“Roseanne” was never as political as all the writing about the show. It actually seemed to make sense that her old working class character, resurrected after 20 years, might be a Trump supporter in her old age. With the brilliant Laurie Metcalf as her political opposite it seemed to work in the show’s reboot premiere, which out of curiosity and nostalgia alone made it the season’s top rated new TV snow by far. At least a sitcom was talking about the politics closing in on us while others generally did not.
But there was no fighting the lunacy of the star of the show, who spouted off conspiracy theories and spoke nonsense at press conferences regarding her new show. It reached a low Tuesday with Barr’s indefensible tweet about Valerie Jarrett. Of course ABC had to act quickly and decisively to cancel the show.
The shocking turn contrasted wildly with the ABC upfront event for advertisers in which the number of times ABC bragged about its No. 1 show became a running joke. There also seemed to be a “Roseanne” effect in the rollout of fall programs. “Last Man Standing” was unveiled as a second rebooting of a sitcom tied to a conservative star. When ABC dropped the sitcom a year ago, conspiracy theorists surmised it was because of the right-leaning politics of Tim Allen. So with the success of “Roseanne” in the Trump era, Fox figured why not pick it up?
The rest of ABC’s schedule, and many of the other broadcasters, pride themselves on inclusivity and diversity; having its biggest success cause a racist tirade wasn’t going to do. If only other awful people were so easily dismissed.