The ceremony is an opportunity to make a stand for gay and trans civil rights around the world in the Central European nation that has gone to undermine them.
The MTV Europe Music Awards will be held in Hungary on November 14, the network said on Tuesday, confirming and defending the venue despite the country’s recent passage being widely condemned as anti-LGBTQ.
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Chris McCarthy, President and CEO of MTV Entertainment Group Worldwide, said the ceremony is an opportunity in the Central European nation to make a stand for gay and trans civil rights around the world.
“We’re looking forward to using the incident to raise our voice and stand in solidarity with our LGBTQ siblings,” McCarthy said in an interview with the Associated Press.
McCarthy said any government censorship of the broadcast would not be tolerated.
“We have made it very clear and we have from the beginning…. We do not allow editorial input as it pertains to the artists” and the content we create, he said. “It’s always a prerequisite regardless of which country we go to.”
The conservative ruling party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán introduced the measure aimed at fighting pedophilia in its face. The amendments ban representations of any orientation other than heterosexual, as well as gender change information in school sex education programs, or in films and advertisements aimed at anyone under the age of 18.
Human rights groups strongly condemned the measure passed in June, saying it unfairly links homosexuals to pedophilia and is intended as a tool used to stigmatize and harass residents because of their sexual orientation and gender identity. to be done. Most EU leaders said it was against EU values and discrimination should not be tolerated in the 27-nation bloc.
In 2020, Hungarian lawmakers approved a law banning the legal recognition of transgender citizens.
MTV, which struck a deal two years ago to hold the show in the nation’s capital, Budapest, plans to issue a lengthy memo to employees in apparent anticipation of potential criticism of its decision.
“It may come as a surprise to anyone who knows that in June of this year, Hungary passed an anti-LGBTQ+ law banning television content featuring gay people during the day and in primetime,” it said only overnight. Permission was granted to run, McCarthy said in the memo.
McCarthy said that his immediate and personal response to the law as a gay man was to move the incident to another country. But after consulting with LGBTQ advocates within MTV and globally, including in Hungary, the decision was “very clear to us.”
In the memo, he said, “Instead, we should move forward, using the show as an opportunity to stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community in Hungary and around the world, as we continue to fight for equality for all.” “
MTV’s pre-emptive outreach comes amid backlash by some Netflix employees for the streaming service’s handling of the Dave Chappelle stand-up special, “The Closer,” which includes derogatory comments about trans people. Netflix has declined to remove the program.
As a gay youth in a Pennsylvania steel mill town in the 1990s, McCarthy said he felt isolated and lonely until he saw LGBTQ characters on TV, including MTV’s “The Real World”. But Pedro Zamora was also involved.
“I started thinking, ‘This might be okay,'” he told the AP, adding that it’s dangerous to imagine a young man denied the same opportunity because of Hungarian TV restrictions.
McCarthy said the Europe Music Awards, known as EMA for short, will honor young LGBTQ activists with MTV’s Generation Change Award, partnering with activist group All Out to enhance their worldwide campaigns for equality. will be given in
All Out’s executive director Matt Beard said moving forward with the EMA in Hungary is the “absolutely right decision”, given the country’s “overall attack” on LGBTQ rights and scapegoating minorities.
“Visibility like this gives the LGBT-plus communities living in Hungary the incredibly valuable sense of international solidarity that comes from a large global media event like the EMA,” Beard said.
In a September interview with the AP, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Sizzarto said the new law is meant to protect children from pedophiles and “gay propaganda”. He said the EU’s decision to delay billions in economic recovery funding earmarked for his country was “blackmail”.
MTV EMA was launched in 1994 with a ceremony in Berlin hosted by Tom Jones. The awards have been flung between countries including France, England, Sweden, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.
The hosts, nominees and cast for this year’s ceremony are yet to be announced. The 2020 event was held virtually due to the pandemic.
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