My Two Cents: Why Roseanne Doesn't Work For Me

Gosh I loves me some funny; any chance to make a joke, or have a laugh and I am all in. Which leads me to the reboot of Roseanne which premiered last week to yuge ratings and has now achieved near god-like status on ABC’s morning show, Good Morning America, which has hyped Roseanne endlessly for the last five days.

Here’s the deal: it’s not really that funny. At least not in the old Roseanne sense. The old Connor family, while being a lower middle-class family, was also a rather smart family and they would have never bought into _____; they might have Felt The Bern before being ‘With Her,’ but Roseanne Connor wouldn’t have been a _____ fan.

Sadly, though Roseanne Barr is a _____ supporter and so the show took that slant last week; and the laughs didn’t really land and that, for me, was the worst thing of all.

As I said, Roseanne of yesteryear—and it was so last century—was smart and funny and thought-provoking, but I find it hard to separate Roseanne Connor from Roseanne Barr when they both support a lunatic; while Roseanne Connor got swept up in the Make America Great goosestep, Roseanne Barr, since the first go-round ended, has become a racist, transphobic, anti-Islam Twitter Troll.

And that’s where the show lost me, when Roseanne Connor, who was charming and irreverent and funny morphed into some gun-owning sycophant touting the agenda of a man who hates everything that isn’t white or wealthy.

See, Roseanne Connor says she voted for _____ because he “talked” about jobs’ and that would be important for any family that has struggled as much, economically, as this one. But he also talked hate, of brown-skinned people, of Muslims, of transgender Americans and the old Roseanne wouldn’t have liked that; the old Roseanne Connor would have railed against that because this is the Connor family today, and nothing about this family is _____-like …

Darlene has moved back home with her two children; her son, Mark, is a genderfluid child, the kind that _____ might consider transgender and ban from military service. So how does that sit with Roseanne Connor, considering her son DJ was in the Army and is home from Syria, while his wife, also in the military, is still serving overseas? I mean, Roseanne Connor’s choice for president avoided military service because his feet hurt and has done next to nothing to support our troops; and don’t get me started on the idea that D.J. is raising their daughter, who is black, while his wide is away. And yet we’re supposed to believe that Roseanne, and Dan, though he is mostly silent on the topic, voted for a man who doesn’t think their black granddaughter’s life matters? And oldest daughter Becky is planning to be a surrogate for a woman who cannot have a child simply because she needs the money?

That is not the picture of a _____ family. And yet, we’re supposed to believe that this mixed family, of races and gender identities and income levels would be headed by a woman who supported, and support _____simply because the show’s star supports_____?

Now, I will offer some praise, for while they first had their difficulties dealing with Darlene’s son’s gender nonconforming dress, by the end there were hugs and kisses all around, a nice tidy solution tied up in 22 minutes, while the man this woman supports sits in the Oval Office banning gender nonconforming troops from serving their country.

It doesn’t work. And it isn’t funny. And, for me, that’s the worst sin of all because if it made me laugh, if it pointed out the foibles along both sides of this political divide, it might have been better.

But it’s not.