Audience-Alienating Premise: A pretty era-specific case: the reason Newsies bombed pretty badly on release is because just saying it out loud — a period drama about a 1899 newsboys' strike that's also a Disney musical — the premise garnered more confusion and ridicule than excitement. During 1992, there hadn't been a real precedent for live-action movie musical blockbusters for a while (at least those set outside of a fantastical context, like The Muppets), and when combined with a cast lacking in big name performers (at least for the time), there were no major draws. Time has been a lot kinder to the movie due to a wider proliferation of quirkier musicals with similarly niche subject matters, and Newsies itself would receive a successful Screen-to-Stage Adaptation in 2011.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: During the nuns scene in "Carrying the Banner", a woman walks through the crowd of newsies, looking for her missing son. She is never seen again and, according to the audio commentary of the film, serves no purpose other than to show how common it was for children to run away from home during those days.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Oy. Okay, rule out every main character. Then every female character. Then everyone over the age of, say twenty-one (except Teddy Roosevelt) and under the age of fourteen. That character will have enough fangirls to qualify as this.
Spot Conlon, especially.
The girls have their fair share of fans. And the stage musical added two female newsies (Smalls in the Broadway production and Sniper in the tour), who've become more popular than some of the boys with similarly sized roles.
Kid Blink is quite popular among the fanbase. Just look at that smile.
Estrogen Brigade: Look at the above section. Now look at the rest of this page. Now look at the cast. Now tell us what you think the fanbase is like.
Fan-Preferred Couple: Although Jack and Sarah is the canon couple for the movie, a majority of fans ship Jack and David due to the two developing a close bond and Sarah being a Satellite Love Interest.
At the end of the movie, one protagonist gets together with the other protagonist's barely-there sister.
After the barely-there girl and David get saved from attackers, Jack gives the girl a perfunctory "You're okay, bro" slap on the back, while he almost caresses David while finding out if he's okay.
A case can also be made for David and Denton: Denton first goes to David, saying, "You look like the man in charge," when Jack Kelly is the one who just led the big song and dance number. David is the one Denton hands his card to. David seems irrationally angry when Denton is reassigned. And later, how do they know where Denton lives...?
Narm Charm: The movie tried to work Disney magic on atypical subject matter. For some, this results in the subject and tone of the film clashing in a very stupid way. For others, the fact that it's so over-the-top just makes it all the more awesome. Also, it has Theodore Roosevelt.
The Big Damn Heroes moment courtesy of Theodore Roosevelt, especially in the play, since nearly every line he speaks gets laughs and cheers from the audience.
Also the woman mentioned above, who gets a verse during "Carrying the Banner" looking for her son and never appears again in the film.
Ships That Pass in the Night: Hoo, boy. Aside from all the shipping for the background characters (who have perhaps ten lines between them all, and there's thirteen of them), there's Spot and Racetrack, who are one of the fandom's three OTPs, and Blink and Mush.
Values Dissonance: The open affection among the young men can seem jarring to a 21st century audience, with the modern paranoia and modern distrust of even casual physical contact. This is intentionally exploited in the film.
Base-Breaking Character: Katherine. Fans like her for being a more proactive female character than Sara and her chemistry with Jack. Detractors dislike her for replacing Denton and feel her romance arc takes up time that could've been used to focus on David and Crutchie's Character Development.
Broken Base: The stage adaptation. Plenty of fans of the original movie can and will admit that they consider the stage adaptation to be good, and even better than the source material. Some fans like both equally. But there's a group of fans of the original movie who will get pretty vicious over the stage musical and the amount of love it gets, plenty of them complaining about how nobody likes the movie anymore. There's also an equally vicious section of the musical fans who consider the movie vastly inferior and deride its fans.
Similarly, the stage version of "Santa Fe", which is now a duet with Jack and Crutchie, where Jack declares that in a town like Santa Fe, it wouldn't matter that Crutchie was crippled, he could just ride a horse wherever he needed to go. In fact, the fresh air would probably heal him!
"I'm not used to having whether I stay or whether I go matter. But, um… does it? Matter?"
Ho Yay: In the musical, Jack and Crutchie open the show sleeping together on the roof of the lodging house, sing about how they're going to run away together, and Jack's reaction to Crutchie being taken to the Refuge is pretty intense.
Memetic Mutation: Go and look it up, the poor GUY'S head is spinning! Explanation A video of the Newsies cast preparing for a show backstage led to this meme after Ben Fankhauser (Davey) used this line as a vocal warm-up, which hilariously annoyed Andrew Keenan-Bolger (Crutchie). It became such a large meme that in the filmed production, when Fankhauser sings the line, Kara Lindsay (Katherine) can be seen in the background covering her smile.
Romantic Plot Tumor: The musical's romantic subplot is initially built on Slap-Slap-Kiss, which can turn off watchers. Jack then feels Katherine betrayed him simply by being in the room with Pulitzer, which is resolved with one kiss, and the Final Love DuetSomething to Believe In doesn't explain why Jack and Katherine love one another, only that they suddenly met and fell in love despite the odds.
The song Santa Fe, a song about a heavily romanticized version of what is essentially anywhere else except the New York City that Jack feels trapped in. The Dark Reprise after Crutchie is beaten and taken to the refuge during Jack's strike even moreso. Jack's desire to run away from everything is heavily lampshaded especially in the second act.
The Act II counterpoint in the tour and filmed versions, "Letter from the Refuge," is even sadder, as Crutchie writes a letter to Jack from the Refuge.
" is a simultaneously encouraging, yet restless Protest Song that signifies the oncoming Heroic Second Wind against Pulitzer.