Even though Miley Cyrus’s twerk heard around the world occurred more than two months ago at MTV’s Video Music Awards, there was no way the CMA Award hosts Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley were going to leave that alone.
Paisley pretended to pull a muscle during their opening sketch and when he announced “I twerked my back,” Underwood set him straight and before long, out came a foam finger and the pair has cleverly figured out a way to combine Cyrus and Robin Thicke’s performance of “Blurred Lines” with Duck Dynasty to come up with “Duck Blind.”
The pair performed the parody and were shortly joined by members of “Duck Dynasty’s” Robertson family, including Willie, who twerked up against a slightly unnerved Underwood.
They weren’t done dissing Cyrus yet, however. Paisley thanked Taylor Swift for growing up in the public eye without resorting to “humping a teddy bear or grinding against Beetlejuice,” in a reference to Thicke’s black and white striped suit he wore on the VMAs.
“Duck Blind” wasn’t the only parody the pair performed. Country music artists by and large stay away from discussing politics, sex and religion (other than to always thank God first when they win an award), but Underwood and Paisley threw that dictate out the window when the pair — hosting together for the sixth time — skewered the computer issues that have plagued the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.
Performing “Obamacare by Morning” to the tune of George Strait”s classic “Amarillo By Morning,” they sat side by side at a laptop pretending to try to log on to the health care registration site.
The pair sang: “Obamacare by morning/why”s this taking so long?/I”m going to wind up with hemorrhoids if I sit here til dawn/We”ll have cataracts and dementia/oh this is getting on my last nerve/Obamacare by morning/over six people served.”
In some ways, it was a risky move for a genre that usually plays it safe, especially when it comes to politics, although Paisley and Underwood are seen as so nice and good-natured by the country community and fans that they can get away with jokes that may seem too barbed when delivered by others.
Also, this is a generalization, but by-and-large, country fans are a fairly conservative lot, so poking fun at Obamacare”s registration woes is a little like preaching to the choir. Plus, while they made fun of the utter disaster that the online registration has been, they were careful to not criticize or applaud the actual plan.
Regardless, reaction on social media was swift with conservative organizations like The Heritage Foundation quickly linking to a video of the performance and country music fans positively chiming in on the song, although a few people Tweeted their displeasure
What do you think? Too much or just right?