Did you watch the “Roseanne” premiere?
I’m not ordinarily a sitcom viewer, but I watched about 10 minutes of the new “Roseanne” revival.
Then my TV decided to have a problem, and by the time it was fixed I had forgotten about the show and it was almost over anyway. I had decided to watch because I was curious about the Trump/antiTrump aspects that had been described in advance, as well as to see how everyone has aged. Apparently, the ratings were through the roof, which indicates that America was curious, too.
Years ago I’d watched the show at least a few times in its original incarnation. The new version features much the same cast of characters. Roseanne and husband are slimmer now, she’s more glammed up, the children are practically middle-aged (yikes!), and there are grandkids (one biracial, one a bit gender-something-or-other).
I have to hand it to Roseanne Barr for a certain amount of courage, to out herself as a Trump supporter in this day and age. Then again, she’s always been somewhat outré and willing—nay, eager—to shock the PC crowd (and just about everyone else), even back in her heyday as a TV personality.
From a review of the new show; this excerpt explains why the show interested me (although my TV had its problems before I got to see the relevant scenes):
When the new revival season of Roseanne, the groundbreaking sitcom that originally ran between 1988 and 1997, opens, Roseanne Conner and her sister, Jackie, haven’t spoken to each other since the 2016 election.
Jackie (played, as always, by the magnificent Laurie Metcalf, who won three Emmys for her work on the original series) voted for Hillary Clinton (or did she?), while Roseanne (played by Roseanne Barr, but you knew that already) voted for Donald Trump. The rift has consumed both women, but because this is a TV show and because we want to see Roseanne and Jackie together again, it’s taken place offscreen. In the premiere, the two talk again for the first time, reaching a fragile peace.
Tackling those issues on a sitcom is certainly timely, and could actually be funny if done right. We could use some humor on the subject.
I just watched the first two episodes on Hulu and thought it was funny. I’ll be watching the rest. Ben Shapiro pointed out that despite the Roseanne voted for Trump storyline her position on plotlines involving social issues were all conventionally left wing (pro choice etc.).
LondonTrader:
Her character was always socially liberal, if I recall correctly.
I think at this point she is supposed to represent a certain percentage of Trump voters (I don’t know how many there were that meet this description) who are socially liberal but voted for him for other reasons.
No. But I will be watching the Final Four with Creighton alum Porter Moser leading the Loyola Chicago Ramblers back to the championship for the first time in 55 years.
Well, Cornhead, I have come to respect your predictions, after Election Night. 🙂
Haven’t seen it yet but reading the stuffy offended reviews (how could she!) is entertaining in its own right.
Humor is a great healer, and self-deprecating humor is humanizing.
I hear Van Jones is taking a run at getting his fellow lefties to lighten up on the Trump OUTRAGE siren sounding. I wish him well in this endeavor.
How the hell does anybody’s TV goes down in this day and age? Have you gone back to a tube set Neo?
Since you missed it, Jackie voted for Jill Stein because Roseanne always makes her question herself.
I’ve often wondered why the US couldn’t do good, even-handed political humor.
I’m admittedly something of an Anglophile and maybe I overestimate the Brits. But I surely would have loved an American show like “Yes, Minister” and its sequel, “Yes, Prime Minister,” both of which seem absolutely prescient in current discussions of the Deep State but without the near-apocalyptic stakes.
“I’ve often wondered why the US couldn’t do good, even-handed political humor.”
We used to. You could never tell what party Johnny Carson voted for even though he did topical humor night after night for over 30 years. It was instinctively understood by entertainers of his generation that if you wanted to appeal to a mass audience it made no sense to alienate half the population right off the bat. Today’s comedians are, uh, “too smart” for that.
I can’t watch sitcoms. I find them annoying — not just the laughtrack but the overly broad line-readings and the dialog itself. Nothing about the form appeals to me.
I never saw a single episode of many shows which were very popular in their time. I never watched “Friends,” for instance. I did see “Seinfeld” a few times, and was amused by some of it — but I didn’t like the female character or the guy with male pattern baldness. So I never sought it out.
I’m not boasting, like some do when they speak disdainfully of popular culture. I like several Clint Eastwood movies a great deal. I’m just not a good audience for a certain kind of comedy.
“Ben Shapiro pointed out that despite the Roseanne voted for Trump storyline her position on plotlines involving social issues were all conventionally left wing (pro choice etc.).”
The left has gone so far left that to their right is not just the traditional right, but also many libertarians and moderates. The hard left continues to pretend that the only people to their right are religious nutjobs, a tactic that really infuriates the increasingly large number of us who are not religious but are terrified by where the left is going.
To be fair, it’s not a surprise that they are unaware of this. It would take more effort and thought than the typical lefty is capable of to realize that there are a lot of people who no longer agree with them but who know better than to disagree in public.
I’m in your camp miklos000rosza. Have never seen a single episode of Friends, Seinfield, Everybody Loves Raymond, not even the Cosby Show, Not a fan of sitcoms, Hate the forced laugh lines and pregnant pauses, the over the top ham acting and facial expressions, the gosh awful laugh tracks. It feels too forced to me. As if I am somehow obligated to laugh along. My friends think I am just an old fogey, look what I have missed!! But I will confess as a Trump supporter I did watch the Roseanne program. And I did laugh, often actually. Mainly because she and her sister’s conversation was so typical to what I have had with my grown children. They live in D.C. and SanFran respectively…and Mom lives in deep rural west Tennessee. Need I say more? We just agreed that for the whole family’s sake, we simply do not discuss politics, ever! It keeps the peace. 🙂 They feel quite superior to their Mother these days and I just chuckle for what they still have to learn. Oh, and yes, I likely will tune in again at least a time or two. I need a good belly laugh now and then.
The thing I liked about All In The Family was that both the extreme right and the extreme left were treated with equal ridicule. Archie and Meathead were both caricatures of their extreme points of view. The moderate right was Edith and the moderate left was the daughter (Gloria?).
The show leaned a little left because Archie was the central character and therefore his ridiculousness was more often on display but there was plenty of the other.
I don’t mind a little leaning but I hate, and refuse to watch, most of today’s shows that only ridicule the right.
I watched the first 2 episodes of Roseanne and was pleasantly surprised that the lean left wasn’t extreme. I’ll try a few more episodes.
As I recall the story behind “All in the Family,” Norman Lear, an arch-liberal then and now, set up Archie Bunker to be the two-dimensional angry white male bigot. Then the show took off and they noticed Archie got good ratings and they made him (somewhat) more sympathetic.
I like sitcoms, the good ones anyway — the dreadful ones are dreadful.
As a writer I’m astonished at how tight “Seinfeld” episodes were written. In twenty-odd minutes they managed to pack in a sub-plot for each of the four characters then have all plots resolve in the last couple minutes.
“Friends” had amazing long character stories over its ten seasons. For instance, the great romantic arc of Ross and Rachel starts from the first episode. Rachel wasn’t just named Rachel. She is Rachel from the Old Testament and Ross is Jacob who struggled for years to win her.
So Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her.” (Gen. 29:20)
Of course it was even longer — 14 years — because Jacob got tricked into marrying Rachel’s sister, Leah, first. (I always felt bad for Leah.)
Those sneaky Jewish writers!
Of course Norman Lear was very liberal and to a certain extent used AITF to get his views across. The difference was that, like Carson, he knew that to have a good show the characters had to be well-rounded and give something to everybody, not just the liberals in the audience. So Archie, though pugnacious and irascible (not unlike a currently prominent politician), could also be the voice of hard-earned experience and common sense while his liberal son-in-law often came across as the callow, know-it-all youth.
Today’s writers just force left-wing talking points into the mouths of their characters. It is neither funny nor entertaining.