No Bush on MTV
The Pop Culture Junkies reports that Nine Inch Nails will not be performing at the MTV Movie Awards due to a dispute over the backdrop.
“We were set to perform ‘The Hand That Feeds’ with an unmolested, straightforward image of George W. Bush as the backdrop. Apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me,” Nine Inch Nails’ leader Trent Reznor said in a statement posted on the band’s Web site.
MTV said in a statement: “While we respect Nine Inch Nails’ point of view, we were uncomfortable with their performance being built around a partisan political statement. When we discussed our discomfort with the band, their choice was to unfortunately pull out of the Movie Awards.”
The writer, Rob Thurman, goes on to highlight some of MTV’s more odious output and observe that:
I guess MTV doesn’t believe that they’re making any sort of political statement by creating programming centered around rich, beautiful, thin white people who live near a beach or are in a rock group or have been Miss U.S. of A.
And God bless you MTV for providing a haven of self-expression for those folks who will allow surgeons to hack off body parts until they look like MTV superstars who are incapable of not only expressing a political view, but in some cases, a complete sentence.
While I wouldn’t dream of suggesting that MTV shouldn’t show unadulterated dross such as Newlyweds or Cribs, these programmes do convey a set of assumptions and do promote a very narrow and commercial set of ideals. As such, it is hypocritical for MTV to use a bands political position to ban - or attempt to change - a performance.
Tuesday 31 May 2005 | Paul | USA
