Please. It was far from realistic - wasn't attempting to be. I also grew up in NYC at that time and don't get what you're talking about.
I enjoyed Fame and didn't react at all like the OP. But he has a point about the cliched characters. The neurotic Jewish girl with the obnoxious stage mother; the gentle, lonely, ever-the-victim gay boy (happily that stereotype is way outdated), the talented but angry and illiterate black from Harlem; the musical Italian and his opera-buffa cab driver father; the insensitive-because-he's-just-insecure Hispanic stand-up.
If there was a plot, I didn't see it. The series of vignettes never added up to anything. Characters, like the failed dance student, appeared, then disappeared without a trace. Incredibly amateurish writing - perhaps by committee.
What I did find offensive was the treatment of the LeRoy character. A student who verbally abuses his teacher and goes on a rampage destroying school property - and we're supposed to feel sorrow for him? That's the worst kind of patronizing liberal racism: enabling anti-social behavior; claiming violent, even criminal acts that would get anyone else expelled or in juvie is ok for the disadvantaged black kid; that society should expect poor blacks to have low standards and act like that. Not acceptable.
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TheHungryAndAngryShow
8 years ago
If you have no sympathy for people (of any race or color or sexuality) that grow up completely disenfranchised and who have little to no options, then there is not a lot I can say to you. All I can say is that it is understandable to many people how a person could end up like him, that is not excusing the behavior, it is understand the behavior and the root of where it comes from. We can have sympathy for the person regardless of for unappealing their actions are, not because of their actions.
Let me say it one more time for the people who need to hear it twice. The ACTION of the person is not ok, the reason for the action is understandable though, in the same shoes you might act the same way. You would still be wrong, but people would have an understanding where the root of your actions come from.
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brockmeeks
7 years ago
Are you sure you're in America? Come on man. We grew up here too and it's not a Third World country…
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kathykato
7 years ago
The actor who played LeRoy, Gene Anthony Ray, ironically had attended the HS of the Performing Arts school but was expelled for bad behavior. A few of the kids were slow academically, but none were illiterate. Bruno I think is based on Drew Francis, a teenaged jazz prodigy who excelled at synthesizers. No one at PA idolized Freddie Prinze. My English teacher said Freddie was a smart Alec in his class and didn't do well at the school. There was a lot about the movie that was realistic and some that wasn't. We had music in the lunch rooms but never danced on cars or held up traffic. I love the movie, though--attending PA was a sweet part of my childhood.
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