There was certainly less profanity in the Godfather than in the Sopranos. There was a kind of respect. It's not that I totally agreed with it but it was a great piece of art.
Ragtime has about the same amount of respect as comics. And in a way they're similar art forms. Ragtime is highly compositional and the emotion in the music is built in whereas in jazz a lot of that emotion comes from the way it's performed.
