Nine Inch Nails dropped out of the MTV Movie Awards after clashing with the network over an image of President Bush the band planned as a performance backdrop.
The Bush image was to accompany the song "The Hand That Feeds," which obliquely criticizes the Iraq war. It includes the lyrics: "What if this whole crusade's a charade / And behind it all there's a price to be paid / For the blood on which we dine / Justified in the name of the holy and the divine."
MTV said in a statement to its news division that the network was disappointed the industrial rock band would not perform but had been "uncomfortable with their performance being built around a partisan political statement."
Given the network's political philosophy (see the mtv "news" coverage of last years election that made fox look like a non-partisan paradise) I was a bit surprised by the turn of events. As odd as this story is with the network's attempt to become apolitical (or at least not transparently left) and people actually talking about music on mtv, it's ultimately Reznor that gets extra points for this zinger.
Reznor said in a statement posted on the band's Web site Thursday that the image of the president would have been unaltered and "straightforward."
"Apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me," he said.
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