“Roseanne” TV show – thetexastart.org

Dear Kathy Griffin:

So, you think you went too far in the realm of macabre comedy stunts, huh? I’ve seen funnier than Trump’s bloody decapitated head. Yawn. But the thing about free speech imagery is it’s best not to offend tens of millions of people, well tens of millions of Americans. And that’s what you did, girlfriend! As your stunt picture was taking shape, you even conceded you and your photographer would have to leave the country. And Trump, well he has totally lost his sense of humor since becoming president. And it’s funny, for someone who relishes free speech ad nauseam, he sure is willing to release the hounds to rip the head off anyone who would dare besmirch him. [Pssst, “Frontline” did a recent report theorizing that Trump ran for president because of a comedic remark by President Obama who smugly declared Trump would never be called President.]

Famous comedians and entertainers like you whose purpose is to rebel rouse, and as you put it ‘push the envelope,’ should expect a one-time public scorning. Take Joan Rivers, your dearly departed comedic mentor. She went through an awful period in the 1980s where she could not get a job. Her situation was not really based on her loud bawdy comedy—a little too much goading of Liz Taylor for her weight, as I recall—but more of the cut-throat entertainment industry. The word was Johnny Carson had her banned or had put out a bad word on her, and she was history for a long time until she decided to step back into her high heels and take the bull by the horns. She remade herself into the comic legend we fondly revere today.

Take the Dixie Chicks and that remark in front of a London audience after 9/11 when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and later Iraq—two undeclared wars that would last longer than Vietnam, still ongoing in many respects, end in countless ruined lives and deaths and lifelong misery and suffering especially among our young men, and cost about a billion dollars a day at one point, all funded off the books. But I digress. Before singing a Texas song, Natalie Maines remarked that the Chicks were “ashamed” the President was from Texas.

Heavens to Betsy, all hell broke out! Remember? First, the Dixie Chicks, the hottest country-crossover girl band ever, were banned from country radio nationwide. Fans were tossing their CDs. Then the hate mail and death threats came a-pouring in, among the letters one that strongly advised the lady entertainers to just ‘shut up and sing.’ They posed nude on the cover of a major news magazine, their bodies painted with the hateful words and common female epithets from those irate letters. It was a scary time, especially for proponents of free speech. Anti-war speech was suddenly verboten. Lenny Bruce and George Carlin would have taken the right all the way to the Supreme Court. Nothing to fear but fear, I can hear them say from the Great Mike in the Sky. But … they were men, not women. Female entertainers face a more dangerous reality when it comes to personal safety.

And let’s not forget the most important comedian blackballed from late night TV: Bill Maher—again, his ordeal having to do with post 9/11 puffed-up patriotism. During his political comedy show’s roundtable discussion, he talked about the terrorists being called ‘cowards’ by the president. He thought aloud that anyone who would drive a plane into a building could be called many things but not a coward—not that the terrorists were brave but that as humans universally fear death, men who would knowingly commit suicide to attack America and Americans were not cowards, in Maher’s mind meaning afraid of death.

Snap. Oh how our national outrage hit the fan! Maher was out on his can within hours. His show was funny, thought provoking and cutting edge. But our nation at the time was sorely wounded and humiliated and was not about to let some so-called comic slander America or our President’s use of wordery like referring to terrorists as cowards. The good news is Bill Maher returned in full form where he belongs … on cable TV, where he can say whatever the ef he wants. And I believe he never apologized for trying to correct the adjective used by President Bush when describing suicidal terrorists. Did anyone ever get the point that Maher was not taking up for the terrorists or praising them or calling them brave? No, no one ever considered his thought on the subject of word use and meaning. The network suits and political pressure cut off his head, so to speak.

I know what you were probably thinking when you participated in that gruesome photo stunt. Surely you and your photographer saw the cover of Der Spiegel shortly after Trump took over as president? The image on the German political magazine was of an animated Trump holding the bloody head cut off the Statue of Liberty. It was a political statement, perhaps not satirical but a realistic European view of the new U.S. President, their concerns that his leadership may threaten democracy in America and abroad. Very little uproar came from that image, one that surely went viral.

You were thinking along those lines, right? Maybe trying to say something about Trump has gone so far in his agenda that he’s setting himself up for assassination, or that a lot of people worldwide would like to see him dead? So you used the image of a beheading because that’s what the terrorists have been doing for years now, uploading each one online? That our free speech rights and guaranteed freedoms of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are being jeopardized by the Trump agenda? Am I getting anything close to the intent of your editorial photo, not unlike an editorial cartoon?

Well, most people took one look at your picture holding a fake bloody Trump head and immediately freaked out. It was too real, especially in these dangerous times. It’s a real possibility that many people the world over have envisioned: Trump’s assassination, his death perhaps in the hope and manner of the Middle East terrorists. Americans can take a good joke, bawdy, brazen, truthful, politically honest and culturally insightful. Perhaps your political imagery should have included a short comment so everyone would have understood your point in such a photo. Instead, you just shocked the hell ought of everyone, well mostly Americans.

There is a price to pay for free speech, isn’t there? Everyone isn’t going to like everything you say and do. But you still have the right to make a political statement, violently bloody or not, just like Der Spiegel does every week over there in Germany, several knocking Trumpian philosophy. For now, take a break from the comedy circuit. Lay low, just for a little while, like many of your fellow comedians of the past. [Oh, I forgot all about Roseanne Barr singing the national anthem all off key and crudely at a televised major league baseball game.] When it comes to entertainers, the American public is fickle and in time always forgiving (if not forgetting).

I’m a little ashamed to admit this, but I’ve seen every episode of “Roseanne” so often that I could teach a college course. I mean a brief Continuing Education fun course. So here goes. “Roseanne” was a situation comedy created by the star and namesake, comedienne Roseanne Barr. The premise revolved around her working-class family life with a husband, three kids, and a close sister. The show ran from 1988 to 1997 on ABC.

When this show first aired, it was a phenomenal success along with the comedy musings of Roseanne Barr herself who sardonically titled her comedy club act “The Domestic Goddess.” She made fun of her daily life as a wife and mother with lines like ‘We’re starting a natural food kick at our house, so we switched to brown sugar.’ Her comedy was down-home, family-centered though not always G-rated, with lots of die-hard feminism and blue-collar pride. Her show followed suit.

Because she was a wife and mother and also obese, probably in the 20+ size range, the network suits did not know what to think. These were the years of other hit comedian shows like “Seinfeld,” “Drew Carey” and Tim Allen’s “Home Improvement.” Roseanne did not fit the mold. Not only was she a woman, a loud-mouthed, wise-crackin’ mother, she was not thin and attractive. And Roseanne cast as her TV husband Dan Conner an actor equally large, John Goodman. She can laugh about it now, but in those early years, the tabloids, media and late-night comics were unfairly rough on her because of her weight. The truth was the higher-ups in show biz could not believe a loud funny woman who was as large as her opinions—spewing left-of-center politics and controversial views—would draw tens of millions of viewers and fans. They lost a bet.

Americans are big and fat

People saw in Dan and Roseanne Conner couples who look like them, like everyone else, or like most people if we’re being honest. A precious few Americans can keep the weight off for a lifetime, not without some kind of little helper or great self control and maybe metabolism. So the fans cheered on Roseanne for years. She even tells of a time when the network execs bought fancy sport cars for two of the male comedians whose shows were in the top ratings, along with Roseanne’s show which was probably number one at the time and beat “The Cosby Show.” And what did they get fat Roseanne? A chocolate rose. Probably a big chocolate rose. The sexism and body shaming speaks volumes. No doubt Roseanne would have enjoyed a new sports car, too, as sincere appreciation from the TV execs whose pockets her talent helped line.

What the suits didn’t understand is “Roseanne” episodes dealt with real-life everyday situations with poignancy and heavy doses of humor. It was blue-collar comedy. There was nothing like it coming out of L.A. Throughout the years, the Conners worked fairly hard: Dan, a dry waller who later chased his dream of revamping classic motorcycles until the shop went belly up; Roseanne faithfully working a variety of menial jobs until starting her own diner which stabilized the family income. Still in the lean times, the Conners played some games about paying bills (like not signing the check) or misusing coupons (erasing the expiration date). There was the time during an extreme financial low, their electricity was shut off. Critics didn’t like watching a sit-com about a low middle-class family laughing their way through a mountain of problems. I guess they figured it was unbelievable. Let me tell you, it wasn’t—as many of us who’ve had to rough it can attest.

Watching the episodes in reruns, we see Roseanne’s weight shifts but a little. She is a TV character, from the health-conscious ’90s, who will remain forever overweight, morbidly obese at times as was her husband. But have you seen Roseanne today? She did it! She lost the weight and at no small price. A rags-to-riches story does not mean instant weight loss and body perfection. She has been candid about cosmetic surgeries and a weight-loss procedure that seemed to not take effect until years after her famous show ended. Still, she lost the weight. ‘Quite a load off, huh,’ the Roseanne character might say enviously.

Shut up!

Critics also objected to the yelling, what seemed to be constant loud and heated arguing back and forth between parents and kids and husband and wife. Roseanne held her ground and refused to cut the yelling from her TV family, maintaining this was realistic family life whether people acknowledge it or not. She was perceptive as most comedians are. In the family unit, members do not perceive how loud or angry they come across to neighbors, friends and onlookers. Roseanne believed most families yell on occasion if not often. Prudish folks wouldn’t understand and felt as parents they were in charge and their power never challenged by their children even during adolescence. Get real, Roseanne would reply.

What made the show tick was the family unit, the three kids growing up with obese parents. The wealthy and upper-middle class do not relate to a show like “Roseanne.” That’s because when it comes to families, the poor and low class care about their children because they have nothing else while the middle class and the wealthy care about their children’s education. Roseanne’s oldest daughter found this out the hard way, again during the Conner family’s lowest economic crisis. Becky Conner assumed her parents had a college fund for her, but they didn’t. Through the years, they needed money for housing, utilities, food, clothes, bills, other priorities and emergencies. So Becky, without graduating high school, simply ran off to marry her boyfriend who had taken a job out of state. It was a shocking moment in TV history.

Writer’s block

As a fellow writer, I noticed through studying the series how Roseanne’s character occasionally lamented how she had not done anything special with her life or had become someone special, specifically a writer. She spoke of her high school dream of moving to New York City and writing for Mother Jones, of being a children’s book author someday. Possessing a creative imagination, she could spin an original bed-time story for her son every night. As a birthday gift one year, her family turned the basement into an office just for her to write, a quiet place away from the chores of wife and mother. The next scene, Roseanne is dusting and vacuuming her new office. She does not have a writer’s drive, the ability to collect and organize thoughts then sit down and punch it out on a typewriter or computer—both devices she never learned to use.

This is where I cannot relate with Roseanne the character. My middle-class background led me to take every advantage of writing, from tall tales in elementary school to junior high poetry and newspaper staff, continuing on in high school. A couple of weeks before starting my senior year, I walked into the hometown newspaper office and talked to the editor about a part-time job. I could type and was on the newspaper staff, I told him. I would have swept the floor and laid out the paper old school with glue and light boards. But he needed a high school correspondent and so hired me on the spot, paying me $10 a story. That experience helped me in college when of my own volition I wrote freelance features for the town newspaper, which led to becoming a news correspondent for the university news service, and later a writing tutor at the college.

But Roseanne Conner never pursued real writing, any writing, writing just to write, like this blog here. [The real Roseanne of course has a blog.] All those years, especially when her children were in school, she never thought to drop by the local newspaper (the town had one) and start writing a column or go to a community college (there was one nearby) and take a writing course. Other TV characters do just that. But those other TV shows were written and created by middle- and upper-class folks, people with built-in drive and a lot of self confidence. That is what Roseanne—very overweight, economically and emotionally depressed at some level yet always quick-witted with razor-sharp hilarious perceptions of men and, well, every kind of person—never had: self confidence. That counters the real Roseanne. Her TV character never figured out that through pursuing a passion, doors open that lead to opportunities like a fulfilling job, career and success. The comedian clearly brought success on herself but did not instill her own drive and ambition into her TV show character. Wonder why?

Now Roseanne Barr has become a Trump supporter, strange given the American TV audience still believing her to be a big ol’ feminist. But she’s proven once again, like her working-class sit-com—entertaining through deep characterization and blunt bawdy humor for loads of laughs—she has her finger on the pulse of real America.

Category: “Roseanne” TV show

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