Full disclosure: I haven’t watched MTV or any of their worldwide VMA in probably 20 years, but I was sad to hear that MTV canceled their 2023 MTV Europe Music Awards Citing Israel-Gaza Crisis.
If there’s anything the world needs right now it’s music, and its ability to bring us together. What does canceling the event achieve? If anything this is a missed opportunity to add on a fundraising component to the awards show to raise money for humanitarian supplies to both Israel and the Palestinian territories.
I get that the awards show wanted to demonstrate sensitivity to the “volatility of world events” as they said, but this is the 1st time since the MTV EMAs have been held since 1994 that the awards show has been canceled. Clearly there have been numerous other tragedies since then including 9/11, the Afghanistan war, the second Iraq war, Russia invading Ukraine in 2014 and again in 2022, but MTV didn’t cancel the awards show for those events so why cancel it now?
I just feel like this is a reactionary decision, and didn’t take into consideration all the good that could have come from harnessing the worldwide viewership that an awards show like this could have achieved.
Paramount Cancels 2023 MTV Europe Music Awards Citing Israel-Gaza Crisis