BEFORE: I've come to the end of my movie chain about the Quest for Fame - and I think I've proven, overall that while it has its upside, Fame is also, in fact, a bitch.
This is another 80's classic that I've never seen all the way through - I probably just fast-forwarded to the juicy bits when I was a teen.
THE PLOT: A Pittsburgh woman with two jobs as a welder and an exotic dancer wants to get into ballet school.
AFTER: My generation, the 80's kids, has a lot to answer for. Someday we will have to explain to our children things like Boy George, Q-Bert, and why women's legs seemed to be excessively cold in the 80's, prompting the invention of leg-warmers, little sweaters made just for lady legs. Also, we'll have to explain the concept of "flashdancing", which apparently was the forerunner of strip clubs, only without the blatant nudity and full-contact lap dances.
This movie clearly features a man's version of feminism, where "having it all" meant holding down two jobs, as both a welder and an exotic dancer, while still having time to look great and be a total tigress in bed. In other words, a statistical impossibility. What appears to be feminism is actually a male stripper fantasy, setting the women's movement back by a couple of decades.
A modern woman shouldn't claim "I never date my boss" while ON A DATE with that very same boss, meanwhile sticking her foot under the table into his private area! Additionally, she shouldn't claim that "the man" is holding her back if she can't seem to drag her ass across town and fill out an application for dance school. Either study ballet, or don't, but please quit whining about it! And ladies, if your boyfriend makes a call to his friend on the Arts Council to get you an dance audition, either take advantage of it, or resent his meddling in your affairs, but you can't do both!
Anyway, it's a cheat to have the main character get into ballet school just because she mixes some break-dancing moves into her audition. She probably got kicked out a week later when they realized she couldn't do a plié.
This film just hasn't stood the test of time - it's perhaps most notable for being the first 90-minute film whose entire plot could be summed up in two 3-minute videos on the MTV. (And yes, we'll have to explain to our kids that MTV used to show music videos, too...)
RATING: 3 out of 10 cheeseburgers (hold the cockroaches)
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