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Fame v2.0 lives up to its legacy
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A new generation receives the gift of glimpsing life inside Performing Arts and beyond. Both have changed, but only in the packaging. Let’s let the kids have their fun.
Upon leaving the theater the other night, I noticed two virtually universal phenomena underway: today's youth were beaming while most adults’ foreheads were crinkled.
Given the animation of a conversation nearby, I couldn't help but overhear the general disgruntlement. The two women expressed their disappointment, which concluded with one's vehement, "It just wasn't as [insert fists clenched in victory] inspiring as the last one!" Funny, you wouldn't gather that by looking at the tweens... (“Best dance movie ever!” gushed one in response to my straw poll.)
Another fortysomething remarked, "I hate what they did to the theme song ~ it’s boring now" [insert expression of having bitten into a lemon]. Really funny, U2’s Adam Clayton’s expressed a similar sentiment regarding the updated Mission: Impossible theme ~ (I paraphrase) that changing it to 4/4 time doesn’t make it interesting. (And he did it!) Hmm...
So of course all this started me questioning: is the remake, in fact, inferior ~ or have those of us in the original audience been out in the world too long, lost our spark? I queued up the original and gave it another viewing to find out.
You’ll love this: the remake maps almost scene-for-scene to the original. In character development (and lack thereof), plot (accomplished and otherwise), and every other aspect reviewers are carrying on about. Where one succeeds, so does its counterpart; where one fails, so does its counterpart.
Hot Lunch 1980
Every element remains present in some form, with the occasional minor adjustment. A few roles swap scenes (lunch in the stairwell and Breaking the Bad News take place, but with different individuals); “craziness” is modernized (the Rocky Horror Picture show is now the Halloween Carn’evil dance in the gym); scenes change locations (the “shy one” is a different person, whose music is revealed at the aforementioned dance rather than in the street), and for better or worse, some content is removed entirely.
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Hot Lunch 2009
For better, being gay is no longer [quite?] the “not-happy,” isolated existence it was thirty years ago ~ and for worse, we no longer require edification as to the horrors of child abuse. Both storylines were abandoned, and the romance was gussied up High School Musical-style (coulda done without some of that saccharine, but s’okay…). Illiteracy and abortion aren’t addressed, but they weren’t properly addressed the first time, anyway, so no matter.
I will step onto my soap box for just one little rant ~ that being for the undercurrent that “those who can’t do, teach.” It’s overtly present in two scenes and is utterly untrue, unnecessary to the plot, and undermining of the supreme talents devoted to a noble profession; even worse, the first one comes right on the heels of a triumphant moment in praise of teachers. Inexcusable. The current parental units are also routinely unsupportive, in contrast to their predecessors; we know teens need someone to push against, but the modern version often presents parents as actual adversaries. Unfortunate. [end rant]
Other than that, it’s the same beloved Fame millions adore ~ having taken Bruno up on his offer to change the music to a 4/4 beat. It’s terrific fun to watch the faculty ~ Houston’s own Debbie Allen, Charles S. Dutton, Kelsey Grammer, Megan Mullally, and Bebe Neuwirth ~ lead the younguns, knowing that they themselves were once such very younguns, and look at them now. The new fresh faces have equally bright futures (most especially Naturi Naughton ~ her Out Here on My Own will leave you every bit as misty as Irene Cara’s ~ for me, much more), and the closing credits are a real treat. Oh ~ and Mark Isham's score rocks.
Send the younguns. If you liked the original, go yourself (sitting elsewhere, of course). And if you come out with a furrowed brow, it’s time to start looking at how to reignite that spark.
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