Line #6 YMMV/Ragtime


1	* AwardSnub:
2	** The film received eight Oscar nominations, not including Best Picture.
3	** It lost best musical to''Theatre/TheLionKing'', which has undergone a lot of HypeBacklash while Ragtime's stage adaptation has remained a more critically praised work.
4	* HarsherInHindsight: The musical's "Till We Reach That Day" has a few moments that, if you didn't know it was written in 1996, would seem to be nods to events that occurred in the 2010s. The most striking is probably the description of the hoped-for world as one where "a child can play"; at least one of the faces at the center of the Black Lives Matter movement is that of a 12-year-old (Tamir Rice) who was fatally shot by police while playing in a park.
5	* LesYay: A certain scene in the novel where Emma Goldman gives Evelyn Nesbit a massage...
6	* NightmareFuel: "There are causes to DIE for!"
7	* RetroactiveRecognition:
8	** Future ''Series/{{Glee}}'' cast member Lea Michele originated the role of Tateh's daughter on Broadway.
9	** The film version has many big names in some of their earliest roles. Creator/SamuelLJackson as a Gang Member, Debbie Allen as Sarah, Creator/JeffDaniels as PC O'Donnell, Creator/StuartMilligan as the Marksman, Creator/ElizabethMcGovern as Evelyn Nesbit, Creator/EthanPhillips as a Guard and Creator/AndreasKatsulas and Creator/JohnRatzenberger as Policemen.
10	** A police captain is played by Creator/ChristopherMalcolm, who would later be best known for playing Justin in ''Series/AbsolutelyFabulous''.
11	* SignatureSong: "Make Them Hear You" isn't just a rousing penultimate number for the musical, it's also easily its most iconic both in and out of context. It's not uncommon to hear the song played at protests and rallies completely divorced from the show itself.
12	* ToughActToFollow: For many Creator/MarinMazzie is the only person to ever play Mother in the musical, despite there being many great actresses playing her people are still comparing them to Marin.
13	* ValuesDissonance: Evelyn Nesbit describes herself as Stanford White's former "lady friend" in "Crime of the Century." In RealLife, White had begun grooming Evelyn when she was 15 and he was 46, and initiated their "relationship" by raping her. [[labelnote:note]] All of the horrifying details of Evelyn's past with White came out during the trial, as well as Thaw's physical and sexual abuse toward her during their marriage; despite all of this information, newspapers sympathized with Thaw over Evelyn, arguing that he was justified in his anger that White had "ruined his wife" and Evelyn had kept it from him. [[/labelnote]]
14	* ValuesResonance: "Till We Reach That Day" is this with the increased attention to ongoing anti-black racism in the late 2000s and beyond, with certain lyrics even edging into HarsherInHindsight territory given how well they fit incidents that didn't happen until years after the musical was written.
15	** The number of deaths of black people by police brutality, starting in the 90s from the Rodney King riots and given increased scrutiny from the Black Lives Matter movement in the 2010s and 2020s makes the song feel especially prophetic.
16	-->"There is blood on the ground
17	-->She was only a girl
18	-->It will happen again!
19	-->It will happen again, and again, and again!"

Context YMMV / Ragtime