After Michael Jackson’s death, I have come across a lot of videos of him. Today I watched the music video for his song Black or White – Uncut Version:
http://www.kewego.com/video/iLyROoaftFOA.html
The director of the music video prohibited the last section of the music video, because he was worried that MTV/VH1 would not accept it. After MTV watched the whole video, they were discouraged and took out the last part of the video, which I honestly thought was genius.
Apparently, the director of the video and MTV were not happy with the violence (smashing the cars) or Michael’s dance moves (specifically the grabbing of his crotch). As ridiculous as that sounds, if it wasn’t for such artists as Michael Jackson or Madonna, our generation of music would not exist; there would be no such thing as grinding.
Back in the 50’s, videos of Elvis would not show him from the waist down. Videographers would find his hip motion too sexual and some type of potential masturbation. But if it wasn’t for Elvis, we wouldn’t have seen Michael’s talent on the dance floor, or heard the great hits of Madonna (i.e Like A Virgin).
Madonna’s Blond Ambition World Tour in the 90’s, where she supported her fourth studio album Like A Prayer, ‘was a highly controversial tour, mainly for its juxtaposition of Catholicism and sexuality,’ according to Wikipedia. After Madonna watched Michael Jackson perform dance moves that involved grabbing his crotch, she found no issue with showing a video of her masturbating as an introduction to one of her songs during her tour. She defended herself by stating, “it’s art!”
It wasn’t too long ago when people found Michael Jackson’s music video controversial; and Black or White, not for nothing, was a wonderful song, as well as a great mini-movie.
So how do we get from something like that, to this:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=499l9bg2nz4
Pitiful.