Roseanne Barr talks ‘Roseanne’ reboot, how she & her character voted for Trump
February 25, 2018
I still have mixed feeling about the reboot of Roseanne. Roseanne was an important and relevant television show in the 1990s, but it was basically destroyed from within, plus there was a ton of outside pressure too. It was revolutionary at the time, to show a working-poor white family in the American mid-West, with all of the hot-button political and social issues swirling. There still aren’t many stories like that on television – even the few grittier stories about poor people are generally framed as dramas, not comedies. Name one sitcom in the past 30 years that was about working-class white families. Can you name one, other than Roseanne? So that’s a certain kind of artistic representation that’s been lacking for a while.
Anyway, the reboot premieres on March 27th. Roseanne Barr covers the new issue of The Hollywood Reporter, and she and the cast/writers/producers discuss why now, and why these conversations are still important in Trump’s America. Which brings me back to my qualms: Roseanne Barr voted for Donald Trump and she hates Hillary Clinton. She wanted this reboot to be very political too. Some highlights:
Barr wanted the reboot to be political: While Barr’s vocal support of Trump (the self-described “radical” says she voted for him to “shake up the status quo”) and occasional alt-right Twitter rants have fanned flames, she insists she has “learned to control [her] anger a lot better.” The disagreements have been largely contained to the spirited writers room, where a politically diverse staff, led by co-showrunners Bruce Helford (who ran one season on the original) and Whitney Cummings (who was still in grade school when Roseanne premiered), has tackled controversial issues from immigration and health care to drugs and gender fluidity. If the show scores an additional season, Barr would like to lean more heavily into such third-rail topics as race and religion.
Barr is getting PAID: Unsurprisingly, the series’ March 27 return, which will revive Dan (by sidestepping a fatal heart attack referenced in the series finale) and introduce a next generation of Conners, is generating heavy interest, with 30-second ads fetching ABC a robust $175,000. Its star, who also has a heavy hand in the show’s scripts, will reportedly pocket more than $2 million from the new batch of episodes, on top of the tens of millions she made off the original.
Whether she considered having Roseanne vote for anyone besides Trump? “No, I wanted to do it this way. It’s the conversation everybody is having. Families are not speaking to each other. People are still shocked and upset about it. It’s the state of our country.”
What happened in the writers room: “I thought everybody was pretty liberal, so I was keepin’ an eye on it, making sure that it was evenhanded. But the day we went to shoot [the pilot], I got with the writers, and I’m like, “You guys have to have a Hillary slam.” ‘Cause they were all Trump slams. [We never say anybody’s name] but we do say, “How could you vote for him?” [I also say “pantsuit”]… That’s the line you gave me, and it was a great Hillary slam. I wanted to represent the country and how divided we are.”
Do have mixed feelings too? Obviously, everyone has the right to their own political opinions, however deplorable. But when you mix in art and commerce and Trumpism… I just feel like this could get really bad in a hurry. It’s one thing to believe that Roseanne Barr is perhaps providing some high-minded commentary on how a white working class woman will choose to vote against her own interests across the board by voting for Trump (or any Republican). But I don’t think Barr is doing that. This isn’t “commentary.” She actually voted for Trump. So my concern is that this is just going to become The Deplorable Sitcom.
Photos courtesy of Getty, cover courtesy of THR.