Interview: The return of TV’S Roseanne after 21 years
As Roseanne returns to the small screen for the first time in 21 years, we find that Roseanne Conner has become a Trump supporter. Just like her creator,
When last we saw Roseanne Conner, in 1997, the character was sitting alone on that old living room couch, after revealing that her husband, Dan, had died of a heart attack and that all nine seasons of Roseanne had been a griefinduced fantasy about her family. (Or something like that.)
The show’s Emmy-winning star, Roseanne Barr, returned to ABC last month with a nineepisode revival season. Dan’s back too, once again played by John Goodman, as is daughter Darlene (Sara Gilbert, who is also an executive producer) and much of the original cast.
Roseanne was a bona fide trailblazer the first time around, with its focus on bluecollar Americans, its diversity of LGBT characters, and its star – a woman who did not look or sound like a typical television female lead. The new Roseanne is topical in its own ways, starting with Roseanne Conner’s fullthroated support for President Donald Trump. Barr is a Trump backer as well, to the dismay of many fans; she argued on Jimmy Kimmel recently that supporting Trump was critical to keeping Mike Pence from the presidency.
Barr, now 65 and living in Hawaii where she has a macadamia nut farm, recently spoke by phone with Patrick Healy, the politics editor and a former culture reporter and editor at the New York Times, about the Roseanne revival, her stormy past on the show, her views on women in Hollywood and her feelings about Trump. This interview has been edited and condensed. Q It’s been 21 years since Roseanne went off the air. Did you miss the character?
A No. I did a lot of other things. Q You ran for president in 2012. What was that about?
A To bring up questions and conversation that I wasn’t hearing anywhere. Specifically, how the public’s money never ends up going to the public. Q Why play Roseanne again?
A Everybody seemed to be into it and the conditions
that I wanted were right. Qwhat conditions?
A I wanted somebody else to do the work that I wasn’t good at, and to let me do the work that I was good at. I don’t like arguing with people. I just am over it and I don’t like fighting. So Sara Gilbert stepped into that role nicely. Q The last time around, you were the star and the idea engine for the show, but you threatened to quit over creative conflicts.
A It was incredible this time. I was very protected and respected. I wasn’t having to explain why I wanted things. Q Thirty years ago when Roseanne started, what were you treated like?
A I was just not respected as a woman artist, but you know I think I paid my dues and some time passed and the world changed. Q Do you think women have more opportunities today in Hollywood to tell the stories they want to tell? A I don’t know. There’s a lot more women who are featured, but I don’t know if they are doing what they really want to do. Q Did you have any worries about coming back?
A No. I was excited to do it because I realised that was going to be the only opportunity I would get to act, because I’m kind of typecast as me. But I loved acting. Q How are you different than during the last run? A Well, I’m older, and I’ve been through menopause, so that was great. I’m a grandma now. I’m older and wiser. I appreciate things better, and appreciate having an opportunity at the age of 65 to come back and do what I love to do. Q What kind of stories did you want to tell on the new Roseanne?
A How families are still struggling and what they do about it. There’s an arc in this season, and it’s the closest I’ve been to doing what I want to do. It’s about everything in our country. It’s about opioids and health care. How we deal with whole new issues that we didn’t even have before, like gender-fluid kids. How working class people – how and why they elected Trump. Q Roseanne Conner has become a Trump supporter. How did that happen?
A I just wanted to have that dialogue about families torn apart by the election and their political differences of opinion and how we handle it. I thought that this was an important thing to say at this time. Q Was it your idea for Roseanne to back Trump?
A Yes. Because it’s an accurate portrayal of these people and people like them. In terms of what they think, and how they feel when they are the ones who send their kids over to fight. We’ve been in wars for a long, long time, which everybody seems to forget – but working class people don’t forget it because their kids are in it.
Q
Trump has had tough words for ABC. Did you get any pushback from ABC about making Roseanne a Trump supporter?
Anot
from ABC, no. Qfrom who? A Everyone else in the world. Qwhy do you think?
A You know, people only want to stick to their narrative and they don’t want it shaken up. But, you know, I was like, “Oh, here we go. I’m just the person for this job.” Q Considering that Trump opposes many of the principles that you and Roseanne Conner have stood for, how can you support him?
A No, he doesn’t, I don’t think he does. I don’t think so at all. I think he voices them
quite well. Q What about labour union protections and blue collar workers?
A Well, I think workingclass people were p ***** off about Clinton and Nafta, so let’s start there. That’s what broke all the unions and we lost all our jobs, so I think that’s a large part of why they voted for Trump because they didn’t want to see it continue, where our jobs are shipped away. Q OK. Let’s talk about the impact Roseanne had as a show. I remember your same-sex kiss with Mariel Hemingway in 1994 and all the queer characters on her show. Do you think that paved the way for the LGBT characters that followed?
A I don’t know. You’ll have to ask somebody else. Q But you thought those were important stories at the time, right?
“Same jokes, same kind of thing. Just trying to get through paycheck to paycheck and handle it ”