Health care? Old news. Start of the football season? Who cares? The only thing the Web wanted to ruminate on yesterday is Taylor Swift and Kanye West at MTV’s Music Video Awards Sunday night.
For those who missed all the hubbub — perhaps due to some grave pop culture deficiency — what happened is this: Swift, a 19-year-old country crooner, won Best Female Video honors. But just as she was accepting the award, West lept on stage and said — well, just take a look.
For the record, Beyonce won the night’s biggest prize — the Video of the Year award — and donated her time to Swift so she could finish her acceptance speech. Pretty classy. But that didn’t cull the outrage, most of which found its way onto the Web.
Swift herself downplayed the whole thing, telling MTV that she was excited about the award first, and then when she saw West bound on stage, she was”really excited.” She’s a big fan of Kanye, after all. But, once West started speaking, she “kind of wasn’t excited anymore.” Other illuminaries weren’t as laid back, with many venting their hostility at West through their Twitter pages. “It’s like you stepped on a kitten,” Katy Perry said.
It’s not the first time West’s done something outrageous at an awards ceremony — as illustrated by Time magazine’s round-up of “Top 10 Outrageous Kanye West Moments.” The New York Daily News thinks folks should stop inviting West to award shows, and The Los Angeles Times dabbled in a touch of amateur psychology. Meanwhile, VMA host Russell Brand thinks everyone’s gotten a little too bent out of shape over the whole deal.
Both West and Swift are Christians, by the way, though I don’t think that has much to do with this story. But the hubbub does remind me how wacky this world in which we live can be — and how our judgment, sense of perspective and (let’s be honest) common decency sometimes disappear at the worst of times. And Swift and Beyonce remind me how to deal with those who persecute us, for whatever reason: With grace, poise and, above all, humility.
