Yeah, I feel like this should have been with central thematic base for the whole film, but it's hardly ever brought up, if at all. This damn thing was over two hours long, but something that could have provided some actual emotional resonance was totally excised, or never even addressed.
And the whole monologue that Cuba give about malt liquor in the board meeting has been a criticism of that industry for decades, and is a valid one, but seems really out of place in the middle of this one. This should have been its own the movie, not shoe-horned into a musical about small town church choirs.