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Wow, the Roseanne revival got massive ratings: the best non-post Super Bowl ratings for any scripted show on any network all season

In other news, Roseanne tweeted that the kid from Parkland was giving a Nazi salute, so, enjoy supporting that shit, viewers

Variety's Erin Nyren wrote:At the revival’s premiere, executive producer Whitney Cummings said the show aims to be about “the circumstances that led to the current administration” rather than the administration itself. “We’re not talking about Mueller and Trump and Russia, we’re talking about not having healthcare and just the circumstances of a heartland, blue collar family.”

Curious that "not-having-healthcare" family finds comfort in Trump. It will be interesting to see whether Barr will be a less fawning supporter, with some helpful criticisms realized in the show's plots; God knows, Trump isn't beyond being guided by television.

gcgiles1dollarbin wrote:

Variety's Erin Nyren wrote:At the revival’s premiere, executive producer Whitney Cummings said the show aims to be about “the circumstances that led to the current administration” rather than the administration itself. “We’re not talking about Mueller and Trump and Russia, we’re talking about not having healthcare and just the circumstances of a heartland, blue collar family.”

Curious that "not-having-healthcare" family finds comfort in Trump. It will be interesting to see whether Barr will be a less fawning supporter, with some helpful criticisms realized in the show's plots; God knows, Trump isn't beyond being guided by television.

Cummings is not a fan of tRump, based on her tweets, but I don't know how that will translate to the show, if at all.

Did any of you actually watch the show? Roseanne is the only character that likes Trump. It's not this big Republican love-fest.

I watched both pilot episodes and it remained true to the show's original run, only with more topical references than were heard in the 90s. Roseanne is not very different than Archie Bunker in that the character can clearly be seen as ridiculous; the only difference is that the real Barr is conservative whereas Carrol O'Connor was liberal.

Glad to hear it's more about class issues affecting individuals and families, and less about those issues as merely a reflection of this country's rather tiresome, dichotomous political divisions. Of course, media isn't helping contradict that perception, if only because invoking "Trump" draws attention to their articles, as per the Variety article above.

gcgiles1dollarbin wrote:

Variety's Erin Nyren wrote:At the revival’s premiere, executive producer Whitney Cummings said the show aims to be about “the circumstances that led to the current administration” rather than the administration itself. “We’re not talking about Mueller and Trump and Russia, we’re talking about not having healthcare and just the circumstances of a heartland, blue collar family.”

Curious that "not-having-healthcare" family finds comfort in Trump. It will be interesting to see whether Barr will be a less fawning supporter, with some helpful criticisms realized in the show's plots; God knows, Trump isn't beyond being guided by television.

That’s not just a contradiction with the show, but one with Trump voters in general, a large number of whom voted against their own interests.

I was a huge fan of Roseanne (the show) till it jumped the shark. Even then Roseanne Barr came across as rather unhinged, her messy private life frequently threatened to overshadow the show. Eventually she fired the writers (many of whom had horror stories of working with her) and let her ego ran amock, which finished off the show. She never gave the impression of being a very likeable or blanced human being..

I remember liking her and her show as a kid-then again, I remember liking Trump when I heard him on Stern in the 90’s.

But no, I can’t support this. I don’t know how conservative she is in real life-but I know she’s fully behind the wacky regime in Israel-so I got the sense for that reason most of all-she endorses Trump.

I’m more curious to listen to her interview with Goodman on Stern than watch the show.

She also believes there are lizard people in government, chemtrails in the sky and that Palestinians own slaves (?????).

I watched the pilots just out of curiosity and got what I expected: standard sitcom pacing and one-liners with a machine making all sorts of laughs, groans and "ahhhs" on the soundtrack (despite the claim that the show is taped in front of a live audience, it never sounds like it is). Goodman and Metcalf, of course, have tremendous comic timing, but I doubt I'll watch future episodes.

Lost Highway wrote:That’s not just a contradiction with the show, but one with Trump voters in general, a large number of whom voted against their own interests.

Indeed. Although it sounds like, according to Roger Ryan's and Ribs' reports, that contradiction does not go without criticism in the show, at least.

I read a Twitter thread that summed up the show as the way Trump supporters see themselves (and the NYT it seems) rather than the reality of supporting racist and bigoted policies of Trump administration.

Luke M wrote:I read a Twitter thread that summed up the show as the way Trump supporters see themselves (and the NYT it seems) rather than the reality of supporting racist and bigoted policies of Trump administration.

Most of Trump's supporters were the same old upper middle class suburbanites who've staunchly voted GOP since forever. Basically, the same people who either ra-ra'd or shrugged at (but still voted for) Goldwater, Nixon and Reagan's racism.

But Trump won because he was able to move a significant number of low income, former-Obama voters in the Rust Belt and upper Great Lake regions. (In 2012, Obama won only one income demographic--those making under $50k--but that was still enough to make him president. Hillary actually split voters making over $100k with Trump, a group Obama lost to Romney by 10 points and a group, ideally, the Democrats should always lose if it's going to be any kind of vaguely working class party, which it quite clearly isn't in any meaningful sense. To me, that says a lot about the Democratic Party's shift to becoming a disproportionately professional class formation.)

While I find Trump and his policies detestable beyond words, a significant portion of his support came from desperate people who voted for Obama--twice!--hoping to staunch the bleeding of the 90s and 00s only to find it all speeding up. They then either shrugged at or ra-ra'd Trump's racism and pulled the lever for him, hoping he'd make good on his promises to bring back manufacturing and an enormous jobs bill (on rightwing terms, of course).

So the idea that a dry-wall hanger (the John Goodman character) and his wife with a job in plastics manufacturing (the Roseanne character) living in central Illinois would go from Democrats in the 80s and early 90s to Trumpists/Hillary-haters--without necessarily becoming proto-fascists--seems, sadly, pretty believable to me.

It’s one thing to hold your nose and vote for him and another to be saying lines like, “most of all, Lord, thank you for making America great again."

Fox considering Last Man Standing reboot following Roseanne ratings success.

Nice to see this may promote a bit of ideological diversity on television. Last Man Standing was never all that strident in its conservatism (although more explicit than Home Improvement) yet its cancellation seems to have been politically motivated - it did good numbers and was pretty entertaining.

Luke M wrote:It’s one thing to hold your nose and vote for him and another to be saying lines like, “most of all, Lord, thank you for making America great again."

Which is something Roseanne says to troll her liberal sister.

In theory I don’t have a problem with what the revival of this show is trying to do. What the US now needs more than anything, is a dialogue and what better platform than a sitcom ? It has the potential to reach a lot of people in a non-echo chamber way, that modern political discourse does not. This will only work if the show gives Trump supporters a voice which doesn’t make them switch off. Much as I loathe Trump and his administration, continuously yelling at his supporters that they are a bunch of idiots or ignoring them, hoping that they’ll go away, isn’t going to solve anything.

Traditionally Rosanne was a show which stood for liberal values and considering its format, the show often dealt with hot button issues in a surprisingly nuanced way. I can’t see the writers abandoning that. They‘ve already included a gender non-conforming character among its main cast, so I hope they’ll address the Trump administration‘s transgender military ban. Barr recently floundered badly in an interview trying to defend Trumps stance on LGBT rights and much of the rest of the cast appear to be in opposition to Trump, both behind and in front of the camera. It just remains to be seen how the show handles this in the long run.

Lost Highway wrote: What the US now needs more than anything, is a dialogue and what better platform than a sitcom ? It has the potential to reach a lot of people in a non-echo chamber way, that modern political discourse does not. This will only work if the show gives Trump supporters a voice which doesn’t make them switch off.

Or even better- it could be a show providing a nuanced outlook to Trump himself

jindianajonz wrote:

Lost Highway wrote: What the US now needs more than anything, is a dialogue and what better platform than a sitcom ? It has the potential to reach a lot of people in a non-echo chamber way, that modern political discourse does not. This will only work if the show gives Trump supporters a voice which doesn’t make them switch off.

Or even better- it could be a show providing a nuanced outlook to Trump himself

The show can be nuanced about the reasons why people voted for Trump, which I believe is what was implied in my post but Roseanne isn’t a show about Trump. I‘m also not sure why you think the show should provide a nuanced outlook on a man who has no understanding of nuance.

Lost Highway wrote:

Luke M wrote:It’s one thing to hold your nose and vote for him and another to be saying lines like, “most of all, Lord, thank you for making America great again."

Which is something Roseanne says to troll her liberal sister.

Considering that trolling liberals is the central tenet of modern conservatism maybe the show is onto something.

Luke M wrote:

Lost Highway wrote:

Luke M wrote:
Which is something Roseanne says to troll her liberal sister.

Considering that trolling liberals is the central tenet of modern conservatism maybe the show is onto something.

Indeed !

Lost Highway wrote:What the US now needs more than anything, is a dialogue.

Either that or a lobotomy.

Not to play devil's advocate, but I saw the Clinton campaign as "a dialogue" in the sense that they were doing a whole lot of telling people what's good for them, and that backfired terribly. If anything, letting the Trump administration's actions speak for themselves is what's going to rescue us from a lot of this. In these special elections, dissatisfaction with the current government's handling of healthcare is most voters' #1 issue.

Anyway, this isn't the thread for this post. But thought it was worth saying.

mfunk9786 wrote:Not to play devil's advocate, but I saw the Clinton campaign as "a dialogue" in the sense that they were doing a whole lot of telling people what's good for them, and that backfired terribly. If anything, letting the Trump administration's actions speak for themselves is what's going to rescue us from a lot of this. In these special elections, dissatisfaction with the current government's handling of healthcare is most voters' #1 issue.

I hope so, but political populism was a result of a disenchantment with mainstream politics and I’m not sure that will just go away when Trump‘s time is over. It’s not just happening in the US, it’s happening all round the world. People want to hear about easy solutions to complex problems and I’m not sure they even listened to Clinton, they were too peroccupied with conspiracy theories in regard to her. and Clinton wasn’t a great communicator and for a Democrat, pretty right wing herself. Maybe they are more likely to listen to a sitcom.

Kyle Kulinski weighs in on the matter

I wish more people would've realized neither Trump NOR Clinton were going to genuinely fight for single-payer healthcare, a living wage, getting money out of politics, tuition-free college, electoral reform, campaign financing reform, investing in renewable energy, upgrading our infrastructure, re-regulating Wall Street, breaking up the big banks, ending the 'Endless War,' etc.