ABC has canceled “Roseanne” after the star of that show compared a former member of the Obama administration to an ape. That was the right decision. But ABC and all of Hollywood are dangerously close to dismissing the audience of her television show as themselves racist. That would be the wrong conclusion.
As many as 22.1 million viewers tuned into the program, not to watch Roseanne Barr regurgitate conspiracy theories, but to see comedy from outside a coastal bubble.
A different perspective didn’t mean the punchlines were partisan. Obviously there were Trump quips and transgenderism jokes. The pilot, which cleverly centered around the reconciliation of Roseanne and her sister after the 2016 presidential election, stoked curiosity and helped ratings to be sure. But as David Harsanyi argued over at the Federalist, the comedy “isn’t a culture war sitcom. It’s just a quality show.”
“Roseanne” with its working-class and right-leaning cast was no more political, Harsanyi concludes, than “Modern Family” with its unbelievably progressive cast. In many ways those shows were the inverse of one another, demonstrating the contrary tastes of two Americas. The difference was that “Roseanne” spoke to a long overlooked audience, talking about things they cared about, and debuted at the perfect moment. It’s cancellation will create a unique vacuum that can’t be filled with yet another liberal derivative.
No doubt, some will try to equate the Roseanne of Twitter with the fictional Roseanne she played on set. Anyone who watched the show knows it isn’t true. ABC didn’t broadcast Pizzagate conspiracy theories, jokes about Holocaust-themed baked goods, or any other alt-right drivel. The comedian did that on her own on the Internet and to her own demise.
Still, for all her very real faults, the loudmouthed Roseanne tapped into a real cultural current. She spoke like and spoke to the demographic that first Hollywood and then Hillary Clinton dismissed as deplorable. In the end, and as Emily Jashinsky observed, she did those people more harm than good. But throwing out that audience with the actress will do permanent harm to ratings.
