One of the harder parts of appreciating ABC’s “Roseanne” revival was the task of distinguishing between the show’s lead character and the actress who plays her.
On Tuesday, Roseanne Barr’s Twitter feed revealed her fringe politics long before it got the revival canceled.
Nobody really needed Twitter to know Barr’s beliefs put her well outside the mainstream anyway. But her show filled a hole in the cultural landscape by providing a likable and sympathetic depiction of the families whose struggles nudged them to support President Trump, a demographic overwhelmingly misunderstood and mischaracterized by Hollywood.
The benefit of “Roseanne” was that it cast a beloved character in the role of a deplorable, making it easier for audiences to understand why perfectly decent people found themselves on different sides of the 2016 election. And the show was much bigger than Trump, too. The characters were written into plot lines that were more cultural than political, but nevertheless allowed “Roseanne” to explore pressing topics from a less one-sided perspective than most other programs.
Indeed, it’s the very cause of Barr’s “Roseanne” revival that she injured badly this week. The decent people who’ve spent years simmering with frustration as the media depicts them as racists and sexists and bigots probably made up a good part of her audience. As Hollywood’s most vocal Trump supporter (whether or not that support is sincere is another question), Barr just confirmed the industry’s stereotypes of Trump supporters — a stereotype her show sought to debunk.
Roseanne Barr and Roseanne Conner are different people, but Barr knows the distinction can get hazy. If only her public persona were more like her character, the great “Roseanne” experiment of 2018 would never have come crashing down this week.
