Roseanne tests free-speech limits — and flunks
In Ambien veritas, my dear Roseanne, just like in wine.
And if you’re combining the wine and Ambien, you’re likely to spill your ugliest, racist, xenophobic thoughts online and not even remember doing it.
On Wednesday Roseanne tweeted that she was under the influence of Ambien, the sleep aid, when she tweeted a hatefilled tweet about former President Obama’s aide Valerie Jarrett.
Now she may have to apologize to Sanofi, the maker of Ambien, which released a statement noting that Ambien had several side effects, but racism wasn’t one of them.
The tweet said Jarrett, an African American, was the progeny of the Islamic brotherhood, an Egyptian Muslim extremist group, and the “Planet of the Apes.” That was after she attacked Chelsea Clinton, saying Clinton’s middle name is Soros and that she is married to billionaire George Soros’ nephew.
Apologizing, Roseanne then retweeted long-debunked conspiracy theories about Soros himself, saying he was a Nazi “who turned in his fellow Jews 2 be murdered in German concentration camps & stole their wealth.”
The second part of that apology got it wrong again, accusing Chelsea of being married to a “the son of a corrupt senator, so sorry!”
“Just the facts, ma’am,” as Jack Webb used to say on “Dragnet:” Chelsea is married to Marc Mezvinsky.
He is the son of Edward Mezvinsky, a two-term member of the House of Representatives in the 1970s who went to prison in 2003 for five years for bank fraud he committed long after his congressional stint.
Roseanne is a far-right conspiracy theorist of long standing and, under the influence of Ambien or not, all the things she tweeted this past week have been long parked in the bat cave of her mind, just waiting for a distress signal.
She tapped into her “lizard brain,” the amygdala, the primitive part of our brains that can cause us to do things we regret a nanosecond later, like shoot an unarmed black man or jump off a bridge.
Our lizard brains house our greatest fears and deepest hatreds and trigger responses that are, upon rational reflection, totally inappropriate or out of proportion.
Rosanne’s lizard brain not only cost her dearly in money and reputation, it cost the entire cast and crew of her show their jobs.
(There’s widespread enthusiasm out there for killing her character off and bringing the show back as “The Connors” or “Dan,” like Netflix did with “House of Cards.”)
Cancelling the show cost the ABC/Disney network an estimated $60 million in future advertising after it showcased its entire fall lineup built around the second season of her Roseanne last week.
Paramount, Viacom, HULU, TV Land and CMT quickly followed, cancelling their syndicated reruns of the original “Roseanne” sitcom series.
(Shout out to our Media hometown girl, Wanda Sykes, who immediately resigned her Roseanne gig, tweeting out, “I will not be returning to @RoseanneOnABC.”) The conspiracy theorists instantly came out of the woodwork.
ABC brought Roseanne back just so it could cancel her the minute she said something not politically correct.
Or it decided to cancel her because she openly supports President Donald Trump and he openly supported her. “It’s about us,” he proudly told some rally somewhere.
It is entirely possible that ABC cancelled the show, despite the huge loss in revenues, because it was the right thing to do in the face of such a vicious and pointless insult.
It is sad when we have to depend on corporations to be our consciences.
In 2013 Roseanne made a similar, very vile comment about our then United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice that I will not repeat here. Look up “swinging ape balls” if your lizard brain wants to know.
What does she have against black women? Did the Ambien make her forget that her ABC boss is a black woman?
The “whaddabouts” also came out of the woodwork.
“Whaddabout freedom speech, several shouted.
Here’s the thing about the First Amendment – it protects our free speech from government oppression, not from each other or even our employers. of
Whaddabout those people screaming about freedom of speech when the NFL imposed a new rule last week that its football players had to stand for the National Anthem or face a fine?
As one tweeter put it: “If the NFL as an organization wants to silence people, then ABC is well within their rights to do the same. It goes both ways.”
And whaddabout Bill Maher comparing Trump to an orangutan on his HBO show “Real Time?”
Whatever you may have thought about that comparison, it simply did not carry the 400 years of cultural baggage that comparing black people to monkeys and apes does.
The two are not in the same universe, no matter how much racists wish it were so.
Nor is it the same when someone calls Trump a vile name. He did, after all, start this ugly fight.
Roseanne didn’t stop to fact check who Chelsea Clinton’s husband is. No need. Just get that clever reposte out there.
Dozens of others no doubt confirmed her bias and passed it on without making her uncomfortable by calling out her factual errors. Their amygdalae got their endorphin fixes and was right with the world.
Roseanne’s problem though was that she is famous and when used her own name to sling her mud, it got out beyond the echo chamber sentinels.
Didn’t she realize that Trump is the only famous person in our country who can openly spew hatred and lies and conspiracy theories without any consequence?
If he had publicly said a tenth of the things he has said at his rallies and interviews over the last two and a half years while he was still the star of “The Apprentice,” NBC would have fired him in a New York minute.
We didn’t have to hire him but now that he’s president, we can’t fire him. Not yet. all