Five MTV Video Music Awards performances that have influenced queer culture

The MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) are always an important date in the queer cultural calendar. And the 2024 event, which took place on September 11, was no exception. Chappell Roan’s performance of Good Luck, Babe! is already one for the ages; looking at it alongside four other VMA appearances from years past, the VMAs’ historic influence over queer culture is clear.

1. Chappell Roan, Good Luck, Babe! (2024)

Roan’s appearance at the 2024 VMAs was centred in her queerness – from the medieval-inspired staging for her performance of sapphic anthem Good Luck, Babe!, to her speech thanking the “queer and trans people who fuel pop”.

Both the outfits Roan wore to perform and to accept her new artist award made references to patron saint of France, Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc is rumoured to have been queer, largely due to suppositions made in queer writer Vita Sackville-West’s 1936 biography Saint Joan of Arc. Even though this is historically debated, Joan has remained a figure of queerness in the present day, with the 2022 play I, Joan portraying Joan as non-binary.

Roan of Arc wore a full suit of armour as she performed, burning down the castle behind her and fighting off the knights who surrounded her. In staging symbolic of her recent quest for privacy, she defended herself with her armour from what she has described as “predatory behaviour (disguised as "superfan” behaviour)“.

2. Prince, Gett Off (1991)

Gett Off, one of Prince’s filthiest songs, was not toned down at all for his 1991 VMAs performance. Scantily-clad dancers writhed all over the stage, creating an undeniably "orgiastic demonstration”. Prince was backed by his newly-formed band The New Power Generation, featuring Tony M rapping and Rosie Gaines on keys and backing vocals.

The most spectacularly queer part of this performance? Prince’s outfit. He wore a yellow filigree-patterned suit with a cropped jacket and yellow heels – already a classic flamboyant Prince look. But the reveal happened only as Prince began to rap halfway through the performance, where he spun around to reveal that his suit was ass-less.

The outfit, designed by Stacia Lang, actually featured layers of mesh to give a nude illusion – but this did not take away from the moment’s impact. Prince’s performance was a turning point for the VMAs as a whole, and set the tone for more spotlight-stealing performaces to come.

Read more: The artist formerly known as Camille – Prince's lost album 'comes out'

3. Madonna, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Missy Elliott (2003)

This performance goes down in history as sapphic inspiration for so many. As journalist Kayla Kumani Upadhyaya puts it: “the 2003 VMAs made me gay”. The performance was a tribute to the inaugural VMAs in 1984, where Madonna performed Like a Virgin in a short wedding dress and “boy toy” belt.

In the 2003 performance, Spears and Aguilera wore the same outfit and sang Like a Virgin, before Madonna entered, starkly contrasting in a black skintight outfit and top hat. She sang her new song, Hollywood – before Missy Elliott burst forth and performed a snippet of Work It.

As Madonna led Spears and Aguilera in dancing, taking the stereotypically masculine role, she leaned over to kiss each of them – to widespread shock. Though Madonna kissed both women, the camera cut away from Aguilera to show singer Justin Timberlake’s reaction to Spears’s kiss, due to their highly publicised breakup the year before.

In 2003 it was still rare to see queer kisses on screen, especially from three such famous female stars. MTV received hate mail from viewers for airing the kiss, and Oprah Winfrey told Madonna: “I don’t know if most of America has seen [two girls kiss before].”

Though all parties clarified that the kiss was just “friendly”, this moment still goes down in queer history.

4. Lady Gaga, Paparazzi (2009)

Lady Gaga performed Paparazzi at the VMAs when she was just 23, and had just been freshly catapulted into international stardom. This performance has clear links to Chappell Roan’s 2024 appearence, not only because of both artists’ incredible vocals and highly orchestrated stagings – but also their themes.

Paparazzi, already a song about being chased and hounded, became even darker as Gaga burst fake blood packs on costume, covering her face, body and white outfit in dripping red. As Gaga said of the performance in her 2017 documentary, Gaga: Five Foot Two:

If I’m gonna be sexy on the VMAs and sing about the paparazzi, I’m gonna do it while I’m bleeding to death and reminding you of what fame did to Marilyn Monroe … and what it did to Anna Nicole Smith, and what it did to – yeah, you know who [referring to Amy Winehouse].

Gaga, even more overtly than Roan, referenced the way that female stars suffer abuse within the trappings of widespread fame. It is difficult to explain why this performance was so legendary to queer people at the time. It had theatricality, flamboyance and a strong political message and definitely helped develop Gaga’s queer fanbase – along with her coming out as bisexual only a few months later.

5. Jo Calderone (aka Lady Gaga), You and I (2011)

This list wouldn’t be complete without a drag performance. Jo Calderone was the brief drag character and alter ego of Lady Gaga. Adorned with drag king makeup, stuck-on sideburns, and black quiffed hair, the singer performed You and I, accompanied by Queen’s Brian May on guitar.

Calderone has been seen as an amalgam of Bob Dylan and Danny Zuko. He began the performance by talking about Gaga like she was his ex-girlfriend and dismissing her as “not real”.

Drag kings remain underrepresented on television and Gaga, playing off of long-held rumours that she was transgender, flew in the face of pop music authenticity through Calderone. Though he was only a short-lived character, the sheer unexpected nature of this performance by such a huge artist remains a legendary queer moment.

For 40 years, then, the VMAs have given us outlandish performances which remain important to queer pop culture to this day.

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L. Holland received funding for their PhD research from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.