BET’s Tribute Was Messy, But Sincere
The water-cooler reviews are in, and BET’s 2009 awards show has got people talking. Unfortunately, much of the talk is not favorable. Indeed, Sunday night’s show was kind of a mess. But I think we should give BET a little grace. When Michael Jackson died last Thursday, BET completely overhauled the show to weave the King of Pop throughout and accommodate the mass number of celebs wanting to offer tributes. The show was quite literally thrown together. And so, yes, in many instances it looked like it.
To take a show that normally takes six months to plan and totally revamp it in a couple of days was an unenviable but admirable undertaking. Certainly there’s plenty to bash BET about — the network’s shoddy and sometimes downright trashy programming is now legendary.
But perhaps, in this case, we should give BET credit for attempting to pull off the impossible in order to honor one of the Black community’s — and the world’s — greatest entertainers. Some additional thoughts about BET’s show:
- Ne-Yo did a phenomenal performance of “The Lady in my Life.”
- Jay-Z rocked it with his new single “DOA.”
- Joe Jackson sat up front all show long with Al Sharpton — which was weird, to say the least. Don’t we all dislike Joe Jackson because of all he put Michael through as a child? I’m confused …
- All of the other celebs who came out of the woodworks for MJ tributes, like New Edition, were totally subpar.
- The O’Jays tribute with Tevin Campbell was painful to watch…just a bad performance.
- Jamie Foxx was a great host but went a little heavy on promoting his own upcoming tour.
- The vignettes spliced between performances and awards offering tributes to MJ were awkward. The celebs shared MJ memories off the cuff, and since they were likely unscripted, the stories were rambling and sentimental, but not well-communicated.
- Janet Jackson showed up on behalf of the Jackson family to say “to you, Michael was an icon, but to us, he was family.” It was the most touching moment of the night but lasted about 5 seconds after the show was already running behind 40 minutes.
The whole night was a little low-budget and unrehearsed. But in a way, it was like one big ghetto funeral. People were just there to show their love, raw and uncut. I kind of liked it.