‘Roseanne’ gave Trump voters a lift, but not all would agree
On Thursday, I received an email from a reader who wanted to know whether I was among the 18 million Americans who tuned in to ABC on Wednesday, for the premiere of the 10th season of the rebooted series “Roseanne.” I wasn’t, as it happens. That’s because on Wednesday evening I stopped by a Houston Young Republicans event, after which I went to dinner with the Republican friend who had invited me to it. But I am one of the millions of Americans who was a fan of “Roseanne,” so I did watch “Roseanne” on Thursday. And I was sorry to learn that the 2016 presidential election took a toll on the Connors, as a family, because at the end of the day, family is family. The Connors knew that in the 1990s.
In a sense, that’s why I liked “Roseanne” in the first place. It’s also why I liked “The Ranch,” after being introduced to the show last December, while visiting my family over the Christmas holidays.
“The Ranch” is, apparently, one of the most popular shows on Netflix — and its fans are notably devoted. According to the streaming service, it was the third-most “binge-raced” of all the Netflix original shows that released full seasons between 2013 and September 2017.
Last year, the show received some media attention, as a result of the fact that three women had come forward to accuse one of its stars, Danny Masterson, of sexual assault. Masterson had, at the time, already played his role in the fourth season, which was set to be released Dec. 15.
Ben Travers, a television critic for IndieWire, argued that Americans who were reluctant to watch the new episodes wouldn’t be missing much.
“With so many truly excellent TV shows out there, “The Ranch” isn’t exactly at the top
of many Netflix subscribers’ must-see list,” Travers wrote.
But “The Ranch,” like “Roseanne,” is about a family. The Bennetts are depicted as living in Colorado, in a small town called Garrison.
But they have some things in common with the Connors, who live in an Illinois exurb — and with my own family here in Texas.
And one of my brothers had been intrigued by the premise, while browsing on Netflix.
“Being a pro athlete didn’t pan out for Colt. Now he’s helping his dad and brother keep the ranch afloat, and figuring out how he fits into the family,” is how Netflix summarizes “The Ranch.”
I wouldn’t quite put it that way, because Colt, played by Ashton Kutcher, didn’t seem to be helping his dad all that much — or his mother, who opened a bar in order to support herself after the divorce. The same is true of his brother, Rooster, played by Masterson. They drink too much, and neither is particularly responsible or ambitious. Not exactly sentimental
“The Ranch,” in other words, isn’t sentimental about the white working class. During the fourth season, Rooster gets fired and Colt, who has a girlfriend, learns that his ex-girlfriend is pregnant. But the Bennett brothers are sympathetic characters, as are their parents. And although the show isn’t explicitly political, the Bennetts don’t strike me as the kind of people who would have been inclined to vote for Hillary Clinton.
Neither do the Connors, for the most part. I was a child when “Roseanne” debuted in 1988, and the show’s been on hiatus for about 20 years. But I don’t remember Roseanne and Dan Connor being particularly interested in politics, and I vaguely remember them arguing, once, about how to come up with the money to fix the washing machine.
So if I had to guess, I would have put the Connors down as Donald Trump voters — and the kind of Trump voters who would have voted for Bernie Sanders, had they voted in the Democratic primary. But their younger daughter, Darlene, would have voted for Clinton. And Roseanne’s sister, Jackie, might have done the same.
And I can understand why so many Americans felt vindicated by last night’s episode of “Roseanne.” The premise of the first episode was that Roseanne and her sister have been in a feud since the 2016 election because Roseanne voted for Trump, and Jackie didn’t. And it was loaded with details about why a voter like Roseanne would have made the decision she did — and why she would resent being maligned as a bigot for having done so, or dismissed as “deplorable” by her own sister. That Green Party vote
But Darlene, who tries to mediate the feud, doesn’t say a word about her own political perspective. And at the end of the episode, it’s revealed that Jackie voted for Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
So ultimately, I don’t think the show’s portrayal of Trump voters was as sympathetic as it could have been. I know a lot of Trump voters in real life. Plenty of them have loved ones who voted for Clinton — and forgave us, long ago, for having a different opinion than they did.
And the Roseanne that I remember wasn’t intimidated by Democrats, or much else.