The entertainment industry is shocked to discover that there might actually be money in catering to the half of America…
…that it usually ignores at best or insults at worst.
[The first episodes of the Roseanne revival] worked, leaving many TV insiders shellshocked today by the magnitude of the revival’s ratings success that revealed the untapped potential of comedies that provide realistic portrayal of blue-collar America. What’s more, Roseanne did that while also making a social commentary, something rarely seen since All in the Family, Norman Lear’s 1970s classic that has long been rumored to get a reboot.
Watch out for that “All In the Family” reboot, though. I caution anyone who’d try to do it, because of two elements that are sorely lacking: Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker and Jean Stapleton as his wife Edith. Roseanne Barr and John Goodman have their own charms (although maybe “charms” isn’t quite the right word) and talents, but O’Connor and Stapleton were brilliant artists who created characters with a real depth and poignancy to go with the humor. They often played it for laughs, but in the end they touched the heart. I doubt that they could ever be replaced.
Case in point:
Yes, of course. They’ll all intentionally misinterpret this to mean that what Amerikkka really wants to watch is: (1) yet another reboot; and (2) a reboot of a show which was just a vehicle for scolding Amerikkka. Great.
Brilliant scene, there seems to be a bit of dust in my eyes.
DEAR Neo,
I’ll be your Archie Bunker if you’ll be my dingbat.
I have been thinking about a weird phenomenon for a while. The question I had was why no matter how much the liberals in Hollywood try to make a commercial action film that is anti-right, they always end up making a pro-right film. take away all race issues and the gender of the actors black panther at its heart is conservative, so are star wars, matrix, avenagers, game of thrones, mad max, even avatar (at its surface it is native Americans vs imperialist but at its heart it is nationalistic aligning with what the alt right stand for now). The answer could be that at the core of human heart freedom will always be good and control will always be bad. You will never be able to create a story where the good guy wants more control while the bad guys want more freedom for the people, you just can’t. the second avengers explored this theme where Starks and Banner tried to proactively redesign the AI they seized from Hydra into some sort safe keeping Robot that will destroy all potential threats to the planet before the crisis manifest, the plan backfires when the AI went rogue and decided to destroy mankind because mankind is the biggest threat to the planet. the moral of the film was that the next hitler always come from the people who are proactively try to prevent Hitler from happening again, which is entirely a right wing concept now.
the bad guys will always be the party that wants more control.
at the surface x-men seems to be a liberal franchise trying to make x-men an the analogy for the gay people in our society mirroring the people’s fear of people who are different to homophobic. Big mistake, because that is not how the movie turned out.
x-men is at its heart a pro gun film. People in the movie are in fear of the x-men not because of them being different but the power to destroy the earth each of them of possesses, which actually mirrors the liberals’ fear of gun owners because of how dangerous guns are. In the movie the government tried to stroke the people’ fear of the x-men and try to pass legislation to control x-men, to take away their powers with drugs and requiring registration for all of them. that doesn’t reflect what is happening to gay people in our world, it sounds way more like the gun control the left tries to push now.
X-men franchase
Stifle!
Wow. Thanks so much for posting that. I had forgotten just how great the acting was in this show. What a scene!
Dave: I think the simplest answer is that the folks making the movies just aren’t that bright. The main character in those films is always chasing freedom of some sort. They aren’t trying to join a collective. They aren’t seeking to enslave people. And, as you say, the bad guys are always the big, powerful people and organization. Even when it’s a corporation, like the big evil Conglomerate, it is a metaphor for government. No real company has that much power and control, only governments do.
As I remember vaguely from some old news feature, Norman Lear was determined to make a show about the “lovable bigot,” Archie Bunker, because everyone would see just how bad it was to be racist, sexist, homophobic, and generally redneck — and, not coincidentally, appreciate him letting them know just who was on the right (or rather, left) side of history.
He was very pleased when people responded positively to the show, but quite flummoxed when he discovered that was because so many of them agreed with Archie.
Didn’t understand the fly-over country then; don’t understand it now.
Dave Says:
March 29th, 2018 at 3:42 pm
I have been thinking about a weird phenomenon for a while. The question I had was why no matter how much the liberals in Hollywood try to make a commercial action film that is anti-right, they always end up making a pro-right film. …The answer could be that at the core of human heart freedom will always be good and control will always be bad. You will never be able to create a story where the good guy wants more control while the bad guys want more freedom for the people, you just can’t.
* * *
The grandkids wanted to see “Ferdinand” today, so of course we went.
I’ve been kind of afraid of what the Leftywood folks would do with the classic story, which was always ideologically ambiguous (although I generally thought of it as an early harbinger of the Sixties flower children – published 1939, which I didn’t know until I looked it up), but was pleasantly surprised.*
Because, in expanding the story-line in a number of ways, they didn’t ruin it at all by pushing any recognizable ideology.
The hero stayed a hero, on his own terms, everyone learned to get along despite their differences, and they all lived happily ever after.
(I would have put a spoiler alert, but we’re talking Vintage Children’s Show here.)
*(Not to say I couldn’t quibble with some of the artistic choices, but on the whole it was quite enjoyable.)
https://amgreatness.com/2018/03/30/the-real-resistance-emerges-as-the-hollywood-left-collapses/
“Given this, what could be funnier than trolling an entire audience of tedious leftists? The revival of the sitcom “Roseanne,” aims to find out. Starring comedian Roseanne Barr, the politically-charged nature of the premiere and the overwhelmingly positive response of audiences garnered “Roseanne” widespread attention. The show promised to avoid clichés and to confront familial divisions over politics with honesty.
Barr’s own political leanings have been hard left for a long while. She even ran for the presidential nomination of the Green Party in 2012. When she lost that nomination to ultra-leftist Jill Stein, Barr then ran as the nominee of the equally left-wing Peace and Freedom Party, with notorious leftist and anti-Bush activist Cindy Sheehan as her running mate. She received 67,000 votes overall, roughly 0.05 percent of the national tally.
Despite this, Barr has also tired of tedious leftism and argued for a need to move the needle away from the predictable and polarized responses of exhausted partisan debate. She supported Trump in the 2016 election because he was the outsider. She then took her support for Trump a few miles further with the revival of her sitcom. In the premiere of the reboot, there was absolutely no ambiguity whatsoever as to the political leanings of the main character, Roseanne Conner: She is now a firm Trump supporter, who frequently makes fun of liberals, feminists, fake news, and other easy targets.
The only thing left was to sit back and wait for the ratings to come in, and they did not disappoint. The season premiere was viewed by a stunning 18.2 million, exceeding all expectations. It performed almost as well as the Stormy Daniels interview on “60 Minutes,” which greatly underperformed its own expectations. The show’s resounding success had echoes of the ratings success of another sitcom that defied liberal norms before it was canceled for its political beliefs, Tim Allen’s “Last Man Standing.” Now, Fox is reportedly considering reviving that show.
A beast as large, as powerful, and as well-funded as Hollywood will not be defeated easily. But in these episodic victories for the common sense opinions of ordinary Americans, we can begin to see what America might look like if Hollywood would concern itself with actual entertainment again as opposed to sermonizing. It’s a much funnier and happier place. Here’s hoping they might recall it.”
But people always demand a controller. Even here, Neo controls the comments, moderation, and post content. Do people then favor the “freedom” of the rebels? I doubt it.
People want to give power and control to certain people. But it is always “their people”, not the Other.
So of course I can make a story about a savior controller, Law and Order, Obey or Else, regime that is pretty tolerable. The Left may not, but that’s because they are zombies that have not had a creative inspiration since the Watchers descended to Mount Hermon.
Hollywood is a hydra btw. Read up on Hercules’ 12 labors. One reason why I don’t believe people when they say elections will save us. Not going to happen that way.
Kill off one Hollywood and guess what… it just regenerates.