MovieChat Forums > Ragtime (1981) Discussion > Mostly an excellent film, but condescend...

Mostly an excellent film, but condescending.

posted 11 years ago by Blueghost
4 replies | jump to latest

I've thought of reviewing this movie, but for some reason I can't get myself to do it.

There's a scene with the lady activist from the ghetto, who takes in Evelyn Nesbit, who herself then suddenly turns into this down-syndrome woman. The lady from the ghetto then condescends and treats Nesbit like a mental patient. And Nesbit, who admittedly was not very bright in the first place, suddenly loses a few dozen more IQ points for that one scene? Huh?

That scene just seemed really stupid. It's like there's a stupidity in America that needs treatment and guidance by this new wave of immigrants who allegedly have insights that the descents of pioneers and revolutionaries have somehow missed or lack.

I like this film for being well crafted, but that one scene just really makes me dismiss it. Ergo, no review.

[–] wvanderburg 11 years ago

You're missing the whole point of that scene....which was deleted in the final print. That "lady activist" is anarchist Emma Goldman, a member of the "free thinking" movement. In her many speeches, she espoused free love among other things.

This particular scene, which is gone into more graphic detail in the novel, was supposed to awaken Evelyn Nesbit to her own sexuality as a woman, and strip off the confines of man's ideals in a woman: how she dresses, talks, walks, thinks, etc. Specifically, why do women find it necessary to torture their bodies to fit into tight fitting corsets, just because society dictated that's what they should do.

And that Evelyn could have a full life without the need to be some man's sex slave. Evelyn was fully aware of her sexual prowess to attract any man she wanted, but she needed to see her sexuality for what it was.

[–] Blueghost 11 years ago

You know......I don't know. It felt a little more prosaic than that. It really felt like Goldman had suddenly become this psychiatrist-cum-parent for a woman whose grey matter fluxed through the entire film. Nesbit was brilliant one moment, then a double-digit IQ retard the next.

When she clapped her hands and asked if she got to be on stage, to me at least, she had "dumb-ass" written on her forehead.

I can see the sexuality argument, but I can't help but feel and think that there's more operating there.

[–] HalfBloodPrincess1967 9 years ago

I'm watching this for the first time now, and I don't know if it was an acting choice on the part of McGovern, or Milos Forman's choice for her to play it that way, but she does unintentionally get on my nerves. I think it was meant to portray how society expected women to be (ie: don't think, just look pretty) back then. Also, Nesbit was just a young teenager when this whole thing started, so they were trying to portray how naïve and childlike she was. I'm not very far in to it, though.

AVADA KEDAVRA!!!

[–] liscarkat (18977) 5 months ago

The only "society" that dictated women should wear corsets was women's society. The great majority of men couldn't have cared less. Women inflict this kind of crap on themselves, then blame men.