Not unless TV begins to televise live electric-chair executions is anything less shocking than what’s now designed to be shocking.
That 20-year-old Miley Cyrus, still owing her fame, fortune and attention to the devotion of little boys and girls, stripped down and “presented” herself, leading with her gyrating behind, to Robin Thicke — on stage during their nationally televised performance at MTV’s “Video Music Awards” — was as predictable as maggots on a carcass.
And if not those two, then someone else. The idea is to cause a stir, create a sensation. There is now nothing more TV-appropriate than the next step (or skip a step) down the highly inappropriate staircase.
For starters, MTV last relied on music, as opposed to minors being sold hot, pressures-on, wham-bam sex, in the 1990s. So most everything on MTV, to name just one network, is programmed to target the genitals, breasts and buttocks.
So there was nothing unpredictable about that.
Next, what’s now confused with pop music, especially rap and designed for sale to American 25-and-unders, must be crude, vulgar and lascivious.
Again, so that Miley/Thicke performance was ho-hum.
Finally, given today’s whatever-it-takes “entertainment” standards, young Miley was left with no other place else to go.
She had to go low.
Her onstage, national TV performance was as predictable as turkey on Thanksgiving Day.