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.
Notice that the same tactic that is being used against Roseanne is being used against Trey Gowdy.
The Media is the Deep State. It is fighting for it’s survival. It will destroy anything in it’s way.
I think its possible for the show to continue
Rename the show “The Connors”
Write in her death as a story line
Heavily ignore her previous existence in every episode
I’m sure they’d love to continue the cross-dressing boy and other story lines
Honestly, i wasn’t that impressed. I saw an obnoxious person surrounded by progressives. And she was the comic foil needed for their attacks on Trump. The one episode i saw has her defending her little tranny grandson to his school class. Glad that show is gone
I dont see anything wrong with her very funny remark.Jarrett does not look negro at al!! She is an iranian! She was a communist lawyer from Chicago.. She looks like an ape and she is associared with the muslim brotherhood, a terrorisr organizrion and advised obozo to give 150 billion to the terrorist to make nukes in iran, her home country. Dont be intimidated by this lynch mob thought police. Think through the facts that support this hysterically funny comment by Roseanne! There is no law against free speech!!
She can go online with the show. Hulu, even Obama Netflix, Amazon, she had 20 MM viewers. It was a big hit, so they’ll wait til it dies down. She did apologize anway.
Mark Davis was one substitute Rush host that got me to change the station. He is full of himself (So is Steyn, but Steyn as reason to be), just isn’t very smart, is condescending to the wrong people, and isn’t a very linear thinker. I see no reason to read his article, which was confirmed after I read two or three lines. Correct me if I am wrong.
“Bill Maher can say Donald Trump’s mother had sex with an Orangutan and he’s still on the air, but Roseanne is not for saying President Valerie Jarrett was a cross with Planet of the Apes.”
Because white people don’t take it seriously when someone calls us apes. Something about it only hurts if you think it might be true. Do you think Stephen Hawking would get butthurt if someone called him stupid?
“But her remark was not racist. That is an incorrect inference.”
Please Expound?
Pretty presumptuous of Mr. Davis to conclude that Ms. Barr speaks for me.
Exactly right. I never bought into the whole Rosanne renaissance thing. I was very concerned that either she’d renege on here apparent conservative tones, or that somehow we’d all be set up.
What is “racist” about it?
First, ABC knew what they were getting when they hired Rosanne, no surprises there.....she was always a loud, crude and obnoxious comedian....
Second, Rosanne was never a conservative.....she is a uber-liberal that happens to support Trump....
The only people I feel sorry for are the 200+ people that worked the number 1 show and now lost their jobs......the caterers, production staff...etc....
Cross dressing grandson that is accepted
Biracial granddaughter that is accepted
Muslim neighbors that are accepted
The true stereotypical Trump Supporter.
That’s right...they called him “Chimp”.
I know. When our own don’t even have the guts to call a spade a spade, what’s left?
I’ve never seen the level of snivelling over college professors repeatedly calling for, or rejoicing at the prospect of, the genocide of whites, that I see over this, from all sides.
Seriously?
Comparing a black woman to a talking ape?
Please explain how it’s not racist......
The left always, always sticks together. The right? Not that much. They value good manners over the long-term fight. Which we are gonna lose if we don’t get smart.
Evidently you believe black people are related to apes.
That sounds racist.
Mark, you sir are a moron. The punishment Barr is getting is so disproportionate to HER TWEET that it actually helps us. Everyone can see it, after that vile “comedian’s” verbal assault on Sarah she was given a special on Netflix, Roseann has been destroyed for one small remark on Twitter.
Actually good for Rosanna. It’s too bad she apologized. But in order to take back our culture from the left we have to unapologetically make jokes and let liberals meltdown over them. She should have taken a lesson from Donald Trump. Don’t apologize and double down explain the stupid joke. She could have put up a picture of dr. Zira and Valerie Jarrett and say I rest my case. Never apologize Never Back Down. She’s not a racist is the liberal meme that makes anything a conservative do racist.
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