After the “Roseanne” reboot premiered (re-premiered?) last week to monster ratings all the while featuring a lead character who is — GASP! — a Trump supporter, astute (read: conservative) fans knew it was only a matter of time before Hollywood took action to sabotage everything. The same people who idly stood by and let Harvey Weinstein rape his way to riches draw the line at letting a favorable portrayal of anyone right of center get to a large audience.
It turns out it didn’t take much time at all.
After just three episodes and two weeks (there were two episodes last week), the social media landscape is awash with disgruntled lefties.
The complaints don’t have much depth, although I’m sure each writer making them believed they did.
Entertainment site The Wrap decided to go after Roseanne personally rather than weigh in with a complaint about the show:
Roseanne's Hitler Photo Shoot: Does Hate Speech Have a Shelf Life? (Guest Blog) https://t.co/ISmP3Mhid3 pic.twitter.com/Eu8ZFIN5hR
— TheWrap (@TheWrap) April 5, 2018
At issue is the picture here, which is something Roseanne did nine years ago. Is the picture tasteless and offensive to many? Sure. She’s a comedian. I’ve been a professional comic for decades — we cross lines. It’s what society used to expect from us. If it isn’t funny, we know right away.
An offensive picture isn’t “hate speech,” by the way, unless you’re letting your totalitarian freak flag fly.
The real issue here isn’t the shelf life, it’s why she wasn’t taken to task for it nine years ago.
That’s easy: she was a liberal television star and not portraying a sympathetic conservative at the time.
Entertainment industry standard Variety launched an in-depth analysis with this question:
What happened, #Roseanne, between 1994 and now? Who changed? Us — or you? https://t.co/e1vQXU2sAD pic.twitter.com/lt6PA60bZk
— Variety (@Variety) April 5, 2018
The article that follows is an exhausting overanalysis of a few lines from the recent episode. Liberals are essentially humorless beings and can suck the joy out of anything. The piece’s author even admits that the thing that set her on the path of boring us to tears was a “throwaway joke”. Here is the exchange from the show:
DAN: What time is it? Did I miss dinner?
ROSEANNE: It’s 11. We slept from “Wheel” to “Kimmel.”
DAN: We missed all the shows about black and Asian families.
ROSEANNE: They’re just like us. There, now you’re all caught up.
And here’s what the overwrought writer wrung out of that:
There’s a lot of shades of meaning in the uses of “us” in this mini-rant. But the first one says it all: just like us. “Roseanne Gets the Chair” reverses that phrase — and erases the granddaughter that arose from Roseanne’s impassioned speech in 1994, which apparently convinced DJ so well that he went on to marry a black woman. What kind of future does Mary Conner have, if her grandmother dismisses the relatability of a show like “Black-ish” — one of the very few sitcoms where Mary might see a character that looks just like her?
So what is it? A throwaway joke or the ruining of the young character’s future?
Sane people know.
The most laughable industry complaint of course is about the politics.
This is from the entertainment and culture site Vulture:
Roseanne was allegedly going to be less political after the premiere. Last night's episode proved that isn't the case.https://t.co/h5DoLARNCo
— Jen Chaney (@chaneyj) April 4, 2018
And this is from Vanity Fair:
Roseanne-the-character has become a vehicle for conservative talking points—even when they don’t precisely match up to the person she once was https://t.co/q0WmjAOAU5
— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) April 4, 2018
When I say coordinated, I mean it. The Vanity Fair article references the Vulture post.
Every sitcom these days is political. Every conservative consumer of entertainment knows this. I can’t watch four minutes of any sitcom on television right now without hearing a liberal talking point slipped in despite it being out of context and/or not moving the plot forward at all. Television script writers practically vomit boilerplate liberal nonsense onto the page as if they’re being paid by DNC.
You won’t see a lot of articles written about that.
The Hollywood elite are acting the way they are over the “Roseanne” reboot because they’re surprised to find out that flyover country has cable. I’m not being flippant here. It is a demographic that is never considered.
They’re idiots for dismissing an audience that large who they could be making money from, but ideology, um, trumps all.
Expect the complaining, nitpicking and exhaustive analysis of “throwaway” jokes to continue, and even escalate in the coming weeks, especially if the ratings stay strong.
The longer the show does well, the more the entertainment industry leftists have to admit that the rest of America exists.
They’re not going to stand for that.
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