Posted on 05/30/2018 6:12:37 AM PDT by Kaslin
A network TV show rolls out with a favorable treatment of a Trump supporter, replete with plot developments that portray middle American values (and foibles) without the ridicule usually heaped upon them by Hollywood. It couldn’t last.
But no one figured it would be a suicide.
The epitaph for the “Roseanne” TV reboot will read: born 2018, died 2018. Cause of death: the star’s inability to understand one basic fact, and it’s not the one you might think, about watching what you post on Twitter. Liberals can post whatever hateful slime they wish, with few if any career consequences.
No, Roseanne’s blind spot was to an even broader truth: the moment you align yourself with conservatives, you enter a world of zero tolerance. If you are a vulgar comic spewing unprintable hate about President Trump and his family, you get a Netflix show. Roseanne Barr’s show gets canceled for one stupid tweet.
Make no mistake: the tweet was profoundly stupid. Even within the context of a “joke,” the universal Teflon often attempted in moments like this, it was a tragic unforced error that committed the compounding sin of invoking racist imagery.
All together now: What in God’s name was she thinking?
The answer is obvious. She wasn’t. No one ever is when they commit blunders like this. Something about social media has removed some people’s usual brain barrier that exists between thinking something and actually posting it.
That doesn’t matter in this case now. What’s done is done, and what’s done is horribly unfortunate.
I don’t think John Goodman will be missing any car payments, but the rest of the cast no longer stands to benefit from another season (or more) of shows watched by millions, featuring themes that made the show important, an adjective not attached properly to a sitcom since “All in the Family” almost 50 years ago.
It was important not just because it affectionately portrayed a Trump supporter, even though that was a rare and precious attribute. It also caringly painted scenes featuring Roseanne’s thoroughly liberal sister and daughter. In its funniest and most honest episode, the tensions between her and a Muslim neighbor family led to a scene featuring Roseanne standing up for her new Islamic acquaintance in the face of racism from a store clerk.
As fresh as today’s headlines, the final episodes of the first (and now only) season kicked off with Roseanne’s addiction to painkillers. As real as the struggle faced by countless American families, the scripts then turned to husband Dan’s anguish over how to pay for his wife’s expensive knee surgery as his construction jobs dried up and the credit cards maxed out.
Viewers saw their pain, their mutual devotion and their struggle, but the show never forgot to be funny. This is a profound loss. Roseanne’s comic genius made it possible, and her mouthy Twitter politics made the ride even more fun.
But the fun had rules. She had to know that as a rare actress willing to show empathy for Trump and his voters, she would face critics waiting gleefully for her to stumble. She gave them exactly what they wanted, and in so doing gave the left an overhand smash in the form of “There you go, that’s how Trump and his voters feel.” So we not only lose a show we could actually watch, we get to spend some time beating away a slander as well. Great day all around.
Will another network revive “Roseanne?” No time soon. We are often a very forgiving country, but that forgiveness is not afforded to all. Float monkey imagery in a reference about an African-American woman, and you’re going to be done. For a while.
It would be easy to list the constant brutal slurs floated by the Hollywood left against Trump, by entertainers who are still employable, some specifically because of their political and personal venom. None of this matters. It is what it is. Is it unfair? Of course. Is it exemplary of differing bars of outrage for different people? Absolutely.
But everyone in any realm of public life should know that this is the way the field is striped. Maybe it will change someday. Until it does, anyone with a brain stem has to know that a tweet like Roseanne’s is going to detonate a reputational atom bomb.
I am grateful for the one special season of a show that did not insult the minds and hearts of the voters who gave us the Trump presidency. ABC had supposedly made noises about toning down the politics of the show in the recently approved second season. I don’t believe that would have happened. This cast and those writers believed in what they were doing—not a sop to conservative audiences, but a rare and honest snapshot of character types found in countless households rarely represented in the popular culture.
I will always be grateful to Roseanne Barr for bringing this show to life. Now I have to find a way to forgive her for killing it.
I enjoyed some of the new Roseanne show but having a child wear girls clothes was just wrong. Trying to normalize that is sick. That kid actor life will be broken by some hollywood pedophile ring.
Presenting muslim’s as the normal family when we know how women are treated and how they view western values is wrong too. I am sure there are muslim’s here who are very very glad they are here but I bet that family was cheering 9/11 when it happened. Also Roseanne could have cleaned up her home a bit. People in flyover country are not all slobs - though I have known some.
So true!
I'm with you here Miss Marmelstein. I'm disappointed that so many Freepers here are so quick to go Quisling or Vichy France on us. For those younger folks who don't get the references, back in WW2, some in Europe, such as Vidkun Quisling in Norway and many leaders in France decided to throw in with the Nazis and cast their lot with them when it appeared they were going to take over the world. They figured they would just capitulate and negotiate the best deal for themselves under the thumb of Hitler rather then stand up and fight.
It was stalwart men like Winston Churchill and George Patton who vowed to fight on to their dying breath and millions of good people did die in order to save the world from evil. It is because of them that we live in a free society today.
As for Roseanne Barr, I'm not a sitcom watcher (The laugh tracks and loud voices are like nails on a chalkboard to me) but I was happy to see her succeed with her new show as she was an unapologetic supporter of Trump and a friend to those who supported him (I followed her on Twitter and saw for myself her genuine honesty and interaction with regular people who supported Trump).
I did not see the Tweet in question until it hit the news cycle. But I read it and saw nothing racist about it whatsoever. It did reference the Planet of the Apes, which is a movie I saw several times.
Now I can't see any way a black person would be offended by Planet of the Apes. First, the "Apes" in that movie were the smart ones. They were the superior race. It was the humans (all white people) who were the slaves. The only smart white people in that movie were those who dropped down in the space ship from some kind of time warp. I thought it was an excellent movie that turned racism completely on its head.
The Freepers here joining the lynch mob against Roseanne Barr should be ashamed of themselves. Roseanne Barr (like Donald Trump) are one the LEAST racist people on this planet and we ought to be supporting them 100% against the Left who are trying to destroy them.
Very nicely said, Sam. Well said.
Very nicely said, Sam. Well said.
Agree!!
Funny that no one seemed offended about the ISIS part of her comment.
Apparently being called an offspring of real live murderous mohammedans was not insulting but the idea of her being the descendant of a fictional cultured civilized ape was enough to make people go bananas.
Think about that for a moment.
I agree with you too, Sam. Liberals have said much worse and they apologize (sometimes) very reluctantly, and they are allowed to continue to make a living in show biz. I don’t think ABC could stand the success Roseanne was having and they jumped at the chance to silence her. The hypocrisy is disgusting and I hope the backlash hits them hard.
Yes Chimpy Bush, I remember the cartoons and also the ones about Condie Rice.
Oh come on!!! They're gonna damnatio memoriae ROSEANNE? I heard it's off HULU too. License to pirate.
"7th Heaven" eventually came back after the Captain Decker flashing incident so I'm sure the original reruns will too. But I wonder if the reboot will ever be available outside of pirate sites, it's already off ABC.com.
Michael Fishman may have to go back to working for a living. But the latest is there is a plan to do some "Two and Half Men" style go on without the main character thing. Maybe they'll say Roseanne's character accidentally set herself on fire at a klan rally. Actually not that since she created the characters she'd get money from it and they can't have that, so the idea is to change the name of the family and create "new" characters. Hollywood, SMH.
Ping to 169
You are ignorant of history.
Animalization of groups was done long before blacks were called apes and continues long after black were compared to apes.
I am sick of special standards for people who suffered no more than any other (blacks today). There are no blacks who were subject to slavery, being called monkeys, in numbers greater than other races.
Yes, blacks of the past were called names. That is the past. Time to grow up and move past it and stop living in the past.
You are giving the left a weapon that they do not deserve.
And I disagree with you. I recognize the reality and this says calling a black person an ape will have a backlash. And I don’t think this is a conflict well meaning conservatives should fight in. If someone says they want to make America better and their first thing is rallying the cause of the 1st amendment toward calling black people apes they’re doing it wrong.
Stephen Collins.
Yep, it’s better to be a SELF ADMITTED PEDOPHILE than to say something purportedly “raycisss”.
May I ask, where are you from? It was racist. People want to deny it, but I recall the days of my youth when blacks were referred to as yard apes. It hurt my feelings because my very first best friend was a black girl,. Tina and I got along well because we were both different, she more so than I to our classmates.
My mother called us monkeys because we were swinging from trees. I see it as one of those “if the shoe fits” sort of phrases. I don’t believe she was commenting on this woman’s race, but her looks and personality. Remember, the left used the same language regarding Bush Jr. and he’s lilly white.
It can be used as a racial slur, but not always. Is VJ even black?
BTW, I’m from Seattle, but have lived in rural KY for seven years. I also spent time in California, Oregon, Wyoming, Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado in the 60’s. My father worked on land based nuclear missiles as well as submarines so we got around.
I learned to make - and throw away - friendships fast. My first experience with a lot of black students was in grade school in Vallejo while my dad was working at Mare Island. I just naturally tried to befriend some of the black kids because, well, they were just kids to me. It didn’t work, sadly. I don’t think their race was the problem. Rather, it was the culture.
There were two neighborhoods across a large ditch from each other. Both were the same home designs and built at the same time. One was all white and the other all black. The white neighborhood was a pretty typical middle class neighborhood. The other side of the ditch was a place to be avoided. I walked across the foot bridge once (about 30 yards long) and saw a different world. None of the yards had lawns. They were bare dirt and brown weeds. I remember hollow core front doors with holes kicked in. The most weird thing I saw was a girl that appeared to be in first or second grade riding a bike down the street with no tires. Just rims.
IT was then (in 3rd grade) I learned from those two neighborhoods that though things may start out equal, it doesn’t guarantee an equal outcome.
But again, I don’t pin it on race. I pin it on culture.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.