Jesse Ignjatovic, Executive Producer, 2013 MTV Video Music Awards

This ain’t nuthin’ but the devil! Here I am making headway on my review of Lee Daniels’s The Butler, and now I have to take time out to comment on this swill from Miley Cyrus. I will be brief. Cyrus did not just drop down onstage on a whim at the MTV Video Music Awards last Sunday night to perform the most bush league of choreography I have seen—evah! Pull back the curtain and see the wizards for who they are! Someone came up with that idea! Someone directed that choreography! Someone gave Cyrus the Green Light! Cyrus’s ‘trick’ had to be practiced to perfection(?) under the eye of a director before the award show even went on the air! Plus, costume designers put together each costume for Cyrus and the dancers, and you know there were fittings.

What is worse, Justin Timberlake gets handed the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award—this after he abandoned Jackson’s sister Janet at the Super Bowl (No! I will not get over that!)

I get it, I really do. Pop Culture is trendy and is subject to the whims of the public. As products for consumption, entertainers are fawned over one day, and the next day we’re channel surfing or streaming for that next ‘thing’ that pops. Remember the ending of The Truman Show? With that written, I understand the difficulty for artists to ‘keep it fresh’ so the public can stay interested in them. ‘Keeping it fresh’ is especially challenging for child stars; so it stands to reason that Cyrus desires to crossover from Hannah Montana to … well after Sunday’s performance … I don’t know to what- or to wherever. It just was a very loutish performance.

Hamish Hamilton, Director, MTV Video Music Awards 2013

My question: Who let that ghastly cat out of the bag? Here are the answers: Jesse Ignjatovic, Executive Producer; Amy Doyle, Garrett English and Dave Sirulnick, Executive Producers. Joanna Bomberg, Jen Jones and Lee Lodge, co-Executive Producers. Hamish Hamilton, Director. There.