Most Controversial Videos, 2012: Musicians Pushing the Envelope and Making Headlines

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When it comes to music videos, 2012 was as controversial a year as any. After recent backlash forced No Doubt to pull down the video for their single, "Looking Hot" -- almost as quickly as they premiered it -- we got to thinking about all the other visuals that caused a stir for all the wrong reasons this year. From the offensive, to the ill-timed, to the downright inappropriate, check out our list of the Most Controversial Music Videos of 2012 below!

Nicki Minaj's "Stupid H-e"

If the song title itself didn't tip you off, Nicki Minaj's "Stupid H-e" music video isn't exactly a beacon of political correctness. BET banned the video from the station without explanation, but we'd guess it was due to the sexually explicit nature of the visuals, including many close-up shots of the MC's famous derriere. The ban itself was a controversy in it's own right, as many cried sexism, recalling BET's reputation for playing the equally racy videos of Ms. Minaj's male peers.

M.I.A.'s "Bad Girls"

M.I.A. landed in hot water for her "Bad Girls" video, which some deemed a culturally insensitive depiction of the Arab world. With scenes of Burqa-clad women speeding their cars through the desert and gyrating their hips in the streets as the men watch from the sidelines, M.I.A.'s work is a defiant statement against the oppression of women. "The imagery becomes a powerful rebuke to the fact that women in Saudi Arabia aren't legally allowed to drive," Spinner.com writes.

Lil Wayne's "My Homies Still" Feat. Big Sean Wayne took a whole lot of heat for one scene in particular in his "My Homies Still" video, which captured Weezy and Co. sitting in a movie theater filled with skeletons. The rapper became the victim of some seriously bad timing. Just three days after the video's July 17 premiere on BET, the horrific mass movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colo. shook the nation. No one can blame Wayne for the unfortunate coincidence, but many did blame him for not editing out the scene and re-releasing a new version of his visuals after the fact.

Madonna's "Girl Gone Wild" Madonna has known many a controversy throughout her long and illustrious career, and her "Girls Gone Wild" video proves she's not throwing in the towel just yet! The black-and-white clip is an homage to Madge's '90s-era videos like "Vogue," and calls on the eroticism of clips like "Justify My Love." The pop legend's visuals were promptly slapped with an 18-and-up age restriction by YouTube.com, who deemed the video "too raunchy" for underage audiences.

Lana Del Rey's "National Anthem" Feat. A$AP Rocky Lana Del Rey's button-pushing "National Anthem" video re-imagined President John F. Kennedy and the First Lady, and their kids as an interracial family in the White House. The visuals starred Lana as Jackie O and rapper A$AP Rocky as the black president. A$AP himself touted the progressive intentions of their historical remix, calling it "Some cool, trippy s--t, some really 2015 s--t. People gonna get it in like three years, and that's the whole purpose of it." Detractors labeled the piece disrespectful to the late president's memory.

Coldplay's "Princess of China" Feat. Rihanna Another frontrunner in the culturally insensitive music videos of 2012 race is Coldplay and Rihanna's "Princess of China" collaboration. Not only does that pair take a whack at Chinese stereotypes, they get a bit confused by other Asian countries in the process. Sharing photos of herself with chopsticks in her hair and long golden fingernails from the video shoot, Rihanna dubbed herself a "gangsta goth geisha." Geisha are from Japan, not China.

The Flaming Lips' "First Time I Ever Saw Your Face" Feat. Erykah Badu
The NSFW collaboration between the Flaming Lips and Erykah Badu was clearly made to cause a stir, but it was the feud between the artists that was the real controversy surrounding this video. Badu and her sister Nayrok are shot completely in the nude, in and out of a bathtub and covered in blood, glitter and other substances. Unfortunately, the Badus hated the ""tasteless, meaningless, shock motivated" end product, and promptly put the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne on blast for the alleged unapproved material. After pulling down the original video, the Flaming Lips re-shot the visuals, replacing the Badus with rocker Amanda Palmer.

YouTube.com

No Doubt's "Looking Hot"
And that brings us back to No Doubt and their now-non-existent "Looking Hot" music video. While it lasted, the visuals saw the band playing a good old antiquated game of cowboys and Indians for the cameras, with all the stereotypical costumes to match. The clip was immediately deemed to be racially insensitive and was met with backlash from Native Americans who labeled it a "mockery" of their culture. "Our intention with our new video was never to offend, hurt or trivialize Native American people, their culture or their history," the band said in a statement on their official website upon pulling the video. "Although we consulted with Native American friends and Native American studies experts at the University of California, we realize now that we have offended people."

Ian Gavan, Getty Images for MTV

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Filed under: Hot Off the Press, Hot Lists

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Will Achelpohl

i liked nat.antum. it was a good rep. of why he died. because he f--ked with the powerfull . we are slaves to money and god!!

November 20 2012 at 8:45 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

MetalDead

These controverisal, please. Go watch Cattle Decapitations "Forced Gender Reassignment" video. Probably too hard for all of you pansies.

November 19 2012 at 1:13 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

travis80489

interesting

November 19 2012 at 4:18 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

mdsmarvinlar

lil wayens world

November 19 2012 at 1:41 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

jjmulf

Nicki Minaj is trashy.
Her performance on the AMA show should have been censored out.

November 19 2012 at 1:35 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

speedevil74

all rap sucks anyway, boy or girl rapping.

November 19 2012 at 12:37 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

bbhuey4213

" Badu and her sister Nayrok are shot completely in the nude, in and out of a bathtub and covered in blood, glitter and other substances. Unfortunately, the Badus hated the ""tasteless, meaningless, shock motivated" end product, and promptly put the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne on blast for the alleged unapproved material"

Let me see if I've got a handle on this: they took off their clothes to be filmed 'covered in blood, glitter, and other substances' and only figured out *afterward* that it was "tasteless, meaningless, and shock motivated"? What the heck kind of 'end product' did they expect? Plus they claim that despite them having permitted the filming of themselves in this way, the material was 'unapproved'? Or maybe we're supposed to believe this was one of those "camera hidden in the bathroom" situations and they didn't know they were being filmed doing this stuff...

November 19 2012 at 12:31 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

'57mad

if you want to watch garbaj like this then watch it on pay per view tv/cable/satellite.not on regualr over the air tv meant for family watching usually. even the fcc needs to stand up and begin again to cnesor this tripe off my tv .yep i said i don't need to see this garbaj on my tv .in fact you can take college and pro sports and put them on cable or pur them only on sundaays.

November 19 2012 at 12:21 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

marcncdrvlks

As crappy as most of those perfomances are, I think less people would have seen them, than now that they were removed or banned.

November 18 2012 at 11:22 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

grandlandshark

i dont understand those who drop their money on going to the concerts .

November 18 2012 at 10:39 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

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