As we’ve been discussing all week, the Roseanne reboot on ABC is a massive hit and it’s the latest frontline in the Deplorable Culture Wars. Previous frontlines included: Rosie O’Donnell Is A Fattie, Megyn Kelly Is On Her Period, Gold Star Families Can Be Insulted If They’re Brown, Meryl Streep Is Terrible, Darryl Hammond Is a Better SNL Trump, Black Football Players Are Uppity and, of course, Nazis Are Very Fine People. I’m forgetting like a million other dumb culture wars, but those are the ones I could remember off the top of my head. In truth, the Deplorables are also super-focused on criticizing and bullying the children who survived a school shooting too, but they’re multitasking by also defending the sh-t out of Roseanne Barr.
Donald Trump personally called Roseanne Barr after the reboot premiered to massive ratings. Roseanne told Good Morning America:
“It was pretty exciting, I’ll tell you that, they said, ‘Hold please for the President of the United States of America’ and that was about the most exciting thing ever and it was very sweet of him to congratulate us. We talked about a lot of things, he is just happy for me. I have known him for many years and he has done a lot of nice things for me over the years and it was just a friendly conversation about work and television and ratings.”
Barr praised Trump, who was a producer and host of “The Apprentice,” as someone who “really does understand ratings and how they measure things” and said she was “over the moon” about the support the show has received. “We all just celebrate together and say the Conners are back and we are all really happy,” she said.
Trump also gave Barr a shout-out during an Ohio rally Thursday.
“Even look at Roseanne. I called her yesterday,” Trump said, extolling the premiere’s “unbelievable” ratings for a show “about us.”
So, just in case you didn’t know before this, here’s the evidence: the Roseanne reboot isn’t FOR non-Deplorables. It’s Deplorables talking to each other in an echo chamber, on network television, with major ad buys from major corporations. Just acknowledge that and move on. Roseanne also tweeted this:
it was a thrill to get a congratulatory phone call from The President of The United States of America. POTUS is the Fifth President I have received support from! what a life!
— Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) March 29, 2018
*deep sigh*
Meanwhile, Roxane Gay has written a NYT op-ed called “The ‘Roseanne’ reboot is funny. I’m not going to keep watching.” Gay argues that she’s always been okay with “consuming problematic pop culture” but she’s going to stop watching Roseanne after two episodes because: “The promise of jobs and the myth of the white working class as the only people struggling in this country, which animates so much of our present political moment, are right there, in this sitcom.” Gay continues to make a compelling case for why the show should be dismissed and unwatched, and why the show’s actual politics are an absolute mess.
In Opinion,@rgay writes: "No amount of mental gymnastics can make what Roseanne Barr has said and done in recent years palatable." https://t.co/qyF5xneY6x
— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 30, 2018
Photos courtesy of WENN.
The POTUS should be too busy to be watching TV and making phone calls to congratulate the actress
All he does is watch TV. He called her because she is one of the few “celebrities” that back him. Of course he embraced that and her. He lives for attention. And anyone that remotely supports him; he acknowledges. Sad that he didn’t support Back lives Matter; The Parkland shootings; Puerto Rico or other major happenings in the world as quickly. But Roseanne is ONE OF HIS PEOPLE, and looks like him.
I think that it is important for a POTUS to have balance. Human beings aren’t machines, and to perform at our best mentally and physically, we need to have periods of rest and leisure. That being said…Trump’s twitter account and his staff have made it clear that he spends MOST of his time watching TV and not doing the actual work of the Presidency. If he wasn’t mainlining Fox News 24/7, I would allow him this.
she is giving that particular base what they want. They will eat it up. It will be interesting to see if the ratings stand. I suspect some of the viewership was out of curiosity. I didn’t watch and won’t.
Let’s not forget it was Trump’s “base” that had the nationwide hissy fit when Roseanne butchered the National Anthem at a baseball game…hypocrites, every single one of them.
JANA, thanks for the reminder, very true. And it’s interesring how “working middle class” normal she’s supposed to be when she’s almost unrecognizable from how her character looked initially from all that work done.
I’ll say this: Deplorables really have zero integrity. They back anyone who likes them. For a fact, if Roseanne skewered Trump, that petty orange buffoon would be bringing out his prize words like loser and failure and name calling Roseanne. No doubt whatsoever.
Well what a shitty life she must live if a call from a nasty, racist, narcissistic, moronic madman is the most exciting thing ever.
If that mofo called me I literally would not even take the call. I would hear “please hold for the president…” and I would straight up walk out of the room.
She’s showing her stupid, racist ass for everyone to see.
Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. If a call from this idiot get you revved up then your too far gone……..
Actually, I would DEFINITELY take that call lol…get a few things off my chest
Right? This bitch is an awful, pathetic human being. Of course conservatives and libertarians aren’t going to jump on a “YOU KNEW!” bandwagon with this one. All the information EVERYONE has about Trump, and yet she goes out and votes for him, publicly fawns over him, and devotes a whole television show to her proud support of him. Look at what kinds of things she’s not being accused of.
Ha! My friend, our two 10 year old boys, and I called Norad (on speakerphone) last Christmas eve to track Santa. The “elf” told us if we had any children over 9 years of age that T-Rump would like to talk to him. We all looked at each other with expressions of puzzlement mixed with disgust. My friend’s son said “Why would we want to talk to HIM??”. We laughingly declined. #45 tries to ruin everything, lol!
Ha ha. I reacted exactly the same way to that “please hold for…” part. I said to myself that I would have just hung up the phone.
drump understands ratings. Hahahaha.
That’s all the grandstanding, starved for admiration sniveling creep understands. That’s why he keeps rotating his staff because they get exhausted massaging his seriously damaged ego. He’s completely dependent on people giving him a good rating.
I’m with Roxane Gay
She has the best take on this so far. I also think that it speaks to some of the comments I read yesterday. She admits that she likes the show, but because of Roseanne’s views, she can’t continue to watch.
I would also recommend reading Ira’s twitter thread on this as well.
https://twitter.com/ira/status/979067000847712256
What she said about Mary as the tokenized place holder just validates what others said yesterday: Barr thought that she could use a black child as a shield; as protection from being held accountable for her racist history. Nah, hon.
She also had black characters in the original series and an episode where she dealt with her son protesting kissing a black girl (who ended up being the mother of his child).
I also like Jarrod Yates Sexton’s take on the show: sanitising the deplorables. ” Television narratives do this. They sell idealized versions of yourself back to you. Roseanne is going to prosper because it might be the one thing that reassures the Trump base that they’re justified and not intolerant.”
https://twitter.com/JYSexton
Though it is cathartic to vent one’s spleen here, I truly urge Celebitchy not to cover Rosanne Barr at all. Why give this ‘matriarchal harridan’ air? It’s better to deprive her of it.
I agree. I also like her point about how supportive the tv family is for the gender non-conforming child, but in reality Trump and his supporters work to limit the rights of this community. This show is trying to advocate for politicians that actually work against what they are portraying. It is kind of creepy in a propaganda/misinformation way.
I’m sharing this comment from a friend on FB because I think it wraps things up nicely. There are f-bombs so I hope it gets past the mod gods but I think the strong language helps to drive the point home.
By George Godwyn
“The bad part about the new Roseanne show isn’t that her character is a Trump supporter. That’s completely believable and accurate to the culture in 2018. Her character would likely support Trump, and her sister was written as being a pink hat wearing Hillary supporter. This could have been a gutsy move, showing an authentic working class family and their political affiliations and concerns.
But she didn’t do that. When the subject of Trump came up, she couched her support in economic terms. “He said he was going to create jobs.” and opposition to Obamacare, which is absolute fucking garbage.
If Rosanne had any guts, if she had wanted to show us something real about the working class and Trump voters, her character would have been bitching about Mexican immigrants, Muslim terrorists, and lazy black people on welfare, as well as putting Hillary in jail and trashing the FBI conspiracy against Trump.
Because that is the reality. That is what Trump voters talk about, that’s what they vote about, and that’s what they care about. Polls show it and even the most cursory look at any Trump forum will show it. But I guess that wouldn’t play so fucking well, would it?
The show is garbage as a cultural artifact. It’s not even trying to grapple with the events it’s depicting, it’s an excuse. A phony little excuse for Trump voters and the white working class as a whole. A way of normalizing hateful, mean-spirited, racist white people and their hateful, mean-spirited, racist leader. A way of making racism and hate look cute.
And there’s going to be more of it. Count on it. The mass-culture isn’t ours anymore, friends. This is just the beginning. It’s propaganda, nothing more, and it’s going to work.”
That was really well written! Great points.
That’s a really great comment, wow. There was a real opportunity to explore the ways the white working class has been pitted against minorities and deconstruct that, but it was missed by a long, long shot. Roseanne’s gross nature aside, the show has become a caricature of itself. They should have given this opportunity to someone else.
Thank you for posting that Kitten, it’s everything I feel and said so well! I am going to save it.
You know what, now I’m mad all over again. He is so right (can I be his friend?). And who is really most to blame here? Let’s really ask that. Roseanne is who she is. Every single person on twitter knew what she was. Every single one of her colleagues who signed on for this knew what she was. ABC knew what she was, and I don’t think they wanted to deal with her. So they made Sara Gilbert, who claims this was her idea! promise to keep Roseanne away from them.
It was Gilbert a gay “liberal” who did this. And for what? For money. For her career. She wanted to act. She did this for personal gain and only for personal gain.
honestly the more I think about it the more despise her. SHE knows what she is doing. Roseanne should be in an institution for everyone’s protection, including her own. But Gilbert knew. She’s deplorable for this. She is deplorable.
Someone said the other day that they think she’s offering him a cameo on the show. I think this is entirely likely. He’s starving for TV fans again.
he is President TV after all
Shes always been a bit loopy.
I never watched the original and I’m not watching the reboot.
Gay’s take is a really good read.
I never watched the original either because Roseanne Barr always came across as a nasty piece of work. That fictional family could never get out from under because of her toxicity. Apart from that, Barr is not funny and an appalling actress. I hope Laurie Metcalf and John Goodman decline to take part in future series. Talented actors don’t need to be tarred by this or are desperate for work, surely.
Shame on ABC and advertisers for normalizing this sh*t. I didn’t watch the original and am not watching this one either. I am curious to see what goes through Sara Gilbert and John Goodman’s minds doing this reboot and the content of it. Anyway, not giving this deplorable anymore fame by commenting about her *gets off soapbox*
Speaking of ABC, let’s also remember that they refused to air the Black-ish episode about the NFL and the players kneeling.
This! Never forget.
Thank you for this reminder. ABC’s good with Rosanne but has such delicate sensibilities it couldn’t bear to air that Black-ish episode. Got it. I’d hate to see them offend any deplorables.
Yep. Yep, yep, yep.
YES
I saw photos yesterday of a photo shoot that Rosanne did where she was dressed as Hilter and she had a pan of little burnt “Jewish” people cookies that she was pulling out of an oven. I believe she is Jewish, so maybe she thought it was ironic or something, but it really disturbed me. I’m shook. I hope it was some kind of photoshopped thing, but there were multiple photos so it seemed like a legit photo shoot. I really, really hope these things stop being normalized.
I saw it too and I do believe it’s real. She really did that because she really was an anti-Semite …..
……until she converted to Judaism and became an Islamophobe. She’s a mess.
And yeah, that photo shoot is so disturbing. Not even slightly funny, just straight-up offensive AF. Never joke about the holocaust. Ever. HTF does she not know this?!?
@Tiffany that Hitler photoshoot is from 2009 and it is real. it’s one of the many “Controversies” on her wikipedia page if you want to read more.
@Kitten did she convert to judaism? I thought she was Jewish and was raised by Orthodox parents.
She was born into an Orthodox Jewish family but embraced Mormonism. She calls herself Jewish Mormon. She isn’t a practicing Jew; it is used as her ethnic identity more than anything. She was raised in Utah and started believing in Mormonism as 6 or 7 years old.
So she is more than capable of being antisemitic. She rejected it, so she demonizes it. In a weird Narcissistic way. Like Miller the Jewish Nazi in the 45 admin.
Ugh, Barr and Trump. These two self-congratulatory birds of a feather and their smug, mutual-admiration society are repugnant. They are some of the absolute, retrograde worst that American culture has to offer.
I don’t get how John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, or anyone on that set who has to have regular contact with Barr’s ego can bear to work with her. But that’s me making a lot of assumptions about them.
Agree – dont get why these two are in this show – i mean why?????? How can they work together with opinions, which are waaay too different – cant understand
What a trash human. Disgusting. I’m just realizing how slappable her face is.
He’s not going to f*ck you, Roseanne.
It’s going to be funny when, by episode 3 or 4, ratings start to tank.
Just yet again another distraction by POUTS to get the three-armed monster of Cambridge Analytica, the Mueller investigation, and the Stormy Daniels clouds off the MSM lips.
Don’t fall for it.
This is my great wish, that this show will tank from the sheer weight of Roseanne Barr’s unlikeability, if not soon enough.
As has been pointed out on Twitter, let’s not forget that Trump was too busy to call the family of a fallen U.S. serviceman, but he’s got plenty of time to call Roseanne Barr and yuck it up with her.
I am sure a lot of people tuned in out of curiosity and nostalgia. That doesn’t usually sustain an audience for long, but we will see.
One opinion I read is that it might have the opposite effect she wants. It might inadvertently show how ridiculous 45 and Deplorables are. It will be right in their faces. I have no idea but I thought that was interesting view.
That would make me so happy. Not as stratospherically happy as Robert Mueller getting super-hero, lock-em-up results, but pretty darn happy 🙂
meet your next WH communications director
Watched 10 minutes on Hulu last night of the reboot. It was not funny at all. But Roxanne Gay of course knows what’s up. Her take is the best on this so far.
if this were twitter, roxane would clap back at you right away for spelling her name wrong 😉
Lol…. Damn autocorrect. Sorry Roxane.
I just hate her now.
Same. I just do.
Did you see Debra Messing’s tweet about Roseanne asking to dress as Hitler for a photoshoot bc she thinks she is the reincarnation of butler and then replying “heil hitler” to a conspiracy George tweet thread about David Hogg?
No. Garbage bottom feeding scumbag. I hate her. She is nothing but awful.
I see she’s getting the face she deserves.
really disturbed by the sheer amount of otherwise-liberal friends of mine who are watching and enjoying this show. we need to stop being blinded by nostalgia and not watch this crap. this is, like, a new golden age of television!
watch “atlanta” instead if you want comedy. new ideas from new talent are better than rehashing tired old TV series for big $$ anyway!
as always, roxane gay is a national treasure.
Agree, I have so much new tv to watch I don’t watch any of these reboots. I can’t keep up with my new shows honestly. And then add in Netflix. Forget it. I still haven’t seen Jessica Jones Season 2 and I LOVE Jessica Jones. I don’t need to relive the 90’s. If they could give me back the body I had then, complete with all of the organs I had to have removed (LOL), then we would be talking. Otherwise, nah, not interested.
I think social media will be the downfall of Roseanne, as well as her show, because just like Trump, she refuses to keep her ignorance and deep seeded racism to herself. Everything she thinks has to be shared, which is always the way with stupid people.
I think the same. She won’t be able to help herself.
Thirded! Definitely this is going to do her in.
++++++++++1
I have been a reader of this site for a long time this is my first time posting. Awesome site. My only thought today is: Trump is behaving the way everyone thought Barack would behave. And not enough people seem to care. Mid-terms, 2020 can’t get here fast enough.
I think the jury is still out on which direction the series will take. Roseanne has turned on a dime in the past. And she is bound to do it again. This isn’t wishful thinking. This is just part of her history. Also, I doubt she continues to support him through the next year or two.
She is such a fucking idiot.
Which of Roseanne’s 100 personalities did Trump speak to?
Not to diminish or mock mental health issues, I just think Roseanne says whatever suits her narrative (positively) at the time. She claimed mental health issues when most people turned against her in the 90s/early 2000s. Oddly enough, she says nothing of mental health during awareness month, etc.
Roseanne is just more proof that most Trumpeters are drug-f***ed. What is the main cause she has been known for promoting the last few years?