Unless you’ve been buried under a rock, I don’t need to tell you that the newest version of Roseanne, the hit television series, has been cancelled after racist and vicious tweets by its star, Roseanne Barr.
The reaction has been unfortunately partisan. The president ignored the racism and made it about him, saying the network should apologize for negative coverage. Others on the political right are claiming injustice, alleging a false equivalence between racism and a crass or insulting statement someone else might have made.
Many of my liberal friends, particularly those of middle class backgrounds, were downright gleeful. A racist they never liked in the first place got what she deserved. Simple as that.
It was showing the struggles of a working class family.
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I won’t say my reaction is in the middle, but it is different. I think it was entirely appropriate for ABC to end its relationship with someone who had engaged in repeated instances of public racism and demeaning and bizarre behavior. Given that this is hardly new for Barr, it’s reasonable to question why they brought her back in the first place.
The show however, was good and it was doing something that is important and rare on television these days. It was showing the struggles of a working class family.
Going back to its original run, Roseanne was unlike other shows in this respect. They had an episode including a wildcat strike, nuanced discussions of racism, some of the earliest depictions of gay and lesbian characters in significant roles on television, and the lead characters struggled with various jobs and paying their bills.
In one episode, Roseanne fights with the IRS. It perhaps my favorite moment, they put off their bills by sending the water bill to the electric company and vice versa. They were doing what they needed to to survive.
Roseanne’s support for President Trump was enough to put many people off the show, but the world is more nuanced than that. Yes, she demonstrated repeated instances of racist vitriol, but one granddaughter on the latest season was black. Barr, for her part, said recently that she’d come to love the young actress who played the character and her biggest regret is this little girl thinking she does not love her.
Yes, racism is evil, but it is not simple.
Barr wasn’t the main creative force behind the show and while she, and her character, Roseanne Connor, were supporters of Trump, that is discussed only in the first episode in partisan arguments with her sister. Sara Gilbert was the one who really brought the revival cast together and was probably the biggest creative force. Wanda Sykes was a consulting producer, but quit the show after Barr’s most recent comments, just hours before it was cancelled.
Working class people represent around a third of the American people. They should not be so rare in popular culture.
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Just in the eight episode reboot of Roseanne, we saw two daughters, one with a college degree, one not (something rarely depicted on television in itself) competing for a job they both need. We saw one daughter taking a demeaning job she didn’t want and deferring her creative dreams. The son is a military veteran while his wife is still serving. One grandson is gender fluid.
In another reminder that racism isn’t simple, the new version also showed nuanced depictions of it, along with Islamophobia exhibited by the lead character, who learns from it. That same character has an opiod addiction and is struggling to get medical care. Her husband faces a moral dilemma, whether to hire undocumented, non-union workers or perhaps lose his business, his house, and his friend.
Racism is a moral evil and it is appropriate that a star who demonstrated repeated open bigotry and a lack of civility has been axed. But it is also appropriate to mourn the fact that working class families of all backgrounds are poorly represented on television and this is one more loss.
There is some chatter about the Connor family perhaps coming back to television in some fashion, without Barr. I have no idea if that will go anywhere.
Working class people represent around a third of the American people. They should not be so rare in popular culture. Since the days of producer Norman Lear, they have been nearly invisible.
Speaking of Lear, one of his best shows of the 1970s and early 80s was One Day at a Time, another depiction of a working class family. That show has come back with a new cast on Netflix and the second season is now available. As a fan of the original, I had some skepticism, but they have done it justice.
—A version of this piece will also appear in the Porterville Recorder on June 6th, 2018.
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