It’s almost impossible, given everything that came after, to imagine just how controversial Madonna’s boldly sexual performance at the first MTV Video Music Awards — where she debuted “Like a Virgin” live — was.
In September 1984, Madonna Louise Ciccone was just a 26-year-old pop star. She’d had success with dance floor hits like “Holiday” and “Lucky Star.” And MTV was a fledgling cable network that just showed relatively primitive music videos, usually just a clip of an artist lip syncing in front of a simple backdrop.
MTV launched in 1981, and initially was only shown in certain markets around the USA. After an initial slow start, artists like The Eurythmics and Michael Jackson (among the first Black artists to be featured) began to make music videos with budgets that resembled those of small films, and youth culture responded in an enormous way. By 1984, MTV was the single greatest tastemaker in the youth market. At that time, it made perfect sense that MTV needed a signature annual event and the VMAs was born. “It seemed like a good time to have a party,” recalled MTV cofounder Tom Freston. And what a party it was.
What Happened:
No dancers. No band. Just Madonna. That’s all that it took to get headlines worldwide. Madonna, in a lacy bustier, a “Boy Toy” belt buckle, wedding veil and, as well got to see, white suspenders, began to sing atop a wedding cake, as if she was a cake topper. She eventually climbed down the cake and took to the stage, her only prop the wedding veil that she took off and used as a scarf. It wasn’t until the end of the song that Madonna took the performance in a whole new direction. Collapsing to her knees on the stage, her wedding veil between her legs, Madonna begins to hump as she sang, and one of her hands reached between her legs as she moaned. Even though the cameras cut away almost instantly, Madonna’s suggestive behavior left no doubt that the performance had moved into explicit (for the time) sexual territory.
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