A blast from the past

As I sat on the bus this morning, I noticed a poster on a bus that went past me advertising a new movie - "Fame". I had to look again as I wasn't sure I had read the poster correctly but then another bus came past me with the same poster confirming my suspicions....that my favourite TV show from my childhood and another '80s classic was being remade into a blockbuster movie. Why, I asked myself, did they have to go and spoil it? See, Fame has always had a special place in my heart - I used to watch it every Saturday and it made me feel like a star. For that one hour, I was at the School of Performing Arts in New York and I could dance and sing and yes, I would live forever! I think it had this same effect on a lot of people who are now in their 30s. It was a winning formula as this was a time when there were no modern dance shows on TV for teens and this show gave us a glimmer of hope for a different future where we would dance in the streets....

A few years ago, Hollywood started making remakes of '70s classics - the first I can remember is Charlie's Angels, then came Starsky & Hutch and so on and so on. I remember thinking how fun and interesting it was and gave us all a chance to compare the old with the new. But what we thought was an experiment paved the way for a standardardised format for the movie industry. Why be original when you can just use an existing idea, jazz it up and resell it for more!

It seems that a key characteristic of our modern culture today is rehashing ideas from other eras and selling it as cool and different. At the moment, it is all about the '80s. From leggings to leather bomber jackets to pink tutus, skinny jeans and bright coloured nail varnish, it is all back and being resold as cool and hip. To be honest, I have no affinity to the '80s as such (I was a child for most of it) but there was something creative and bold about that era - something we seem to have lost. The clothes were outrageous, the hair was over the top but with that there was something creative and unique. The music, the clothing but most importantly the TV shows - the likes of the A-Team, MacGyver, Magnum, Dallas, Dynasty were different and lots of fun. Since those days, I am sure many would agree that TV has not been the same and this might explain this trend by Hollywood to remake the good old shows into movies - Transformers, Teen Wolf, Karate Kid, Knight Rider and Footloose.

So what does this say about this era now - has the fast pace of technology replaced the need for being original? Has striving for originality been replaced with the need to strive for money? Maybe. Or maybe I am just being nostalgic and protective over my formative years. I am not sure Fame will work a second time round unless they change it drastically - the kids are different and have the likes of MTV, High School Musical and Step Up and a dozen other dance movies to compare it to. All I know is that sometimes, no matter how new or shiny you make something, you can't recreate that original feeling. Oh, and I will probably end up watching the new Fame (you know....curiosity and cats), and probably so will many more of my 30 something peers, but the truth is it will never be the same....