TV REVIEW : MTV’s ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ Examines Traps of Humanity

Since most music videos only cover three or four major deadly sins, max, at any one time, MTV has finally decided to cover them all at once with the definitive special “Seven Deadly Sins: An MTV News Special Report” (airing tonight at 10).

The hour is a lively mixture of film and pop celebrities and everyday folks musing about how these time-tested traps of humanity impact their lives. Or being compelled by the cameras to muse, since the idea of “sin” doesn’t readily arrive upon most young lips in the ‘90s.

Not everyone agrees on the ground rules.

“I don’t think Pride is a sin,” says Kirstie Alley, “and I think some idiot made that up. Who made these up anyway?”

Apparently informed that it was early Christian thinkers whose ideas were solidified by Thomas Aquinas--as dutifully reported by Kurt Loder elsewhere in the special--Alley adds, “Not to knock monks or anything,” but the anti-ego thing doesn’t work for her.

“Lust isn’t a sin,” proffers Ice-T. “Just from that being the first sin, I’m willing to believe that these are all dumb.”

Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler is equally Aquinas-contentious, saying, “I live for Lust,” though noting that if he made good on it, he’d “be the next AIDS poster boy.”

Most, though, are willing to concede that the Seven Deadlies apply in some general sense. Evan Dando of the Lemonheads talks honestly, if spacily, about the problems of loneliness and temptation with groupies on the road: “Lust seems like a really, really bad joke on humanity,” Dando concludes, echoing the wisdom of the ages.

Among the less famous are a recovering bulimic who discusses her ugly legacy of Gluttony, an Envy-stricken baseball player and a poet who was abused as a child and battles Anger. The concluding segment profiles a convicted gay-basher who accidentally caused the death of a homosexual and says, “I’ve dreamt about that day that I will feel forgiven.”

As usual, MTV’s “news” report is scored to cleverly chosen rock snippets (the soundtrack for the Sloth segment is “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”), and the interviews are amusingly mixed with tell-all images from videos, movies and history.

There’s a sense that the celebs involved were rather too randomly chosen for this heady assignment but, given the flightiness inherent to the setup, the show does a nice job of making the elusive search for a collective moral compass viscerally absorbing.

“Seven Deadly Sins” is actually a co-production between MTV and PBS’ “Alive TV.” KCET Channel 28 will rebroadcast the show in two parts, Aug. 20 and 27 at 10 p.m.