Censorship and the VMAs

I thought a lot about censorship last night as I was watching MTV’s VMAs. I’m sure this class makes me more aware of censorship, or more specifically what seems to be censored and what is not. Blatant censoring of words during commentary, acceptance speeches, and, most often, during the performances was obvious. It was not a simple radio edit where the word was scrambled over, yet you could still hear the context of the word. A few second silent stop of the audio altogether was heard, yet as I’m sitting and watching all I can think is this is MTV; yes, it is television, but while particular words are not allowed, mannerisms, outfits, and an overall sense of someone’s self is not censored. I’m sure if someone at an awards show actually exposes a part of their body that can be censored, yet many of the outfits now worn, especially to events like the VMAs, almost show certain things, and yet strategically cover enough that nothing can be censored. Even the underlying meanings or certain songs or how they are performed is ok, which makes me wonder if artists “push the envelope” more in how they act and dress because what they sing must be censored. I just know as I sat and watched an entertaining awards show last night all I could think of was censorship and how it was being portrayed.