the year go by without infusing sensuality into the mix. Again, it was the live performances that led the way. Rihanna’s opening lyrics were “I want you to be my sex slave” (which was probably better than the actual opening lyrics to that song, “suck my cockiness.”) During his performance with 2 Chainz, Lil Wayne rapped, “Good weed, bad *itch, got these hoes on my d**k like Brad Pitt.” Of course, the “Free P*ssy Riot” T-shirt worn by Green Day’s guitarist also captured attention.

   One of the more poignant moments was when Australian comedienne Rebel Wilson took the stage with The Wanted (a boy band from the UK) to introduce Best Female Video wearing an airbrushed shirt that featured a…ummm…“hairy” woman in a bikini. If the visuals weren’t enough, she made crude references to one of the guys beside her being the “chip in my dip.” In the moments following, she then made a reference to masturbation and orgies.

   All that was too much for Kevin Hart to ignore; later in the show, he made a middle school reference to her “pubes.” Further, one of his commercial break comedy clips featured him in a conversation with Ke$ha who lifted her shirt to reveal pixilated breasts.

I guess 10 years ago this all would have been shocking. Sadly, in today’s oversexualized world, and especially on this “no holds barred” channel, this content often comes across as “no big deal.” Perhaps this is a side effect of oversaturation of raunchy media. I (Jonathan) watched two “edited” TV shows on my United flight today. Both comedies had blatant penis jokes, one where a girl prayed to God that her date would have a giant penis, the other where a man injured his penis during violent sex with a Russian model.

No big deal?

Rays of Hope
MTV’s VMAs supposedly revolve around rewarding musicians for the success of their product; the artists compete in many different categories, which include Best Male (and Female) Videos, Best Rock Video, Best Video with a Message, and the highly-sought-after Video of the Year Award, amongst others. MTV’s website offers a full list of this year’s winners, but sadly enough for those victors… nobody cares. The VMAs have never been about the winners; they’ve always been about how much wild and crazy can be crammed into two hours of live television, as evidenced by some of this year’s stunts. Too bad for MTV that only half of last year’s numbers were watching.

This year’s show offered a couple rays of hope. In the midst of everything MTV offered – celebrity appearances, live performances from varied musical genres, and exclusive sneak peek movie premieres – MTV managed to get a couple things right.

First, they seized the opportunity to make an impact on the politically-minded. Throughout the show, and in several ways, viewers were encouraged to register and vote. Given that the VMAs aired opposite the DNC’s biggest night – the one where President Obama accepted his party’s nomination for a second White House bid – it was probably the least they could do, along with moving the show up one hour so it wouldn’t conflict with the President’s speech.

Second, the clean music of boy band sensation One Direction was highlighted with three wins (Best New Artist, Best Pop Video, and Most Share-Worthy Video Awards) and a live performance. Each time they accepted an award, they did so humbly and graciously, and their performances matched their music: clean.

As raunchy as the charts can be, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Today, as we write this, the music charts have some pretty clean options. Taylor Swift owns the No. 1 single on iTunes right now with her song, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together. Christian artist Adam Young of Owl City shares a spot in the Top 10 of the same chart with Carly Rae Jepsen in their song Good Time. And for the first time since 1997, a Christian album is No. 1 on the Billboard album chart, Toby Mac’s brand new Eye On It.

If only more of these jewels existed in the rough.

MTV typically provides little saving grace on their network. Parents and youth workers simply cannot expect MTV to offer the truth, so they must be committed to providing it. Here are a couple ideas that will help your teenagers avoid the “mistakes” that MTV flaunts.

1. Continue to teach biblical principles. Make sure your teenagers know what sin is and how to avoid it. But also remind them that when they do stumble into it that the only right way to deal with sin is to acknowledge it and ask forgiveness of it. Offering no apologies to God (or others) is as foolish as it is costly. Here is a great resource – that’s musically-slanted – to help you teach on this topic.
2. Help them with discernment. One of Scripture’s best passages on discernment is Ephesians 5:1-12. Here, Paul writes, “Be imitators of God; among you there should not even be a hint of sexual immorality; let no one deceive you with empty words; find out what pleases the Lord; have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness.” Much of the content on MTV’s awards show fell way below these ancient but righteous standards. If teens learn to hold up life’s decisions against this godly measurement, they will make fewer and fewer mistakes.
3. Use Music as a Discussion Springboard. Rather than overreacting about inappropriate music, use the opportunity to provoke conversation. Turn your “overreaction” into “interaction.” Take songs like Rihanna’s We Found Love, last night’s VMA video of the year, and use it to talk with teenage girls about “settling” in relationships (more on that here).

Speaking of avoiding mistakes, it’s probably best to just avoid MTV altogether. We’re not trying to come across prude. We both like TV and movies. But MTV’s content continually pushes the limits and irks parenting and family-minded groups across the country. Their target audience is 12-34 year-olds. Teenagers make up a heaping portion of their loyal fans… yet MTV doesn’t hesitate to continue pimping smut. It’s best to avoid the network all together. What few tidbits of good that escape their vortex of worthlessness can also be found in other, less-toxic, places. If we cut off the amount of filth that infiltrates the lives of our kids, it’ll be less that we have to apologize for.