‘VH1 Divas’: Plenty of Questions, Little Music

Viewers of the two-hour “VH1 Divas 2000: A Tribute to Diana Ross” tonight on VH1 will be spared the not-so-exquisite torture of sitting through the five hours it took to cobble together the program in front of a live audience on Sunday night, but this reviewer has never sat through another show that long with less music in all his born days.

It’s not possible to assess the concert as a live performance, inasmuch as it was performed for videotape and shot out of sequence. Why VH1 chose to abandon its previous and successful “Divas” live-concert format was not made known to the audience of mainly music industry types who filled the Theater at Madison Square Garden. But by the end of the night it was clear to anyone that such an interminable event could only be endured by the die-hard admirers of Miss Ross and those in the audience who hold Viacom stock.

Not that the evening didn’t have its fascinating moments, but it’s likely that the mistakes and retakes, which were quite revealing of the contributing performers’ personalities, will be edited out in favor of a slick, smooth product that just happens to coincide with a new Diana Ross tour.

And if they manage to edit out the overwhelming atmosphere of this show as a premeditated, cross-marketed, demographically researched product of the entertainment publicity industrial complex, then I will offer my personal tribute to the geniuses of VH1.

Meanwhile, someone will have to explain why Hilary Swank was there as an announcer, in an evening allegedly devoted to paying homage to the 40-year career of Diana Ross. Looking for an answer other than that her publicist has been working overtime since Swank’s Oscar win.

Why was Angela Bassett working this gig? She played Tina Turner in a movie--sheesh! What connection did three female cast members of “Saturday Night Live” have to this event? And why was country-pop singer Faith Hill chosen as one of the “divas” to pay tribute to Diana Ross?

RuPaul, the 6-foot-6 transvestite who was on hand to sing “I’m Coming Out,” made more sense. I’m not even going to get into the dancers who clogged up the stage throughout the entire taping, except to say that their choreography behind Ross and her reconstituted Supremes when they sang “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” looked like warped pantomime of shot-putting and other field events not quite up to Olympic consideration. No, this tribute was not about the music, it was a vaunting of the celebrity side of divahood and the efficacy of well-connected management, summed up best--unintentionally--by Hill’s singing “What’s in It for Me?”

Donna Summer came off best, injecting some straight-ahead showmanship on the Supremes’ “Reflections (Of the Way Life Used to Be)” and her own “Bad Girl,” and Ross herself had several moments of magnificence, particularly on “Endless Love” and the all-too-few Supremes numbers. A final word on Mariah Carey who, on the evidence of this show, is in mortal danger of burying her more adorable qualities behind her own special and less-attractive diva-ness: Try keeping the attitude backstage and singing the melody. Diana Ross made a 40-year career of it.

* “VH1 Divas 2000: A Tribute to Diana Ross” airs tonight at 9 and 11 on VH1.