The ‘Roseanne’ revival seems like the newest ‘culture war’ for Deplorables

'Roseanne' Premiere Event - Arrivals

So the reboot of Roseanne debuted last night on ABC. Did anyone watch it? I’m sure some of you did, because #Roseanne was still trending well into the morning. I avoided it like the plague for several reasons. One, the Miami Open (tennis!). Two, it was clear from all of the promotion that this reboot was going to be an absolute mess politically. Roseanne Barr is a Trump supporter and a Trump voter, and she insisted that the show reflect her own personal worldview. The other characters have some liberal/progressive views – Laurie Metcalf wore a “Nasty Woman” t-shirt – but Barr insisted that there should be jokes about Hillary Clinton and Democrats too. Vanity Fair has a good summary/review here and VF talks about why most of the political jokes didn’t really “land.”

So what was the reaction online? Well, let me tell you: the Russian bots seem to have made this their newest culture war. How you feel about Roseanne is apparently symbolic of how you feel about “white genocide” and MAGA-ing.

'Roseanne' at Walt Disney Studios - Premiere

Photos courtesy of WENN.

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124 Responses to “The ‘Roseanne’ revival seems like the newest ‘culture war’ for Deplorables”

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  1. lisa says:

    omg that anti semitic post from Roseanne, i have never really paid attention to her and i thought the OG Roseanne was gross, i just cant believe it

    • Toot says:

      It’s not anti semitic. It’s anti everyone who isn’t Jewish. She wants everyone who is Jewish to leave, and then for UC Davis to get bombed.

      • lisa says:

        thanks i apologize for reading it wrong

      • pan says:

        … no apologies necessary as it is equally as horrifying. she is an a$$hole and i hope her lower taxes keeps her warm at night. i can’t believe she got a platform to normalise her insanity. i guess money talks.

      • Asiyah says:

        I was blocked by Roseanne when I was on Twitter for calling her out about that b*mb UC Davis post. She called me a Nazi, and I said to her funny, you’re the one calling for mass m*rder, not me. BLOCKED. Never been more proud in my life.

      • lisa says:

        how does this person get a show after that?

      • Ksenia says:

        Roseanne IS Jewish, she was never an anti-Semite—but she sure is anti every other minority! It’s weird to me that she doesn’t seem to get just how anti-Semitic 45’s followers are…she actually wants to APPEAL to the very people who would prefer to see her banned from the U.S, altogether, or even exterminated? She’s as stupid as she is loathsome.

  2. Beth says:

    Didn’t watch, and I’m never going to. I loved the first couple of years, but once Mark and David came along, it wasn’t as good anymore. Can’t stand the real life Roseanne!

    • pinetree13 says:

      I liked the David plot. Don’t want to watch this reboot though. I actually really enjoyed the original until the stupid “won the lottery” season.

  3. Kitten says:

    She is f*cking VILE. Was researching her last night after hearing people say that she’s racist (I genuinely had NO idea) and I’m f*cking disgusted. She also seems a bit of an unstable genius. She basically went from anti-Semite to Islamophobe within a few years. I’ll give her this: she really knows how to cover all her bigot bases. She has hate for everyone, even the LGBTQ community.

    It’s too bad because I absolutely loved her show back in the day. Now I’m not sure I could even watch reruns. Why do celebs have to ruin everything? Stop making me hate you with your stupid words, celebs.

    Also, that tweet about not wanting an inside look at Trump supporters is EVERYTHING. I have to pretend these people don’t exist just to wake up in the morning, I really don’t need them see them “cute” on a sit com.

    • Nicole says:

      This is exactly why I never got why people thought she was so woke in the first place. She is one of those prime examples of a supposedly “progressive” person that endorses racism and anti-Semeticism. See also Sander’s son who is an outright racist but running as a Dem.
      Adam Best nailed it…I don’t need a look into trump voters.

      • Kitten says:

        Probably about a month or so ago, my BF asked me if she was a progressive. I kind of hesitated and said “Yeah I think so. Her character on Rosanne was a Dem and I think she’s always been pretty open-minded…”

        Holy sh*t was I wrong.
        Eh..the more you know, right? Thanks to this blog and the commenters for cluing me in on this garbage person.

        ETA: Just looked up Levi Sanders. Ughhhhhhhhhh.
        “Let’s get rid of the term ‘white privilege'”?!?! GFY.

      • Kitten says:

        I don’t think it matters whether Nicole saw the original series or not. I think her point is that many like myself conflated her character on the show (which in my defense WAS based on her comedy) with who she is as a person.

        But yeah, from what I can recall, Rosanne Connor was a progressive.

        Roseanne Barr is not.

      • jwoolman says:

        Roseanne was always about Roseanne. The original show was funny in the beginning, but as she became richer and more powerful, it got more and more disturbing and weird in an unfunny way. The changes in the show clearly reflected her own pathologies.

        It really isn’t surprising that she likes Trump. She is indeed an excellent comic writer but she is also self-absorbed and selfish and very rich. I think that selfishness and the feeling of having made it “on your own” and not wanting to share with other people (who obviously are inferior because they don’t have what you have) are common traits among the financially comfortable Trump voters. And they actually predominated – Hillary attracted more people in the lower income brackets. The idea that Trump supporters were acting out of feeling financially at risk is ridiculous. They just identified better with a rich conman who hates everybody unlike themselves.

        I have no desire to watch the new show myself and think it will be a waste of time for the other actors. They are going to be sucked into Roseanne’s dark universe again. How quickly they forget…. How soon before John Goodman begs for Dan to be dead again?

      • Kitten says:

        Those are all very astute observations, jwoolman. I can definitely see how 80s Roseanne would be a Dem and 2018 Roseanne would be a Trumpster.

      • Megan says:

        When the original show aired, working class white people were Democrats. A lot has changed since 1988. The rust belt has gotten a lot rustier, money and jobs have migrated to the coasts, and the right launched a full-on culture war over god, guns, and gays.

        I am not surprised that Roseanne is choosing to play her character as a Trump supporter. I am, however, shocked and appalled that Roseanne herself is a Trump supporter.

      • Darla says:

        Excellent points jwoolman. I also think she’s just very mean, and always has been very mean. I think she’s a bully and bullies people on her show set too. I can’t imagine the suitcases full of cash ABC had to give Goodman and Metcalf to work with this stupid bully again. But the fact they took it forever taints them in my view.

      • Shark Bait says:

        Roseanne Barr being a Trump supporter makes sense, kind of. But Roseanne Connor would never be.
        I do think something is seriously wrong with Roseanne. She went waaaayyyy off the deep end into tinfoil hat, infowars territory. She was spouting some pizzagate nonsense, too.

      • magnoliarose says:

        She is an unhinged racist bully who is a terror on set. I don’t see this show going the distance. Then she will blame “the Hollywood Elite” aka Jews for the failure without ever accepting responsibility. Just like 45. She is a horrible garbage person.

      • Ksenia says:

        Roseanne IS Jewish. She has not ever been involved in anti-Semitic activity. But her RACISM—you’re right, that drips from her like melting candle wax. She’s so horrid, it’s unbelievable to me she has (again) a show, a platform for all her ugliness and prejudice.

    • LadyMTL says:

      Kitten, I’m right there with you. I loved the show’s first 4-5 seasons or so (I even have some of them on DVD) but the RL Roseanne has turned me off so much I don’t even know if I could watch them again.

      I have no problem with people holding different political views than my own, to a point – heck, my best friend and my own brother are very conservative, whereas I’m quite liberal – but Roseanne crosses way too many lines. I will not be watching any of these new eps, not if I can help it.

      • Kitten says:

        Yeah it’s not just that she’s a Trump supporter, it’s that she embodies everything I hate about Trump supporters. She’s done for me.

        I wish Sarah Chalk and Sara Gilbert weren’t a part of this mess.

      • Shark Bait says:

        I wish none of the original cast was a part of this, but I read a comment somewhere that they all needed to agree to do it for a green light. I’m sure Roseanne was a pill to work with and for back in the day too.

    • Rosalee says:

      A few months ago I engaged with her on twitter it quickly escalated into name calling..she hurt my feelings by calling me a “Canadian” I was laughing so hard I couldn’t type a response for a few minutes. Then her gang of “Deplorables” jumped on board. My twitter feed was filled with photos of scantly clad women and white is right supporters telling me to go back where I came from..she made one last comment and I am ashamed to admit but I responded by writing “I know you are, but what am I?” I spent the next hour blocking her group of followers, a day later someone hacked my acccount they changed my photo and listed my occupation as wantabe porn star.

      • Kitten says:

        Hahaha…that’s pretty awesome that you freaked out a celebrity AND the Trump Broflakes. Always impressive when a Canadian manages to offend 😉
        Nice work, friend.

      • Aren says:

        Jesus… what did the internet do to those people? Were they ever people at some point???

    • Angela82 says:

      Her son is also a psychopath.

    • H says:

      Roseanne has always been problematic, even back in the 80’s. I remember reading her biography and just thinking, “wow she’s crazy.” I also watched her talk show and her reality show, you could really see the change on her reality show where she lived on a macadamia farm in Hawaii. It was then I decided she was nuts and avoided her like the plague.

      However, I did watch the first two episodes on Hulu this morning of the rebooted Roseanne just to see for myself. The first episode, which was very political, was horrible. The second episode which completely dealt with Darlene’s gender-fluid child was better. The original Roseanne TV show was groundbreaking and I loved it. However, I’m not so sure I can continue watching this if she continues to speak positively about 45. She’s probably going to go in the boycott box along with Sean Penn, Mel Gibson and Matt Damon.

  4. kNY says:

    Jeez, the first few seasons were so amazing – I can’t imagine what the old character Roseanne would say if she saw trump. I honestly think that Roseanne – like lots of other celebrities – has gone off the deep end.

  5. Darla says:

    Yeah, she’s trying to normalize hate. And she is crazy. Not going to soft sell it. She’s literally insane. She called David Hogg a nazi yesterday. Then deleted the tweet. I think ABC thinks they can leash her. Boy, are they wrong. When this thing implodes, and it will, buckle up baby. But ABC will have it coming. This woman belongs in an institution and they gave her a tv show.

    Of course, she’ll hurt a lot of people and foment a lot of hate, maybe even violence, before they finally can her and send her back to the, wait for it, NUT FARM, she literally lives on.

    • Aren says:

      I hope you are right because I fear there might be a lot of people who want to see racism on TV on a regular basis.

    • Christin says:

      Remember *her* anthem controversy? Not sure how that hasn’t resonated with her new audience, given all the current blowback to taking a knee. She took a crotch, after all.

      That stunt received a lot of coverage at the time, and caused people to tune out her stunts. Had no idea what other awful things there are to add to the pile.

      • Darla says:

        She took a crotch, I am dying. ahhahahhaha

        Aren, I hope I am right too. But there’s truth in your stated fear.

      • Kelsey says:

        I didn’t watch but someone who did told me she made an anti-Colin Kaepernick joke on the show yesterday. Ironic since she was called a national disgrace for her singing of the anthem and grabbing her crotch. That’s far more disrespectful than anything Kaepernick has ever done.

      • Sara says:

        OMG yes! When she wailed out the anthem and then grabbed her crotch and spat! My father, a deeply conservative veteran, absolutely forbade us to watch her show after that happened. If he saw it on even if we were just flipping through channels he’d yell, “NO ROSEANNE!” I thought the Deplorables were against disrespecting the anthem. What? She’s not a black man calling for fair and equal treatment? Oh, it’s okay then.

    • Kelsey says:

      Sadly the show got boffo ratings last night (over 18 million people watched) so ABC has no incentive to rein her in. They won’t rein her in unless ratings drop or she says something so offensive that the show gets booted.

      • whatWHAT? says:

        I expect them to drop quite a bit from this week to next.

        people watched for the car crash aspect of it, and to see if she’s really as bad as her rep. doubt it will last.

    • Kelsey says:

      She has also liked and retweeted tweets that said the Parkland shooting was a false flag and that the kids were crisis actors. She is just a vile, disgusting individual.

      When the announcement came that the show was coming back to ABC, she actually scrubbed some of her more offensive tweets and tried to deny she said anything racist, homophobic, etc. Now I see she can’t contain herself and is back at it.

      I am hoping the ratings drop next week and people just watched yesterday because of the hype.

    • magnoliarose says:

      What is most offensive about calling these kids Nazis is that the school is over 40 percent Jewish. It is a pointed antisemitic remark and a theme the right nuts have been flooding all over the internet.
      The antisemitism directed at these kids is unbelievable. Very ugly stuff.

  6. Veronica says:

    The jokes don’t land because Trump is a demagogue, not a legitimate politician. Backing him means aligning yourself with some of the ugliest segments of American population. Being blind to that isn’t humorous, it’s frightening. If the lead actress had been a supporter of somebody like Mitt Romney, it would be a completely different story, a matter of different political views, but lending normalcy to somebody like Trump is dangerous. Albeit, by doing that, she gave us a view into exactly what America really is – xenophobic, ignorant, and polarized.

  7. Merritt says:

    I didn’t watch. She has a history of racist and misogynist behavior. I don’t need to waste my time on that garbage.

  8. rahrahroey says:

    Remember when she spit after singing the national anthem? I do. But as long as it’s a deplorable doing it, it’s fine. Gotcha!

    • Kitten says:

      It’s probably the least terrible thing out of all the terrible things she’s done/said, but of course you would focus your outrage on that and not her history of bigotry.

      • Nic919 says:

        She’s horrible in many other ways, but I bet there are some deplorables that would now defend this, even though kneeling during the anthem is such a sin for them.

        Roseanne lost touch with her working class roots in the middle of the first run of her show and it was not very good after the first few season. She’s now a racist crank full of hate and bitterness, like James Woods , despite getting breaks that most people would dream of. I didn’t realize how horrible she was until I saw that she believed pizzagate and was pushing it as legit.

        I feel for John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf because they are serious actors and really shouldn’t have agreed to work with this stain on humanity.

        Joking about wannabe dictators is never funny, so Roseanne lost whatever sense of comedy she may have had earlier because you go after the person in power, not the other side, but she is too full of hate to get that.

      • Kitten says:

        Agree with everything you said here. And yeah, Metcalf and Goodman deserve soooo much better. Damn.

      • rahrahroey says:

        No, you took what i said the wrong way. I meant even though she did that it’s ok because she’s now a trump supporter. But kneeling is what people get mad at. I’m a women of color and have not forgotten any of her bigotry . I was trying to point out the hypocrisy of trump supporters. Jeez

      • Kitten says:

        I apologize. It’s just that I’ve seen so many Trumpsters become her minions after she let her racist flag fly free. These are the same people that literally blew a gasket over her national anthem stunt. Sure, that was tacky AF but it doesn’t hold a candle to the outrageously deplorable things she has said and done.

        But I shouldn’t have jumped on you..sorry about that.

      • rahrahroey says:

        @Kitten, Thanks! I appreciate that. And I didn’t mean to imply that was by any means the most atrocious of her actions or words. Was just trying to make a point. 🙂

    • Betsy says:

      You mean “singing.” Remember how awful that was?

    • Imqrious2 says:

      After that debacle, the Deplorables and the GOP were calling for her head, calling her all sorts of names… and now, she’s there poster girl. The world HAS gone batsh!t crazy for sure.

    • Mami says:

      I get your point but I wonder if it’s a mistake to think the rightwingers who lost their noodles over old Rosanne’s anthem and the deplorables are the same people. Sure, there’s concentric overlap, but I think we make a mistake thinking they are all the same. There’s a new, cynical, white, anti-government, undemocratic, pro-authoritarian, conspiracy-minded, generation Milo-Y, tiki-torch alt right afoot. She might have always been one of this group, and not part of the Greatest Generation conservative right.

  9. boredblond says:

    I don’t understand how a comedian can say something racist/sexist/hateful in a routine, and they are pretty much done for..this wretched woman has spewed crap for years and the network and media, are okay with it? We have to start realizing that trump voters didn’t choose him in spite of the hate.,but because of it.

    • pan says:

      yup… of course there is a difference in working a comedy routine and just being outright xxxx-ist, but i mean this site was more up in arms about chapelle working through knowing louis ck and reconciling that with the stuff he’d done. SMH. i just don’t get it. the other thing i don’t get it why white folks are so mad? they are winning yet still so angry. hate is a helluva drug.

  10. Jenns says:

    This is white nonsense.

    So basically they want to relive the election and show Roseanne as a Trump voter with “economic anxiety”. She can’t be a racist. SHE HAS A BLACK GRANDCHILD! And despite their differences, the Conners will come together because they love each other. They can move on where everything is white people fine.

    And the fact that Trump is a racist xenophobe, who has several accusations of sexual assault against him, will just be ignored because of “economic anxiety”. I guess they’ll never get to the episode where Trump call Nazi very fine people…

    • jwoolman says:

      It’s kind of like having a sitcom set in 1930s Germany with the matriarch of the family a solid Hitler supporter…. Really hard to make it funny, I would think. Big laugh over Kristallnacht?

    • isabelle says:

      People unfortunately do this is the real world. Know a family who adopted 2 black kids and they are hard core Trumpers. They use their children as the excuse, “Do you think I’m racist, look at my kids” their answer when they were defending voting for Trump. They said this in front of their kids.

      • Chaine says:

        Same here, I know a hardcore Trump supporter whose granddaughter married an African American man and they have two children. I never know how this person can claim to love his great grandchildren and also be all #MAGA all over the place. Evangelical Christian, of course. 🙄

      • A says:

        This is very true. People think it provides a cover for their racism, but what it really just does is foist so much unnecessary anxiety upon those children who then have to grow up and figure out a way to work beyond all of that.

  11. gatorbait says:

    I did something much more constructive with my time. Played with my cat while rewatching season one of Parks and Rec and smoked one. I live in the south and unfortunately know a few trump supporters. They all hate Rosanne because they still remember her disrespecting the national anthem. Odd people.

    • Kitten says:

      “They all hate Rosanne because they still remember her disrespecting the national anthem.”

      Some are even on this blog…

      • jwoolman says:

        I never understood 1) why she was invited to sing the national anthem and 2) why people were surprised that she did it in a comic way. She’s a comedian, not a singer. What did they expect? Of course she screeched it out and did a baseball player spit. She treated it as a comedy routine because she was a comedian. That’s what they do, people.

        Did somebody really expect anything different? That song is hard enough for professional singers to manage, and they expected a non-singer comedian to belt it out properly?!?!?

      • TheOriginalMe says:

        Hey Kitten, it could be that some people only knows the ‘national anthem bit’ about Roseanne? Sorta like me… while I’ve never really liked Roseanne, I didn’t know about the extent of her bigotry until very recently.

      • Christin says:

        Add me to the list who didn’t realize what other things she has said/done. The anthem fiasco garnered a lot of publicity in those pre-Internet days, so that may be what some people last remember.

        She was her own worst enemy then, and hopefully will burn out again.

      • Shark Bait says:

        I’m pretty sure people are just pointing out the hypocrisy of Trump supporters, not slagging on Roseanne for mucking up the anthem. Put that pitchfork down.

      • Kelsey says:

        She kind of kept her hardcore bigotry hidden until the Presidential campaign in 2016. Twitter is her biggest outlet. People who aren’t on Twitter had no idea the extent of her hatred and bigotry until recently. She was supporting Bernie Sanders until he lost the primary so her racism, homophobia, etc, got overlooked. When Trump won she just started letting loose with her bigotry.

        When the announcement came that her show was being rebooted, people started searching her Twitter and posting screen shots of her most offensive tweets. Then she started deleting and scrubbing her account out of fear of backlash. But as everyone can see, she is back at it (even if she ends up deleting them later).

        The national anthem is one of the first things people think about when they think of Roseanne. It is also relevant because she mocked Colin Kaepernick on last night’s show. It’s ironic considering the criticism she got for what she did.

    • Mabs A'Mabbin says:

      I’m jealous. I don’t think Texas will EVER allow natural relaxation….😭 And last night my son and I watched Avatar as he didn’t remember it. The only thing that perturbed me during the evening was remembering that Michelle Rodriguez was actually recognized for that “fine” piece of acting. I was mildly dry heaving like Gollum lmao. Rosanne has found a way for relevency. F#ck her. She Devil.

      • Honeybee Blues says:

        I live in Boulder. We’ve been legally relaxing for four plus years now. I’ve a free day today, so I woke and relaxed the hell out of this morning,

  12. mltpsych says:

    Refuse to even hate watch this show.

  13. Betsy says:

    I didn’t watch and I’m not going to. These horrible Trumpsters need no more air, no more coddling thinkpieces. If it were economic anxiety and rational thought driving this, they would have gone to the two candidates’ websites, done three minutes of research and voted straight Democratic ticket. Instead they fell for right wing propaganda and (Russian created!) dogwhistles. Sorry Laurie Metcalf and John Goodman, but no.

    • jwoolman says:

      Just the easily discovered facts that he was involved in several bankruptcies (no, that’s not normal) and that American banks refused to loan him any more money so he had to go to foreign sources should have made them doubt his claims of being a great businessman and dealmaker. A little more digging would have surfaced the many small vendors and contractors he stiffed and the thousands of lawsuits and the fact that his failure to pay drove some small businesses into bankruptcy themselves. Also Trump University was a pretty obvious scam from the beginning. Plus with all his yelping about bringing jobs back to the US, it wasn’t hard to find out that he and his daughter have their clothing lines made in China, Bangladesh, and Vietnam and also typically have the fabrics come from those countries. They could just look inside their MAGA hats for confirmation. Jimmy Kimmel recently purchased a box of stuff from the Trump merchandise site and nothing was labeled made in the USA. It was mostly from China, one thing from Taiwan and one from Peru. A couple of items were not marked with country of origin, which is illegal if not made in the US and perplexing if they were made in the US.

      Plus it’s not hard to find out that he and his kids were registered Democrats originally and also not hard to find videos of him supporting Democrats and their platforms (especially on social issues) and generally contradicting everything he was feeding his supporters while entertaining them during the campaign. He had lots of nice things to say about Hillary Clinton back in the day. He also had many harsh words to say about David Duke back in the olden days when Duke was running for office, but by the 2016 campaign he was acting as though he didn’t know who the guy was (after Duke endorsed him) and had no idea what white supremacy was about.

      Good grief, it turned out he didn’t even decide who got fired on the Apprentice shows. He was told by the producers.

      All the signs that they were being conned were there and it didn’t require much investigation. Just the way he talked screamed flim-flam man: “Trust me.” “Only I can fix it.” “I can’t tell you the details, but it is really really good.” “I know more about ISIS than the generals.” Sure, Donald.

  14. kate says:

    If I wanted to have an insight about Trump supporters’ minds, I would open the last edition of the NY Times to read one of their many profiles about the poor, misunderstood Trump voter who are totally not racist but also why won’t those d**n n**r stand up for our blessed anthem?
    She is garbage

    • Mami says:

      Exactly. It’s not that freaking complicated: racists think they are good people. Thanks, NYT.

  15. lunchcoma says:

    I mean, okay? I’m not very interested in watching, but they’re welcome to enjoy themselves. Better than watching Fox News.

  16. gnerd says:

    Horseshoe theory is real, ya’ll. Conspiratorial minded left and right wing cranks are only a couple of degrees away from each other. They are much closer to one another in beliefs than they are to non-cranks.

    She’s been a conspiracy theorist and extreme lefty for decades now. I know she loves Trump but if you look back at her tweets, she hated HRC much more than she liked Trump. She’s like a slightly more kooky Susan Sarandon, politically speaking.

    Except for the Islamphobia. That’s all Roseanne.

    • magnoliarose says:

      There is nothing slightly or like Susan Sarandon. Nothing. Roseanne is unbalanced and has been for decades. Susan does not call people names and insult people based on race or other identifiers. I disagree with Susan sometimes, but she has more class in one cell than Roseanne ever will if she lived to be a thousand years old.

  17. Scarlett says:

    I was a fan of the original Roseanne show, the only one in a family of 4, but it was more about her parenting than anything which I enjoyed and John Goodman’s Dan!!

    Last night the hubby and I sat to watch it, he walked away after 10 minutes, I wanted to put my first through my television. I did not know it was possible but boy she got more annoying. Every word that came out of her mouth nope nope nope. To hear her defend that men, Hell no!!

    P.S. Loved Sarah Gilbert, John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf though!! The old Becky, I have no idea what is going on with her, she seems different. and that’s all I am going to say.

    • whatWHAT? says:

      I kept hearing ads for it yesterday on my drive home and…HER. VOICE.

      I don’t remember it being that whiny and annoying. like, every “punchline” she delivered was said in this ultra whiny, cackling voice. and the punchlines weren’t even very funny.

      I don’t see this lasting for more than a few episodes. I feel only slightly bad for Goodman and Metcalfe…I mean, they agreed to do it, so they gotta deal with it. not sure why they even said yes to it…are they that hard up for money/roles?

  18. Tanya says:

    I don’t think being populist/progressive and populist/Trumpist are so far apart. There a lot of overlap between them as far as anti-semitism, prioritizing the white working class above all else, and anti-intellectualism.

  19. Nancy says:

    I remember when Roseanne was funny. No wait, that wasn’t her. POS

  20. sunnydaze says:

    I’m so confused….I watched Sara GIlbert on Colbert talk about how this was really her doing, her orchestration…to the point it seems like she holds most of the power (she told of how Roseanne asked her to protect her from the network, and the network asked her to protect them from Roseanne if this were to go through). So I actually contemplated watching it thinking if Sara were involved it would surely be a fair representation. I actually forgot it premiered, but after reading all the responses and reviews….WTF happened???? If Roseanne wasn’t really in total control, who let this happen?

    And someone please tell me Johnny Galecki isn’t involved. That would break my heart. I’m too afraid to IMDB it.

    • LisaPreng says:

      He is.

      • Darla says:

        What do you mean he is? The last I heard he hadn’t agreed to go back, just some platitudes about if he could find the time he would.

        IMO Gilbert is the worst of all of them. She is using her orientation to give this vile person cover. It’s disgusting. Gilbert is cancelled for me over this, and Goodman and Metcalf are getting there.

      • Darla says:

        Ah geez, you’re right, Galecki is doing an episode. Why are they doing this??

  21. Harryg says:

    I thought she was different, I’m so confused with her now.

  22. NG_20 says:

    I watched it. I loved the old Roseanne and it was a mess. The Trump love (ugh) .. lots of jokes just to offend people .. I love Dan, Jackie and Darlene but ya it was just bad. And then at the end they had to make a joke about peanut allergies .. I just cant. I won’t be watching again and I hope it gets cancelled.

    • whatWHAT? says:

      whoa, they joked about a deadly allergy? what was the nature of the joke?

      • KiddV says:

        It was aimed at a bully who was making fun of DJ’s son who likes to wear “girl” clothes. He found out the bully has a peanut allergy so figured he could threaten him with peanuts if the bullying continued.

      • whatWHAT? says:

        that is NOT cool.

      • KiddV says:

        Not DJ’s son, Darlene’s son. I got their names confused for some reason. The bullied kid would use it as a threat, not the parent. I realized once I got the names mixed up it sounded like the parent was going to threaten the bully with peanuts.

  23. Ozogirl says:

    I enjoyed the OG Becky seasons of Roseanne, but I refuse to watch this. First, it’s not needed. Second, I can’t knowingly support a huge Trump sympathizer and I seriously question the rest of the cast for participating too. Which hurts because I love Goodman!

  24. Mamunia says:

    I missed all the hoopla about Rosanne coming back until about an hour before the show. I had no idea Rosanne was a Trumpie, so I watched. The show is AWFUL. None of the cast can act anymore. It had none of the charm of the original couple of seasons. It will be gone before you can blink. Rosanne has been mentally unstable for years, so it doesn’t surprise me that she’s now a Trump supporter.

    • Lisa says:

      Everyone’s acting seemed stiff except for Jackie’s. She and the Beckys were good. And Darlene. When are we going to get Crystal?!

      • isabelle says:

        Laurie Mercalf is still the best actor on the show. She was in the past, still the best actor in last nights episodes.

      • jwoolman says:

        Laurie Metcalf was on an old episode of Absolutely Fabulous I was watching recently and she was so good. She played the role of someone regressing Edina into a past life so she could remember where she saw a nice doorknob for the kitchen Patsy set on fire… Anyway- it reminded me how splendid Metcalf is as a comic actor. She was always a standout on the old Roseanne show, but she’s way more talented than that. She’s perfect as Sheldon’s mom on Big Bang Theory also. Very versatile.

    • whatWHAT? says:

      I had just written above how I heard ads for it on the radio on the way home, and the jokes they included for the ad were just…not very funny. Awful is right. this won’t last.

  25. Lisa says:

    It was better than I expected, but I definitely got the sense that it was going for a “Trump supporters, they’re just like us!” angle. Roseanne gets into such a big feud with Jackie that she won’t even speak to her or admit she was wrong (a la Archie Bunker), but she accepts that her grandson feels more comfortable in skirts. Huh? I’m glad she softened toward him but I don’t think a real Trump supporter would be as yielding.

    The original Roseanne wouldn’t have voted for Trump, but neither would Jackie have, so I guess it makes sense that she was the one to take his side while Jackie took Hillary’s.

  26. Boxy Lady says:

    I actually watched the two episodes all the way through. I was a big fan of the original and I felt that these new episodes were true to form. Roseanne may be a Trump-er but both she and Jackie, her liberal sister, got their political digs in. In the end, they resolved their differences. I’m glad they showed that; the liberal/conservative divide was already happening amongst friends and family before Trump came along. These days people want to put political parties before everything else which I think is sad. It wasn’t like that when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s (for the most part).

    • whatWHAT? says:

      it’s a nice sentiment, but the problem with today’s “liberal/conservative divide” is that a LOT of 45’s fans think that some of my friends who are not white/heteronormative/christians don’t deserve to exist. that can never be “normalized”; that is a divide that can never be mended.

      so Rosanne can go f herself.

      • Boxy Lady says:

        Sitcom Roseanne has a gender fluid grandson that she and Dan don’t quite understand but still fiercely protect and a black granddaughter. I’m going to wait and see in what ways the show deals with those elements. The 2nd episode was all about the grandson already. I am personally not ready to say Fuck You to the show just yet.

      • whatWHAT? says:

        that doesn’t change the fact that the star of the show supports a racist wannabe dictator who, if he had his way, would exterminate anyone who isn’t a white Christian.

        those characters were added so that people who wouldn’t normally watch the show would tune it. “she can’t be that bad!” and you fell for it.

        go ahead, watch it, and know that you’re putting money in the pocket of a hateful bigot who supports an absolutely repugnant person as our leader. one that sexually assaults women, mocks disabled people, and wants to be another Putin.

    • Darla says:

      Yeah, white people have the luxury of lamenting what Trump has done to Thanksgiving get togethers.

    • nic919 says:

      It’s not a liberal conservative divide in the US anymore. That existed in the 80s and 90s. Currently it is supporters of a racist demagogue who is dumber than the president in the satire Idiocracy and wants to destroy all conventions including long standing international alliances and the rest of the sane people.

      Dump can never be normalized and if a sitcom had a character in Italy in the 1930s try to side with Mussolini, it would be the same thing.

  27. KiddV says:

    I watched it out of curiosity (and I couldn’t find the remote) and I was surprised at how bad the acting was. I don’t remember if it was that bad in the original.

    The first episode was really bad. Almost the whole show fell flat. Not only the Trump crap, but It was like the cameras weren’t in the correct position, the sound was off, it was just plain bad. The second episode immediately after (did I mention I couldn’t find the remote?) was better. The crew (camera, sound) got their act together. The acting was still bad, and Roseanne was just as annoying, but it wasn’t quite as grating.

    The best part about the whole hour mess, almost all of the commercials shown had POC in them. It seemed to me there were more POC than white people. It was probably the advertisers way of saying “hey, we’re advertising during this show, but we’re not racist, don’t boycott us”, even so, I was picturing Deplorable’s heads exploding with each commercial.

    • me says:

      I watched too out of curiosity. The acting was really bad…except for Sarah Gilbert. I don’t think this will go more than one season. It just fell flat. There are way too many good shows out there to watch…this isn’t one of them.

    • isabelle says:

      Same thought. Remember why the first time around it was so successful, it was good acting for a sitcom but this time around, it seems they are all a bit rusty with the exception of one or two. the acting was very off.

  28. Chaine says:

    Won’t watch it. The original snow was bad enough with her constant shrill squawking voice. No thanks.

  29. Lady D says:

    I remember watching an episode of Roseanne where she sent the hydro cheque in the phone company envelope and the cheque for the phone company in the hydro envelope. They were broke and didn’t have the money to pay either bill until next payday and this would delay them having to pay now. At the time I was young and broke with a lot of bills, and I thought that was genius.

  30. Lyla says:

    I’m too young to have seen the original, so I had no interest in watching the reboot.

    So ABC shelved the kneeling Blackish episode because it was too controversial, but Roseanne is totally fine? Hmmm…

  31. tealily says:

    Yikes, this is a lot of hatred from a lot of folks who haven’t even watched the reboot yet! I’m still excited to watch the new version. Anne Helen Peterson did a great write-up on it for BuzzFeed News, talking about how the new show largely reframes the family with Darlene as the moral and ethical heart, and even calls Roseanne out in later episode for political commentary that feels like bullying. Remember, Roseanne’s the title character, but it’s Sara Gilbert executive producing!

  32. Laura Dawe says:

    I am in the minority on that I enjoyed the new “Roseanne” episodes. I thought both episodes were funny and it was nice to see the original cast (minus Davis and, of course, the recently departed Mark). I also understand how and why this reboot might not be for everyone.

  33. Lindy says:

    I think maybe what makes me the most sad about the absolute disaster our country has become is the fact that I can’t find any empathy anymore for anyone on the other side. (I also realize that’s my white privilege, that I was able to empathize with very conversative people I encountered without feeling unsafe or having my very existence questioned). But the idea that I’d even give a sh!t about what a white Bigly supporter thinks or feels at this point… No thanks. I’m tired of reading about their anxiety over cultural displacement or whatever. I know what they really care about: hating other races and eliminating women’s autonomy and humanity. The end. I don’t need a warmed over tv reboot to tell me that.

  34. A says:

    This isn’t particularly about Roseanne Barr or anything, but there’s just something really off about how Trump voters approach the world around them. They protest that there are people in this country who don’t think of them as human beings. And yet they call undocumented people “illegals,” believe that women don’t have the right of ownership over their bodies, would rather see people die from preventable diseases rather than provide the medical care and attention they need to live a full and healthy life, think gay people are infringing on their right to free speech by giving them their business and their money, think Muslims are subhuman, think black people are to blame for the racism that they face in this country. The list goes on.

    It’s really really hard to explain how a general lack of care for whole groups of people you simply don’t like isn’t a viable “opinion” you can have. It’s generalizing. It’s dehumanizing. It’s humiliating to know that there are people who think that your humanity is a matter of debate, that being treated with basic decency and courtesy that the law should afford you as a person is just a “difference of opinion” to them.

    Why does my well-being not matter to these people? Because try as I might, I can’t think of a single thing that I think about Trump voters that even comes close to that sort of thing. I don’t think they should be denied healthcare. I think they deserve better than what they are getting under Trump. I think that them and their childen deserve a world and a future that isn’t put at risk by unchecked climate change. As much as I do feel a certain sense of schadenfreude when it comes to seeing how the politics they support often backfires on them, I try really hard to keep things in perspective and remember that there is no joy in someone else’s suffering. There really isn’t. I don’t like seeing people dying, I don’t like seeing retired people forced to take second jobs because people like Paul Ryan are cutting medical coverage. I don’t like suffering of any sort. Period. No matter who it affects.

    So how is it that my simple act of disagreement with their ‘views’ on my humanity is enough to trigger such a huge sense of victimhood? How is that simple disagreement with the idea that, hey, maybe people shouldn’t struggle so hard to just live a life, something that’s so enormously damaging to their psyche? Idgi.

    • MoAnne says:

      Good write up and I totally agree with you. I completely don’t get Trump voters. Some are die hard Christians who seem to be consumed with rage at people who are not white & don’t share their exact beliefs.

      I just got into it with a Trump voter from LA–who pretended to be “neutral”–but was an obvious fan. He supported Trump’s wall and said some awful things about Muslims & Mexicans. He basically equated all Mexicans with Ms-13 gang members, even though MS-13 is not Mexican in origin, as far as I know. I also asked him about the criminal stats of MS-13, and how they’ve been a threat to him personally. He ranted about 1 woman murdered by an undocumented immigrant far away in San Francisco (not an MS-13 gang member at all), and talked about dangerous criminals coming in and how I was naïve. I told him that most undocumented peoples were hard workers who are exploited. In California’s central valley (where I’m from), they make up 70% of the farm labor force, they work really hard for low wages, etc. He totally didn’t care. He said, “they get minimum wage!” “No, because they’re not citizens. Only citizens get guaranteed wages and adequate labor conditions,” I said. He didn’t care at all. He said, “Get the poor people to pick lettuce, and I’ll pay the extra $2 dollars, if I have to.” That’s not how things work. There’s a whole system set up based on the labor of undocumented people. Farmers don’t want to hire people that they have to provide good working conditions for, like pesticide-free fields, bathroom breaks, good wages, care for work injuries, etc. Those are exactly the people they don’t want to hire–they’ll get sued. Then, he told me that my head “wasn’t screwed on straight.” This is a guy who is a friend of my fathers, and I’ve known him for awhile. I just shook my head and said “I’m not a fan of political conversations these days, and walked away.”

      There’s no getting through to these people. Somewhere along the way, they lost their moral compasses, and now, there’s nothing left. They’re lost to the dark side, to use Star Wars lingo. I tell myself to not get into it with them, but I keep thinking that if I explain the issue patiently and well, that maybe a light bulb will go off. So far, there’s been no luck.

      • whatWHAT? says:

        “I tell myself to not get into it with them, but I keep thinking that if I explain the issue patiently and well, that maybe a light bulb will go off. So far, there’s been no luck.”

        I admire your desire to change people’s minds, but don’t bother. when 45 said that he could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Ave and get away with it, he wasn’t lying. his supporters don’t care. they believe what he says, even when given clear evidence of him lying. “fake news!”

        he could mow down all of their mothers and they’d say “eh, the bitch deserved it”. that’s how far gone they are.

  35. CrazyCatLady says:

    Well it seems it didn’t need Celebitches to still be a ratings draw. From the NYT:

    “The revival of the vintage ABC sitcom got off to an enormously strong start on Tuesday night, drawing 18.2 million viewers and a 5.1 rating among adults under 50, according to Nielsen. The “Roseanne” numbers rank as the highest total of any comedy on the broadcast networks since the 2014 season premiere of “The Big Bang Theory.”

    I recorded it so I could FF thru the commercials and watched it today, I wasn’t impressed at all. Will be interested to see what happens in week 2……I doubt I’ll give it any more time though.

    • whatWHAT? says:

      I think there was a lot of “nostalgia” watching, and a lot of hate-watching. I suspect the numbers will go down, but who knows.

      I never thought that people would vote for a guy who mocked a person for their disability, so…