A degayed Fame, they didn't Remember Our Name

The remake of Fame supposedly had a gay character, an Iowa dancer, who goes to New York to try to make it at the school. Only one big problem. The actor, says the character isn't gay. The character never says he is gay, nor is he seen with a male in a sexual, or even intimate situation. If you, like me, were waiting expectantly for the retelling of Fame with a stronger gay charcter than last time around. You will be sorely disappointed.

Interview with the actor and director here.

http://www.afterelton.com/movies/2009/9/how-gay-fame-character?page=0%2C0

But it's not like FAME ever shied from stereotypes. The brooding Jewish composer. The ugly girl who is beautiful when she sings. The ghetto black guy who has culture shock. The Brooklyn Guido who's a diamond in the rough. And of course the self sacrificing teacher who could have been a star, but found teaching kids more fulfilling.

It's really a barfer when you think about it.

But as for the absence of a gay character- Who knows, it might be the new wave? Next up, a movie about basketball with no black people.

The 'ghetto black guy' you refer to was a black guy from Harlem. I mean he really was that. The character was based on his life, except for the gay part again. They left that out. Again.
Also, just in the interest of honesty, there is not one teacher in the Fame stories that 'could have been a star' but sacrificed. That is just not the story. There is a story, and that is not it. They are teaching because of life circumstances, from divorce to racist casting practices.
The only thing in the Fame original movie and TV show that was not directly based on reality was in fact the de-Gaying of the various gay people the characters are based on, even when they were based on the actor who played the role.
I'm not posting this to nit pick your point of view, but to highlight the fact that the only unreal thing they layer on, and have from the start, is the neutering of GLBT sexuality. That stands uniquely alone in the Fame world. They do it again, and again, and again.

When FAME came out, people weren't even certain that there really was a high school for the performing arts, and even if there was they weren't sure they would send a kid there.

Now there's one in every school district.



EDIT - Jewish Italian what's the difference? (old joke) If you live in New York, you're Jewish. (newer old joke)

The original was absorbed very well, and the ideas it presented have become common place, in part because it did so well. And that makes a rehashing redundant and dull. I'd go so far as to say that their choice to continue with the de-gayification of the product is a symptom of deeper artistic choices they made, which prevented them from any sort of rediscovery of the piece. And it needed to be rediscovered. Badly. Or simply left alone.

was garbage.

they used to give us those weekly reader things that were all 'hip', 'cool' and 'rad' to encourage kids to read. One of those weekly readers had a script from the Fame TV show. Our instructor made us read this aloud and it was just mind numbingly stupid. Nearly everyone in class wondered just who in the hell watched this crap......

with Dominique Dunne...

http://www.dominique-dunne.com/Biography/biography.html