The VMAs Were the End of Reality
Missy Elliott’s brain-bending aesthetic coursed through standout, surreal performances from Lizzo and Miley Cyrus.
Certain famous women get pestered with a crass question: “Is that ass real?” Viewers may have said those words aloud during Lizzo’s performance at the MTV Video Music Awards last night, but for very defensible reasons: Behind the singer/rapper and dancers, there bobbed a big butt. Two disembodied mounds, joined by a red strip, undulated with a kind of merry disregard for the music’s rhythm, like a farm animal might when in sight of a square dance. Lizzo’s performance was raging, luminous, inspirational, talent-packed—the best set of the show. But part of the time spent watching
