MTV VMAs 2012: The Highlights and Lowlights

 So yeah, the 2012 VMA's went off last night at  the Staples Center live here in LA, and while there was plenty of fresh commotion to report (The Bachelorette's Rebel Wilson rocked out on stage with bushels of pubes on her shirt and a bag of chips, host Kevin Hart opened the show by asking Chris Brown and Drake to squash their bitch fighting beef ), there were also some super fails on deck worth mentioning (the missing MCA tribute, Rihanna's matronly red carpet get-up that made her look less like a young pop diva and more like Gabrielle Douglas' mom-ager, One Direction beating out Frank Ocean and Fun. for the Best New Artist award). 

What's that? You're over 17, so you didn't care to catch the show because you were too busy watching President Obama explain to American voters how he needs four more years to finish fixing the clusterfuck of problems Bush left behind accomplishing his goals for the nation during the last night of the DNC? Not to worry! We've got the skinny on what you missed. Read on for a full run-down of last night's VMA's highlights and lowlights. 

All things considered, the Cash Money/Young Money crew did pretty well last night being that Drake won the Best Hip-Hop Video award for “HYFR,” Nicki Minaj won the Best Female Video award for “Starships,” and 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne put on one of the livest performances of the night. But it was Drake's acceptance speech for his Best Hip-Hop win that earned our respect. Looking blunted as fuck and taking the stage with a headphones listening Weezy in tow, Drake thanked his fans and whoever else for his award and then told us about how growing up half black and half Jewish got him picked on and kicked out of parties a lot when he was kid. He then held up his Moon Man and said, “I wanna dedicate this award to any kid who ever had a long walk home by yourself. This is for you man, we made it!” (Disclaimer: the audio got stripped from this video so we hope you can read lips).

Much like the Oscars, the VMA's has had its struggles finding a good host for the show, hence, last year the broadcast didn't even have a host! But unlike the Oscar's, this year's VMA host wasn't recycled from years past, but was rather fresh to the game. Enter, comedian Kevin Hart whose mock presidential entrance to the show (complete with “little people” in tow) not only did its part to remind the short-attention-span having youngsters to get out and vote soon, but it also helped us imagine America with a smart-ass comic for president. With “Putting People First” as his mock campaign slogan, Hart proceeded to let us know that in the VMA game (and life in general, we're assuming), making mistakes is inevitable and that there's a learning curve to our mistakes. He then went on to ask us to excuse Kristin Stewart for cheating on Rob Pattinson, cuz “shit happens”! He also went on to help mend fences between Chris Brown and Drake. Ok, if we can't have him as president, then we need him as a UN Ambassador at the very least. 

For those not old enough to remember (which is most of you), Green Day first made waves on the VMA's way back in 1998 when drummer Tre Cool climbed to the top of the giant globe sculpture outside of Gibson Amphitheater during the band's post-show interview, which served to remind everyone that even though they'd finally won a VMA (after 13 prior nominations), they were still completely punk rock. Last night they proved that some more when they rocked the shit out of the crowd during their performance of “Let Yourself Go.” Nevermind that Billie Joe Armstrong was just released from the hospital two days ago for a parasite-induced illness or that the band has been making music and rocking awards shows since before the dawn of cell phones, Green Day incited punk rock chaos amongst all the Beliebers and non-Beliebers last night and it was fucking glorious! 

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 Lowlights: 

Have we been smoking too much salvia or did Miley Cyrus look an awful lot like Pink (and not to mention, a pre-preggers Amber Rose) last night? We get that she's pushing out her titties and toting her bong around town in protest of her former good-girl Disney image in search of a new one, but she needs to understand that stealing Pink's hairdo and rocking one of Rose McGowan's old dresses from the set of Charmed do not a new image make! No, the only thing to result from all that copy-cat bullshit is getting your ass kicked by Pink, which we're (more than) half-hoping actually happens.

Ok, we get it, the Twilight movies are huge and there's a new one coming out for y'all to lose your shit over, but there's a time and place for everything and the VMA's is no place for a movie plug. Especially a long boring one like the one R-Pat and his Twilight crew did for the soon-to-be-released Breaking Dawn II film last night. Save that shit for the MTV Movie Awards, there's plenty of time to kill there. Face it, the only reason MTV decided to include the Breaking Dawn II preview at the VMA's was to get Rob Pattinson on stage for all to leer at and draw conclusions about on how he might be doing now that Kristen Stewart cheated on him with that old dude. The bright side? All of that dreary movie plugging gave us (and likely Rihanna) some time to take a pee break and roll up a phat blunt for the players to smoke! 

 Dude, what the fuck?! Did we miss something here? Didn't MCA (aka Adam Yauch) die this year? Weren't the Beastie Boys an integral force behind making (and keeping) MTV the youth channel juggernaut it is today? Then where the fuck was the tribute to MCA last night? What's that you say? There was a tribute?! If projecting a video of Yauch rapping part of his verse from “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” as an outro to the commercial break a tribute, then you better start running now because we are gonna slap you silly! The most epic of all fails was MTV not honoring Adam Yauch's life and musical legacy at the 2012 VMA's last night. There is absolutely no excuse for this, period. 

Even if Ad Rock and Mike D had opted out of attending last night's show, there still should have been a tribute done by other artists, some heartfelt speeches and a montage in the man's honor, damnit. And don't try to tell us that MTV can't give a good tribute to someone because last year's tribute to Amy Winehouse featuring Bruno Mars was quite possibly one of the best in the show's nearly 30 year history. If this is how MTV chooses to treat the artists that helped make it as big as it is today, then here's hoping the onset of hardcore EDM culture and the cancellation of the Jersey Shore put the channel into the ground, with no tribute to be given in its honor. Nope. 

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