'Fame' operates with the emotional and narrative complexity of advertising and porn, engaging it's audience in the pursuit of the spectacle for it's own ends. The message is 'Success', which sounds a bit like the word 'sex' with the word 'sucks' tacked onto the beginning.
"Sex is joy. Sex is love." explains one the the lead characters. Oops, that was a typo. (No really, it was a typo.) "Success is joy. Success is... [pause] love." pretty what's-her-name reads out to her class. What exactly is being explained to my kid?, who I brought along to the movie for some kind of performative art inspiration (and, yes, this movie is targeting your kid). Success is everything. And what a film about kids in a performative arts school precisely manages to fail to convey is any kind of development or effort involved in honing a skill, or honing a character. The spectacle is wondrous. Performers are talented and their talent simply exists. You and I are excluded from it, are untalented enough to be spectators, but we are welcome to come along and pay for the show.
Kenny does not shine. He works hard, 'But teacher, I work harder than anybody else,' says Kenny. But Kenny is unable to manufacture the wondrous spectacle, explains teacher. So Kenny entirely believes this and decides to kill himself but gets saved at the last moment so he decides he'll become 'the best dancing teacher ever', just like teacher suggested in the first place. But we don't care if Kenny doesn't die, or if he becomes the best darned teacher because he's the equivalent of the character in a porn film who does not get to participate in the sex scenes. Kenny is the loser. There is no redemption for losers.
The particularly talented what's-her-name, who drops out of 'PA' (that's cool talk for 'performing arts school') because she's the best and she's been selected for 'the best dance troupe in the world' and she exemplifies 'the wondrous spectacle', who has been having some kind of relationship with some guy who is not as privileged or elite as she is, dumps him offhandedly because 'that's what happens at PA'. So they do. There is no redemption for love, if it had existed. The guy gets left behind. So hey, that's that. She's fine looking. She's talented. Mummy and Daddy are loaded. She gets the golden career, just like she always wanted, just like Mummy and Daddy always wanted. So hey, that's that. No integrity. No insight. 'Success is joy. Success is love.'
Graduation performance night. We aren't prepared for it because we don't need to be. The entire performance is apparently unrehearsed. We arrive at this point with no insight into real personal struggle, application, dedication required by mastery of a skill because this might dilute the potency of the wondrous spectacle. The part where a whole bunch of kids wearing gospel outfits marching up the aisles through the audience singing over and over again "Don't be afraid of success" (No really, they were) was enough for me to take my kids and get them the hell out of the cinema. Conflating the wondrous spectacle with religious codifications of the wondrous miracle was the point of no redemption for 'Fame'.
