MTV to Air Rock the Vote’s Short Films on Health Care : Television: When the issue was hot, the political group was awarded a $2-million grant. When the debate faded, the funds were used for these works.

Rock the Vote, the political organization born within the pop music industry in 1990 to fight censorship, took pride in its efforts to prod young, mostly apathetic adults to realize that they too had a stake in the political system of this country.

Teamed with MTV’s coverage of the 1992 political campaign, the group helped register thousands of young voters at rock concerts and special urban sign-up drives, many of whom then voted for the first time. And the organization’s pet project, the Motor-Voter Bill, which makes it easier for any citizen to register to vote, also was passed into law by Congress in 1993.

Heady with those successes, Rock the Vote got more ambitious in 1994 and departed from its original mandate. Instead, it grabbed a $2-million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation--the nation’s largest philanthropy devoted to health care--and tried to insert itself into the middle of what at the time seemed to be the most important issue in the country: health care reform.

But the health care debate died last year in Washington. And, after producing an elaborate book about health issues important to young people--distributed in schools, health clinics and retail stores--Rock the Vote was stuck with half the grant money, which had been set aside for a TV campaign to encourage young adults to weigh in on the issue before it was decided.

So the group decided to use the money for what essentially became a workshop for young writers to deal with health matters in a more personal, creative way. The results--six short, fictional films on such topics as sexually transmitted diseases, bulimia, depression and gun violence--will air tonight and the next three nights at 9:30 on MTV.

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Most of the shorts were written by first-time screenwriters in their early 20s and were produced and directed by professional music video and commercial filmmakers. The films are stylish, technically ambitious, a couple in moody black and white. The short on sexually transmitted diseases is hilarious as well as meaningful; another on what happens to someone with a bad appendix but without health insurance is straight out of Kafka.

“This is a bit of a departure from what Rock the Vote has done in the past,” said Doug Herzog, MTV’s executive vice president of programming and production. “But the (films) are basically about issues that are important to young people regardless of politics--a way to talk about health issues without getting bogged down in the politics of it all. These health issues that affect young people haven’t gone away just because Washington isn’t dealing with it any longer, and so it’s extremely relevant to our audience.”

But is this what Rock the Vote should be doing? One person who worked on the project early on said that the organization was badly burned by the collapse of the health care debate. This former paid staffer, who did not want to be identified, said that once the money was in the bank and the group was committed to the project, it dropped the ball on voter registration and participation, resulting in low turnout by 18- to 25-year-olds in what turned out to be the very important midterm elections of 1994.

Ricki Seidman, a former member of President Clinton’s staff who took over as executive director of Rock the Vote in November (after all the decisions on the health-care project had been made), deflects questions about whether the health care endeavor should be viewed as too great a departure from the organization’s original intent, maintaining that the films are valuable regardless of how they came to be made.

“Overall,” Seidman said, “the series informs young adults that they do have health concerns of their own, that just because you are young and healthy doesn’t mean you can just close your eyes to the whole issue of how health care is distributed in this country. One of these films presents mental health as a part of health care. That’s a big issue for young adults, and it’s not always thought of as health care. Hopefully, this makes young people think of health care as something more than just grandma’s broken hip, something that matters to them and something they should voice their opinions on.”

MTV also neglected the ’94 vote after dedicating enormous resources and air time to the presidential election two years before. Because congressional elections are regional, Herzog said, the national network has a tough time dealing with politics during off years.

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But with the presidential election year coming fast, both MTV and Rock the Vote will be back on track, covering politics, pushing participation. Rock the Vote’s most recent literature pledges “to ensure the largest youth turnout ever” in the 1996 elections.

“It’s really like rolling a ball uphill when you take something that young people don’t really care about and try to make them care,” Seidman said. “It’s a noble effort. It really is, and a lot of good stuff came out of (the health care project).

“But we will be more successful, I think, if we stick to issues that really affect young people, issues they think about every day, and then say (to them), ‘This is how you can help, this is how you can get your way.’ ”