MTV: Misunderstood or Racist?
Wow our next piece of news concern the MTV Video Music Awards. Wow those anybody watch that anymore? Like I didn’t even know it was “prestigous” back in the day to earn/get a moon man (the MTV award trophy). I mean I guess that makes sense because back in the old days of 2000s, MTV was the channel if you want the HOTTEST Music Video and songs. Music videos wasn’t always around in the days and when they were it was a real treat. The channel/company hasn’t age well, now when I think of MTV I just think of celebrity gossip and over the top reality TV shows that really don’t rack up much views unlike “The Bachelor/Bachelorette” (Source). When this year MTV Video Music show awards came around, the channel try to stay hip with the younger generation by introducing a “Best Kpop Caterogy”. All I am saying is this, that’s a pretty bad move. Basically americans judging something that literally isn’t inherently….. american. That’s literally like America telling other countries what’s good about their culture and what’s bad, oh wait they already do that in the Middle East! I know TWICE is huge in Asia, much more than Blackpink, yet who headlines the nomination for the award? Well BTS and their song “Boy with Luv” and Blackpink’s “Kill this Love” which keep in mind won less shows than TWICE’s “Fancy”. Blackpink song fail to grab any “legit” show wins because Inkigayo under some technicality manage to toss “Boy With Luv” out of the running even though the song were release a few days within each other. “Fancy” on the other hand manage to grab 2 without “Boy with Luv” or “Kill this Love” eliminated. I know what MTV is trying to do, I apprieciate it but like that just make it a lot less legit of a caterogy to win because for American audience, whichever group has promote here the most will win. I call it right now, BTS will win (unless by some miracle SM manage to pull an NCT 127 win), because ARMY fan girls are much likely to care to vote, than Blackpink fleeting popularity. MTV trying to stay hip has some, unintended consequences with people (ARMY) taking on twitter to call out them for being “racist” because the top award of the night “Best Music Award” sees nomination from only white artists like JONAS Brothers, or Tay Tay. According to Variety who quoted some twitter users….
[expander_maker]Even Teen Vogue writer Ms. Khan in her OP-ed compares the nominations between those of the KPop Caterogy and the “Video of The Year” (biggest prize)….
In the K-Pop category, several of the videos honored have comparable (and even higher) numbers: “Boy With Luv” (470 million views), “Kill This Love” (500 million), and “Tempo” (127 million). And yet there is no K-Pop nominated in Video of the Year.
I plead caution, cause I really don’t see what MTV is doing wrong here (beside that it is just a bad caterogy…..). If we are strictly talking about “Youtube views” then I wonder why TWICE who has the third highest numbers out of KPop (yes I’m pretty sure over EXO) is not nominated? Also I’ll admit that the KPop wave is big this time around, but it was big also like 3 years ago. I remeber BTS “Fire” catching on over here, I remember literally being force to read articles and write essays analyzing rhetoric in AP Language. That article was on BTS… At the end of the day, KPop Wave is not inherently American. Its main market on in the East, it’s an “Eastern” music movement and I’m honestly fine with it being seperated out of the pack. Why? Entertain my analogy for a bit….
“MArvel Avengers: Infinity War” and “Endgame” was a huge deal in China. “Endgame” rack up $100 Million USD on opening day in China (remeber China currency has an extremely low exchange rate to the USD). To put it into perspective, “Endgame” had “….astonishingly, the film accounted for nearly every single movie ticket sold Wednesday in China – a 99% share – and accounted for 83% of screenings. Popular theaters across the country had a screening of “Endgame” starting every 15 minutes.” (Source ). “Infinity War” earned “….a total of $360 million (RMB2.39 billion) at the Chinese box office, making it the 11th-highest-grossing title of all time in the Middle Kingdom.” (Source ). Clearly these films were big deal even outside of their intended market, so why didn’t Chris Evans win a Golden Rooster for his performance as Captain America in China? I didn’t see Robert Downey Jr. winning a Hundred Flower Awards for his captivativating heroic death Iron Man (I cried, then I notice no flowers were left for Black Widow during the funeral to honor the fallen, and I was like “Tony you son of a gun”)? I didn’t see anybody caring either cause I think we all agree on something here. “Infinity War” and “Endgame” no matter if it became best selling titled in other countries, it is an inherent Western/American Film. So even though those films might outperform many many domestic films, we were fine with it not winning “Golden Horse” or other prestigious film awards. Heck the film that won in 2017 for like Best Director and Actress was “Soul Mate” a Chinese film that only score a meager 117 million YUAN (Chinese money) at box office compare to “Infinity War” ‘s 2.39 Billion.
Now I am not arguing that MTV is not racist, I bet it is plague with problems like the Oscars being way too white and such. Ms. Khan from Teen Vogue brings up some good point with Nicky Minaj when she said..
I agree that’s mess up on MTV part. But why do I agree, she’s WESTERN MUSICIAN, her main target audience is WESTERN/US people. It’s also the reason why I kind of agree that “Best Latin Music Video” is kind of BS too because their primary target audience is people of Americas, either north or south.
None received Video, Song, or Artist nominations this year.
KPop though is inherently different, its primarily music audience is in the East! Heck there’s a music award in Korea that models after MTV Video Music Award and its one of the highest regarded music award you can get as a Korean Musician. That is the MAMA, or Mnet Music Awards” which do have a caterogy for “Best Choreograph” and heck the grand prize from Mnet use to be “Best Music Video Award”.
What I am not fine with is the fact that when MTV announce the nomination for “KPop Caterogy”, they black out the group and put the Western musician forward. Monsta X is being nominated for their song that feature French Montana “Who Do you Love?”, French Montana was the one being congratualated and not Monsta X.
In addition to that, on MTV voting page, Halsey is the center for “Boy with Luv” thumbnail although obviously it is BTS song. I agree, that is mess up….. But wait a second wasn’t Halsey center in the music video…
Maybe MTV is being slightly racist and xenophobic seeing how they went about telling people to vote by centering on the feature artist. I just might have blew my point apart on this article but then Ms. Khan on Teen Vogue blew hers when she said….
LOONA??? ARE YOU FUC SERIOUS???? COME ON! If you don’t get into Kpop the two groups you know are BTS and Blackpink, if you do get in just a little the second girl group you find out about is TWICE. If you know LOONA, you are long gone buddy.
I honestly think MTV is not doing anything wrong by seperating Eastern and Western artist, it’s not like we are a united world which in itself is kinda sad…..
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