The VMAs were a big glitz again this year. MTV, which has become irrelevant culturally, only has the music awards left for the “cool.”

Fortunately, Miley Cyrus made it all worthwhile this year. Her high energy, bizarre, controversial, tongue-wagging, crotch-grabbing and twerking performance got MTV all it needed: huge attention.

In spite of all the protestations of how awful it was, it worked. And, in any case, expectations about pop culture always overestimate the “good” taste the music and media industry might show.

Actually, at the music awards, there were some excellent and serious performances. Justin Timberlake was a class act and the ‘N Sync reunion got great kudos (what’s a kudo? It’s Greek to me). Bruno Mars didn’t disappoint, as he never does. But there was almost no talk about “Locked Out of Heaven,” for which he got the best male video.

Even Lady Gaga was excellent and not crazy — did I just say that? Her long-awaited and supposedly “over the top” performance was overshadowed by Cyrus and was actually interesting and creative. She’s a big talent with a lot of range. No doubt, the lady was ticked off that “The Tongue” blew her off the charts in the Twitter avalanche.

A columnist asked me recently if we need celebrities, entertainers and socialites.

Of course we do, no matter how annoying and shallow they are.

What would we do without celebrities?

Imagine: No Kardashians. No Alec Baldwin beating the crap out of paparazzi. No Justin Bieber in full rage. No Donald Trump to make fun of. Don’t we miss the disappearance of Brittany Spears, shaved head and panty-less? J-Lo with her “no front” dress now seems so tame. And how sad is it that Lindsey Lohan seems to actually be sticking with her rehab. Now she’s doomed to insignificance.

Actually, celebs exist in every country, and they make life more interesting. How would the Brits live without Kate and the new prince, or “bad boy” Prince Harry caught in the buff in Vegas playing strip poker?

Forbes even has a web site with the 100 world’s most powerful celebrities. Typical of the culturally naive U.S. media, they are mostly Americans. Mexico’s Superbarrio Gomez, the masked celebrity, satirist and labor organizer, surely qualifies. And let’s not even mention Indian celebrities such as Shriya Saran, Sonal Chauhan, Nandana Sen, Aditya Roy Kapoor or Dhanush.

Europeans seem to like “au natural” outrage, and I saw a story (I think it was in the Wall Street Journal) about Braunlage, Germany, where “14,000 spectators came dressed for the weather to watch 30 bare-breasted men and women hit the slopes for the 2nd annual topless sledding race.”

Really?

Celebrities make ordinary people appreciate their lives are not as screwed up as they think. They also allow people to live exciting, edgy, even dangerously but vicariously without having to take risks themselves. They are fantasy.

So I’d argue that celebs play a valuable societal role. They keep us distracted from the horrible things going on in the world like poison gas, corrupt governments, drought, starvation, and the threats of viruses and flesh eating bacteria. And, oh yes, there’s the civil war in Syria.

And if you don’t like twerking Miley, you can always switch channels to public television. No doubt, it will be airing a high-class dysfunctional family living in some run down castle in England with exploited servants and nobility doing the staff.

Hmm, I guess you just can’t get away from celebs.