Crude MTV Award Host Mocks Palin, Purity

British comedian Russell Brand, host of MTV's Video Music Awards (VMAs), said that the unplanned pregnancy of Sarah Palin's teenage daughter was “THE best safe sex message of all time.”

And I feel most sorry for that poor teenaged father. Boy, bloody, one minute he's just a teenage lad in Alaska having joyful unprotected sex. The next minute, “Get to the Republican convention!” I think that is the best safe sex message of all time: Use a condom or become Republican. That boy is never going to have sex again. Oh! Sex. That's that thing where I get eyeballed by all those odd old men.

Brand, who told the audience he was famous in the United Kingdom though not in the United States, received only lukewarm applause,but that didn't deter him from continuing his rant against purity and abstinence.  The popular band The Jonas Brothers took the brunt of Brand's assault. The Jonas Brothers are a phenomenally successful Disney band whose members each wear a purity ring to symbolize their commitment before God to abstain from sex until marriage.

Brand tied the Palin pregnancy to the Jonas Brothers' purity pledge.  After making a lewd joke about Levi Johnston, Bristol Palin's fiancé, never having sex again except for self-pleasuring (though he used a more vulgar term), Brand said:

The whole situation, in fact makes the idea of pledging to God that you'll remain a virgin till marriage seem like quite a good idea. So well done the Jonas Brothers. God bless those boys. In case you were unaware, each of the Jonas Brothers does wear a tiny ring as a mark of their commitment to God. I'd take it a little more seriously if they wore it on their genitals. And also, it is a little bit ungrateful, because they could literally have sex with any woman that they want, but they're not going to do it. They're like Superman just deciding not to fly and to go everywhere on a bus.

Brand also urged the audience to vote for Barack Obama (see Newsbusters' posts here [1] and here [2] for more on that) and closed his tasteless monologue by mixing the Jonas Brothers with President Bush.

New music, new president, brand-new America. And you people deserve it after eight years of Bush. I promise you deserve it. Eight years of Bush. Eight years of Bush is what the Jonas Brothers are going to have to cram into their bachelor parties.

The joke fell flat.

While Brand continued to use the Jonas Brothers as fodder throughout the awards program he also got verbally slapped [3] by former American Idol winner Jordin Sparks.  Appearing later in the show to present an award, Sparks walked straight to the microphone and said, “All right, I just have one thing to say about promise rings. It's not bad to wear a promise ring, because not everybody - guy or girl - wants to be a slut.”

Her comments were greeted with applause and cheers.

MTV.com is currently promoting Brand's “raciest” moments on the front page of its Web site. 

Kristen Fyfe is senior writer at the Culture and Media Institute, [4] a division of the Media Research Center.