The Roseanne Show revival controversy
Let me say this right out of the gate - I did not watch this show. I do not watch any shows that are on cable or satellite or whatever because I don't stay in one place long enough to justify that sort of connection. However, i do remember when it was going down and thought it was absurd.
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I don't know what was more absurd - The fact that Roseanne Barr thought it was a good idea to interject herself into politics or the network's reaction to it. We all know that everything is racist and her comment about Valerie Jarrett was of course lumped into that category. Roseanne said
"muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj." (VJ meaning Valerie Jarrett) and I can certainly see why some people would find that offensive but this just kind of goes back to what I have said about comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Burr, and Chris Rock refusing to do comedy in certain cities because they are going to be overly criticized for statements that anyone who isn't a social justice warrior can clearly see is a joke.
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do they look alike? do they not? does it matter?
There are a lot of mainstream comedians that continually refer to Donald Trump as some sort of Orange (insert whatever animal you want here) and those people still have jobs - so what is the difference in these sort of jokes other than the fact that Roseanne is Caucasian and also a conservative?
I don't care that this show was cancelled but apparently a lot of people did because after Roseanne was removed the show was revamped as "The Conners," which was the same show but without Roseanne Barr the viewership dropped from around 18 million viewers (28 million after delayed streaming was factored in) to much lower numbers frequently dropping below 7 million.
I understand that ABC probably felt the social justice pressure to do something but I wonder if they are regretting this move. Roseanne later apologized for the Tweet and I think that should have been the end of it. Let the viewers decide, right?
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Does Roseanne really regret what she did? Or was she simply attempting some damage control? I suspect the latter. However, i think that ABC's decision to axe the whole program (which was the most successful TV show in the world at the time) was a decision they do regret, just not publicly.
In the meantime you probably don't need to worry about Roseanne being in the soup kitchen line at any time in the near future. Her net worth of $80 million will probably keep her safe from bank repossessions for the time being.
Personally, the only thing that I really regret about this entire ordeal is that the PC nature of the world is just out of control. It seems that everyone who Tweets would probably realize that saying anything even remotely controversial is going to have ill consequences and maybe.... just maybe, consider not doing it?
What do you think? Was the tweet racist (i don't think it was, but i do think it was in poor taste and also really really stupid,) do you think that ABC overreacted a bit? I am sure the people in the finance department probably think so.
I don't keep up with the world of network TV, so while aware of what happened, I didn't really know the details.
After looking into it, it appears to me ABC was in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" jam. Roseanne, as a comedienne, should know that tweeting something which could be seen as insensitive or racist, in jest, is far different from speaking it in front of a live audience. Body language, facial expression, inflection, and all the other cues we use to parse out the context of a statement are completely absent in a text-only medium.
Was the comment in poor taste? Sure. Was it deliberately racist? I've no idea...not a mind reader, so I've no idea what she was thinking at the time. The problem is that some humor can cut too close to invoking real past perceptions. We've had issues in our culture in the past portraying people of non-white ethnicities with ape- or monkey-like traits. Such a thing may have been played for laughs in the 50's, but it's viewed (rightfully, in my mind) as insulting and insensitive. It's something we, as a society, should want to move past for that very reason. South Park can get away with a lot of things, but Parker and Stone are smart enough to understand there's a huge difference in naming the only Black student in the school "Token" (which is easily understood as a dig at mainstream portrayal of persons of color in popular culture) and running a plot where Chef is beaten with whips and forced to pick cotton, or Kyle's family is threatened with being shoved into a giant oven.
Good comedy punches up (or at least limits itself to sideways blows which exposes its own hypocrisy). It's why Chris Rock can run a bit entitled, "How Not To Get Your Ass Kicked By the Police" and we all laugh at it, but when Michael Richards threw out racial slurs as part of an impromptu tirade, people cringed. Roseanne's tweet made the mistake of punching down instead of sideways or up, and she got called on it.
Back to ABC--the star of your hottest show makes a fairly serious cock-up in public, and not for the first time (that national anthem performance, anyone?). What do you do?
Choice A: You pretend like nothing happened, let her apologize, give her a verbal slap on the wrist, and come off looking like you couldn't care less what kind of behavior your star engages in as long as she's pulling in the bucks. You risk a backlash among a portion of your viewers and a withdraw of sponsors, not to mention a public pillorying on social media for ignoring the changing social and cultural tides of today.
Choice B: You make the difficult decision to serve up a consequence which shows you take the cultural and social tides of the day seriously, even though this consequence is liable to cost you viewership and will almost certainly affect the jobs of a multitude of actors, directors, editors, stage crew, producers, and writers all involved with the show who did nothing wrong but are now being punished anyway for someone else's behavior.
Either way, Roseanne's behavior has put you in a position where there is no way to win. You're playing out the opening scene of The Wrath of Khan in real-time, and there's no James T. Kirk around to reprogram the simulation to make it possible to save the ship. What choice do you make?
Ultimately, ABC went with the choice to appeal to the larger demographic of their audience, which was to fire Roseanne and attempt to keep the show going without her on the hopes John Goodman, Sara Gilbert, and the rest would still be a draw.
I don't see it as a problem with "PC culture" so much as I see it as a problem with insensitivity. If this was the first time Roseanne had done or said something offensive when she wasn't delivering a stand-up routine or speaking as a character on a show written for her by someone else, I think the situation could have been handled through an apology and some act of contrition. This wasn't the case, and her attempts to double down and blame it on medication she was taking instead of owning up to saying something dumb and apologizing for it did her no favors. Unfortunately, a whole slew of people paid a price for her poor judgement because, like the banks which were "too big to fail" in 2008, she was the cornerstone propping up a particular television show and she was impossible to replace without the whole thing falling apart.
There were no right answers here. Apologies for the wall of text...it certainly wasn't my intention from the start of this comment. :)
I love your walls of text, don't ever apologize for them :) That was very well thought out and concise. You are 100% correct about a lot of things particularly the part about text getting people in trouble. I have had some bad arguments with people via text message that would have been avoided face to face or even on the phone.
However, I do believe that the world is becoming overly PC and not just about racism, but about anything. "just for men" hair products will have to change their name to "just for people" or something and that wont be enough.
Oh, and it was lame for Roseanne to try to blame her tweet on Ambien although, have you ever taken an Ambien and tried to stay awake? Crazy stuff happens. :)
I personally thought it was racist. Nonetheless, the show was going to lose viewers regardless. If Barr stuck around, there would be massive criticism towards ABC as keeping her around would be treated as a sign of consent for her behavior.
Barr = Less viewership
No Barr = Less viewership
ABC should have just canceled the show and look to put out quality entertainment; Something sorely missing from cable TV (Only show I watch now is South Park).
southpark remains epic despite intentionally trying to insult everyone. They never decided to get on the PC train. Perhaps that is part of their recipe to success.
I want you to think about this though. Southpark is able to be edgy because they are known. If a NEW show came out now like Southpark, no one would take it on (as a network).
Maybe it’s one of the reasons Trump was voted in and the world politics is heading right wing . Too many People taking offence to everything. Imagine if the film Borat was released in today’s cinema. There would be uproar
If Sasha Cohen hadn't joined their ranks and tried to release Borat today they would dig up something he said 20 years ago and use that as a reason to block him from having a film. The world is insane, and I am happy (so happy) that i am not part of it and just get to sit back and watch everything implode.
I clearly understand your annoyance at the fact that they have censored the television program, in my country, Venezuela is something very common and lamentable, they have censored television channels, radio stations, newspapers, etc., they have closed radio stations, channels of television and are afraid of them, so they change their editorial line, through the terror of removing the concession. Newspapers do not provide them with paper, so, unfortunately, they are forced to stop circulating.
wow... that is a far worse situation than what is going on here. I hope I can make a bunch of money and get all of you guys out of that mess. I want o learn spanish. Perhaps i can get someone a school over in South East Asia for that.
Unfortunately, these situations occur in many countries, especially those with populist governments, which have the terror of criticism.
Age does not forgive anyone, it's unfortunate, but well that's a very good movie a classic the planet of the apes, I had not seen the one that I play the role in real life is to say in photos ... Regards and my regards my friend.
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