The Key to "Fame"

Dave dragged us to "Fame."

I had my hestitations. I mean, we'd memorized the football team's moves to "All the Single Ladies" in the last "Glee" episode. What could stack up to that?

Ten minutes into the remake, my boys were suffering badly; nothing on the screen was transforming into destructive robots, or firing space lasers at rebel alliances.

Hang in there, I told them.

But I was barely holding on, myself.

Where was the humor? There was room there for some. Any. A little, at least.

Where were the homosexuals? This was a school. An arts school. In New York. Yet the only gay student was alone and suicidal. Unfair representation.

Where were the interracial romances? Why did the whites hook up with whites, the African Americans with African Americans? Real kids don't care about that. Why did these kids?

And along the lines of stereotyping, why were the characters and plot predictable? The Italian kid's family owned a restaurant. Malik came from the Hood.

"Fame" was really insightful for me. I craved a big twist, an unlikely character, and more than anything, for the cast to bust out in Pat Benatar's "We Are Young."

That would have made the movie.