Roseanne, and its star, couldn’t rise above Trump’s toxicity

ABC knowingly hired a racist. Why are we applauding it for firing her?

Roseanne could never escape the toxicity of Trump.

The TV show “Roseanne” was cancelled swiftly this week because its star, Roseanne Barr, sent a racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett, a black woman who was an adviser to former U.S. president Barack Obama.

Even before the firing, there were repercussions. Writer Wanda Sykes quit the show, and some of the cast tweeted their disappointment.

The whole debacle has been frustrating to watch. Applause rained on Disney, owner of the network ABC, for ditching its most-watched and thus incredibly profitable show. But Roseanne Barr has regularly made racist, transphobic and xenophobic comments.

In 2013, she compared Susan Rice, former U.S. ambassador to the UN, to an ape — a standard racist trope about black people. Disney and ABC knowingly hired a racist, and now we’re meant to applaud their correction?

When ABC rebooted the show “Roseanne” this year, it was meant to ask, with humour, what happened to families like the Conners? Immediately, however, the question became: what happened to Roseanne? In the new show, Roseanne the character is a Trump supporter, much like Roseanne the actress.

The network and its star took pains to distance the two. While real-life Roseanne is as reckless on Twitter as the president she admires, the televised version was a softer, more quotidian portrayal. The other characters, like Jackie, her Clinton-supporting sister, gave context and edge.

But what the show wanted to do — A Big Important Conversation — was not what it achieved. It could never escape the toxicity of the Trump association. One episode was lambasted for a joke that dismissed ABC’s other shows with majority non-white casts like “Black-ish” and “Fresh Off the Boat.”

As the Atlantic’s Connor Friersdorf noted: “The best version of the show could’ve been good for the country.”

When it first aired, Roseanne was a breath of fresh air. The show took viewers into the home of the Conner family headed by Dan and Roseanne Conner, two working-class parents with a crew of kids and a wider family in tow. The heart of the show and, indeed, the family was the brassy and boisterous Roseanne, played by Barr.

It was a picture of the white working class, their successes hampered both by class and by their own selfsabotage. A family full of character flaws but loving nonetheless, with politics shaped by a mix of nihilism and apathy. More than that, it was funny.

But there is nothing funny this time. The show’s rotten core is, as Roxane Gay wrote for the New York Times, “that having a major character on a prominent television show as a Trump supporter normalizes racism and misogyny and xenophobia.”

Trump is a serial liar and obfuscator whose most direct attacks are aimed at the marginalized and racialized. He is a man who called white supremacists marching in Charlottesville “some very fine people.”

In fits and starts, his administration has attempted to place a ban on Muslims travelling to America. Under Trump’s rule, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has been empowered to wreak havoc on the families and communities of migrants.

Most recently, ICE has separated children crossing the border from their parents. In one case, a judge accused the agency of lying. There has been a rise in racist violence, largely empowered by the fact that the commander in chief of the United States is a white supremacist.

There is a cruelty there that cannot be made wholesome.

Support for Donald Trump, from the red MAGA hat esthetic to pull of the ballot lever, is inextricably linked to bigotry and racism.

In January, Gallup found Trump enjoys nearly three times as much approval (47 per cent) among white people compared to non-white people (16 per cent). Analysis after analysis has concluded that racism and attitudes toward race were a major predictor of support for Trump.

The faux-ironic racism (“It was a joke”) displayed by Barr and the type of racism enacted by the Trump administration are two parts of a whole. The minimizing kind expressed by the network when it first hired Roseanne is yet another.

Years ago, when Donald Trump first began his birther crusade, all these elements were present. To some it was a joke, to others a valid crusade and to more it was mere entertainment. The well has long been poisoned.

If you can’t see that, the joke’s on you.