TV REVIEW : MTV Offers Rapid-Fire Retrospective of ‘80s

If the 1980s were just like one long rock video to you, full of rapid-succession sound bytes with a musical overlay, then “MTV’s Decade”--a two-hour retrospective premiering on the cable network tonight at 9--will seem just the appropriate capper.

“You might call it the Awareness Generation,” says upbeat interviewee Jesse Jackson, looking back through rainbow-colored glasses. Meanwhile, the rapid-fire pace of the dizzying two hours makes clear that its producers don’t expect anyone in the MTV generation to have anything resembling an attention span, aware or no.

Produced by MTV News, the narrationless special is full of interview clips of interesting folk (Eric Bogosian, John Malkovich, Don Henley) and vacuous celebs (George Michael, Tina Turner) alike, all getting about 3 to 10 seconds at a pop to utter witticisms about the decade--quips that tease more than they illuminate. A byte is more than you need of Roseanne Barr’s banality, but Spike Lee, like him or not, deserves more.

Segments on AIDS and racism are dropped in alongside those on such cataclysmic topics as the selling out of rock stars; all of them work better as musical montages than as information. For wisdom, the show even resorts to Aerosmith’s Steve Tyler repeating his unseen interviewer’s questions: “Is AIDS God’s way of maybe telling us we’re doing something wrong? I don’t think so,” he muses, blankly. At least TV-savvy folk like Sandra Bernhard (“The difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist is whether I agree with that person’s cause or not”) get some zingers in in their alloted seconds.

There’s also some self-mythologizing about MTV’s own part in the historicity of the decade, though with a couple of amusing opposing viewpoints: “It’s really been a horror, because I really hate that kind of MTV edit where there’s a cut every two seconds,” says Spike Lee. Wonder what he will think of this special, which operates on very nearly the same principle.

The program repeats Sunday at 2 p.m., and airs Dec. 21 and 24.