Roseanne Barr Tweets Way Out of Her Sitcom

Just a few weeks earlier, ABC had renewed its revival of the 1990s sitcom "Roseanne" for a second season.  The story of the Conner family of Lanford, Illinois was fetching boffo ratings for the Disney-owned broadcast network, two decades after the original series ended.

Then the show's star Roseanne Barr chose to add to her Twitter account a few choice thoughts about, among other things, a former White House adviser under President Barack Obama.  Barr thought African-American Valerie Jarrett was the product of a relationship between a Muslim and an ape from the "Planet of the Apes" movies.  She later apologized, claiming it was a bad joke fueled by a prescription sleep aid.

But it was too late.  To the applause of many, including critics and colleagues, ABC quickly pulled the plug on "Roseanne".  So did other broadcast and cable channels who had been airing repeats of her previous series.  Just like what happened to Bill Cosby, Charlie Rose, Harvey Weinstien, Matt Lauer, Kevin Spacey and others in Hollywood and in politics who got caught with their pants down.

This isn't the first time Roseanne courted controversy.  In 1990 she screeched, spit and crotch-grabbed her way through the "Star Spangled Banner" before a San Diego Padres baseball game.  She also ran for president in 2012, garnering nearly 70,000 votes in the election.  She posed as Adolf Hitler for the cover of a Jewish humor magazine.  She has also posted conspiracy theories about gun control advocate David Hogg, survivor of the Parkland, FL high school shooting.  And she decided to make her character Roseanne Conner a Donald Trump supporter just like her, a move which would alienate her more liberal fans.

For ABC, currently the network of "The Bachelor", "Dancing With The Stars" and "American Idol" (which also happens to be a reboot), parting ways with their number one show was a gutsy move.   They had planned their entire prime time programming philosophy around "Roseanne" once it became a hit, catering more to conservative white folks who made up Middle America than to the LGBTQs, women and minorities that they had been.  That meant letting producer Shonda Rimes, whose dramas made up one night of ABC programming ("Grey's Anatomy", "Scandal", "How to Get Away with Murder"), go to Netflix.  It also meant throwing minority-led shows like "black-ish" and "Fresh Off The Boat" under the bus.  Until it all blew up in their faces.

And what was the reaction from the biggest Twitter user, which would be President Donald Trump?  As usual, it was all about himself, complaining about the negative coverage he gets from ABC News, and demanding to know why Disney CEO Bob Iger won't apologize to him like he did with Jarrett.

Roseanne Barr has made a career of breaking barriers in her comedy and in her TV sitcom, while at the same time doing enough outrageous things to make people wonder about her sanity.  If there is a lesson about her rapid slide to being persona non grata, it is this:  Tweet wisely, and keep your racism to yourself.

UPDATE (6/22/18):  ABC is bringing "Roseanne" back to TV, but without Roseanne Barr.  They've just green lighted a continuation of the sitcom with the remaining members of the cast for the fall, which is tentatively titled "The Connors".  Which begs the questions:  How will they explain Roseanne's absence on the show?  Can "The Connors" survive without Barr, just like "The Hogan Family" did without Valerie Harper (salary dispute) or "Eight Simple Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter" without John Ritter (death)?  Will anyone still watch?