Former NBA star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said Tuesday that the “Roseanne” reboot isn’t popular because it’s pro-Trump, and instead is a criticism of the Trump administration and its failures.
Despite it’s record-high ratings and personal praise from Trump himself, Abdul-Jabbar argued that viewers shouldn’t let Roseanne Barr’s personal politics, which are carried over into Barr’s character, distract them from the underlying anti-Trump message.
In a Hollywood Reporter column posted Tuesday, he argued it’s easy to miss the shows “uncompromising criticism of Trump” because Barr touted her support for the president and promised to articulate the “feelings and frustrations of Trump loyalists” during her publicity tour.
“If you’re looking for pro-Trump proselytizing in ‘Roseanne,’ you’ll be feasting on your own imagination,” Abdul-Jabbar continued. “Because when you look at the actual content of the first three shows, you see a deliberate lack of any substantive arguments, facts, statistics, or credible authorities that generally are the tools of forming educated opinions. It’s not there, nor should we expect it. It’s a sitcom, folks, not a poli-sci lecture.”
The basketball legend said viewers aren’t supposed to take Barr’s conservative rants and raves seriously. Instead, they serve as a source for comedic conflict as Barr’s character, Roseanne Conner, finds herself navigating through family clashes over politics. Abdul-Jabbar said the show serves as a “powerful reflection of the oppressive daily struggles that many Americans deal with.”
In the show, the Conner family finds itself dealing with issues such as class warfare, Medicaid, raising gender-fluid children, and unemployment, all of which Abdul-Jabbar argues have been “exasperated by the Trump administration.”
The popular sitcom originally aired from 1988 to 1997 and the 2018 reboot generated a whopping 25 million viewers during its premiere.
