It can be very difficult to separate the art from the artist. In the case of Roseanne Barr and her critically acclaimed television show based on her life, it is nearly impossible. I wasnāt going to watch the reboot because I find Ms. Barr noxious, transphobic, racist and small-minded. Whatever charm and intelligence she brought to the first nine seasons of her show, a show I very much loved, are absolutely absent in her current persona, particularly as it manifests on Twitter. She is a supporter of Donald Trump, vocalizing her thoughts about making America great, claiming that with her vote, she was trying to shake things up. She tweets conspiracy theories, rails against feminism and shares Islamophobic opinions.
Where once she was edgy and provocative, she is now absurd and offensive. Her views are muddled and incoherent. She is more invested in banal and shallow provocation than engaging with sociopolitical issues in a thoughtful manner. No amount of mental gymnastics can make what Roseanne Barr has said and done in recent years palatable.
Nonetheless, I was curious about what Roseanne Conner, her famous television alter ego, has been up to. The original āRoseanneā was a smart, hilarious and groundbreaking show that covered a lot of important ground in prime-time television. I wanted to see how the Conners were doing 20 years later.
What I found is that the tensions in the TV show ā which more than 18 million people watched, a network TV high since 2014 ā are the same tensions that shape this current political climate. Roseanne the character voted for Donald Trump because he talked about ājobs.ā For that she sacrificed so many other things. The promise of jobs and the myth of the white working class as the only people struggling in this country, which animates so much of our present political moment, are right there, in this sitcom.
In many ways, the first two episodes of the āRoseanneā reboot are excellent. It is difficult to admit, but nearly everything about the production is competent. There is the familiarity of the Conner house, still well-worn, the iconic couch taking center stage in the family room. The original cast returned and their faces are pleasantly familiar ā though not as aged as they could be, given the benefits of wealth, good skin-care regimens and, perhaps, medical intervention.
Darlene, the middle daughter, has moved back home with her two children, Harris and Mark, the latter of whom is gender nonconforming. D.J., the Conner son, was in the Army and has recently returned home from a tour in Syria. His wife, we learn indirectly, is still in the military, serving abroad, and D.J. is raising their daughter, who is black, while she is away. Roseanne and her sister, Jackie, played by Laurie Metcalf, have been estranged for a year because of the 2016 election, and when Jackie shows up, sheās wearing a āNasty Womanā T-shirt and a pink pussy hat. Of course she is.
The Conners are still dealing with many of the economic struggles they have always faced. Darlene has lost her job. Roseanne and Dan are getting older and, like many Americans, cannot afford adequate health care as they try to share various medications. Becky, the oldest Conner child, is going to become a surrogate and sell her eggs to make $50,000. Darleneās son, Mark, is being bullied at school for his gender presentation. The show isnāt shying away from difficult topics, and that is both what works and doesnāt. The Conners are portrayed as a typical working-class family and their problems are relatable, but it also feels as though the show is working through a checklist of āreal issuesā it wants to address, to demonstrate how the Conners are a modern American family.
The presence of D.J.ās daughter, Mary, is particularly awkward. When she appears, one of these things is clearly not like the other, but the show makes no mention of it as if to suggest how at ease the Conners are with difference. But Mary has no lines and very little camera time. We are given little information as to how she became part of the Conner family and what life for her is like in a small, predominantly white Illinois town where everyone, seemingly, voted for Donald Trump. Young Mary is just there, a place holder, tokenized and straining the limits of credulity.
When a lot of the mainstream media talks about the working class, there is a tendency to romanticize, to idealize them as the most authentic Americans. They are ārealā and their problems are ārealā problems, as if everyone else is dealing with artificial obstacles. We see this in some of the breathless media coverage of Trump voters and in a lot of the online chatter about the āRoseanneā reboot. What often goes unsaid is that when the working class is defined in our cultural imagination, we are talking about white people, even though the real American working class is made up of people from many races and ethnicities.
During a Television Critics Association panel promoting the show, Ms. Barr said, āit was working-class people who elected Trump.ā
This myth persists, but it is only a myth. Forty-one percent of voters earning less than $50,000 voted for Mr. Trump while 53 percent voted for Hillary Clinton. Forty-nine percent of voters earning between $50,000 and $100,000 voted for Mr. Trump while 47 percent voted for Mrs. Clinton. The median income of these voters was $72,000, while the median income of Hillary Clinton voters was $61,000. A significant number of middle-class and wealthy white people contributed to Trumpās election.
In the show, during an exchange about their political disagreement, Roseanne tells Jackie one of the reasons she voted for Mr. Trump is because he ātalked about jobs.ā And that was all the political ideology we got. If we are to believe the circumstances of this characterās life, a few vague words about ājobsā was more than enough to compel Roseanne, with inadequate health care, with vulnerable grandchildren, and struggling to make ends meet, to vote for Mr. Trump.
How do you reach people who make dangerous political choices grounded in self-interest? When Roseanne and Jackie finally reconcile, Roseanne never apologizes or concedes. She merely tells Jackie, āI forgive you,ā and Jackie acknowledges how hard that was for Roseanne. Clearly, we cannot reach people who make dangerous, myopic political choices. We concede, as Jackie does, or we resist, as hopefully the rest of us will.
In my book āBad Feminist,ā published in 2014, I wrote about giving myself permission to be flawed but feminist. I wrote about how sometimes I consume problematic pop culture, knowing I shouldnāt, knowing how harmful that pop culture can be. I still believe there is room for that, for having principles and enjoying things that challenge those principles. But in the ensuing years, Iāve also been thinking about accountability and the repercussions of our choices. Iāve been thinking about how nothing will change if we keep consuming problematic pop culture without demanding anything better.
As I watched the first two episodes of the āRoseanneā reboot, I thought again about accountability. I laughed, yes, and enjoyed seeing the Conner family back on my screen. My first reaction was that the show was excellent. But I could not set aside what I know of Roseanne Barr and how toxic and dangerous her current public persona is. I could not overlook how the Conner family came together to support Mark as he was bullied at school for his gender presentation, after voting for a president who actively works against the transgender community. They voted for a president who doesnāt think the black life of their granddaughter matters. They act as if love can protect the most vulnerable members of their family from the repercussions of their political choices. It cannot.
This fictional family, and the showās very real creator, are further normalizing Trump and his warped, harmful political ideologies. There are times when we can consume problematic pop culture, but this is not one of those times. I saw the first two episodes of the āRoseanneā reboot, but thatās all I am going to watch. Itās a small line to draw, but itās a start.
