Roseanne proves comedy and politics can be a toxic mix
THE FIRING of the American comedian Roseanne Barr from television, after she tweeted a racist remark about a former aide to President Obama, is one of the swiftest and most dramatic
in showbusiness history. A huge star in the 1990s, Ms Barr had long retreated to the backwater of talk shows and reality TV when, just two months ago, her situation comedy set in the working-class milieu of the Conner household, was revived at the instigation of Sara Gilbert, a producer and actress who had played her teenage daughter years before.
The new was enormously popular – more than 18m viewers saw the first episode – but its success was also politically significant, for Ms Barr had been that rarest of creatures in liberal Hollywood: a star who liked Donald Trump. Not only had she given him her personal support, but her character mirrored almost exactly the large number of rank-and-file Americans who had voted for him.
Mr Trump phoned to congratulate her on the show’s success, but the star was as divisive as the president himself.
The TV Roseanne had been seduced by the new president’s campaign promises of fairer wealth for all – a mindset exploited in the first episode, when she and her screen husband, played by John Goodman, were seen swapping medicines because they could not afford all the pills they needed.
Her fellow comics had recognised the connection she had with the Trump faithful and some urged her to use the second season of her show – which will not now be made – to express her character’s disillusionment with the America he had created.
The outspoken comedian Bill Maher, referring to Trump’s campaign to end the medicare programme introduced by President Obama, told her: “You saw a miracle product on TV and you ordered it – you impulse purchased a Trump because it promised to drain the swamp. But you got it home and it flooded your basement.”
In the end it was not party politics but political correctness that caused her downfall – for much as Hollywood loves a hit, it hates being embarrassed. And for the ABC network, which broadcast her tweet describing the Obama aide Valerie Jarrett as “a product of the Muslim Brotherhood and was beyond the pale.
The network’s president, Channing Dungey, who is, like Mrs Jarrett, African-American, called her comment “abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values”.
Bob Iger, chief executive of Disney, ABC’s parent company, phoned Mrs Jarrett to apologise.
ABC had always known that in hiring Ms Barr it was loading a loose cannon. But in bowing to the inevitable and cancelling her show, it further widened the political schism, with supporters of Ms Barr, and of Mr Trump, threatening to boycott the network.
There was no mistaking with whom the showbusiness community had sided, however – with even Ms Barr’s co-stars and colleagues, who are now out of a job, voicing their condemnation.
Ms Gilbert said: “This is incredibly sad and difficult for all of us, as we’ve created a show that we believe in, are proud of, and that audiences love – one that is separate and apart from the opinions and words of one cast member.”
Mrs Jarrett said the incident should be seen as “a teaching moment”, while Miss Barr herself was apologetic but apparently unrepentant. She said: “I will handle my sadness the way I want to. I’m tired of being attacked and belittled more than other comedians who have said worse.”
But without even an agent – her representative unceremoniously dropped her yesterday – she is suddenly back in the media backwater.