I didn’t take offense.
But it was clearly race baiting. And it worked. Like a charm.
From pop-culture.tv. It was the April 3rd episode.
Roseanne Barr is scared awake by one of Dan’s loud snores, and she realizes the two have overslept. “Dan! You’re snoring, wake up!” Roseanne says as she jolts her husband awake. Dan asks what time it is and if he missed dinner.
“It’s 11 o’clock! We slept from Wheel to Kimmel,” Roseanne says referencing Wheel of Fortune and ABC’s Late Night with Jimmy Kimmel.
“We missed all the shows about Black and Asian families,” Dan says.
“Hmmm, they’re just like us. There you’re all caught up,” Roseanne responds, dismissing Dan’s comment.
While not mentioning them by name, Roseanne referred to ABC comedies Black-ish and Fresh Off The Boat, family comedies that have been well-received by critics for representing minorities on primetime television.
I think its great when a show gets people talking. The Network wants you to compare “Roseanne” with “All In The Family.” Roseanne is portraying a person of low empathy. That’s her character. She’s dismissive. If you write her dialogue any other way, you’d be a lousy writer. Can you imagine if Archie Bunker had to answer to social media?
Tell that to Twitter.
Mission accomplished. Roseanne gets more free publicity. And ABC is plugging its sister shows on the same network. Network sensors reviewed the script. They probably high-fived the writers and predicted it would go viral. Maybe they fist-bumped if white people can do that these days.
I know I’m often the contrarian. Here I’m going to be the optimist. If Roseanne gets press and causes debate about how we treat each other in the real world, it should win awards. And it will. I might even start watching.
I didn’t take it as racist at all.
In retrospect, it was a well-set trap to expose elite cry-babies. Because it was the opposite of racism. It was inclusive. If you didn’t get it, the joke was on you.
Don’t get me wrong.
Prejudice is a massive human problem. Discrimination is a lot like alcoholism. You can’t resist, and it gives you a false confidence. And the worst alcoholics will deny their disease to their dying breath. Addiction doesn’t care whether you are Republican or Democrat.
Neither does bigotry.
When you put a bunch of people in a basket and label them all as “Deplorables,” you’re the modern day Archie Bunker. Deplorable’s became the white N-word. But it didn’t hurt them They embraced it.
I’ve been to Bangladesh and Africa. The most significant lesson that I took back was that inside we are all the same. Everything else is just skin deep. We’re all people.
So I got the joke.
Of course, it was just one twitter account that took the cheese. The cheese must have been tasty. As I was reading a New York Times article about this fake outrage, I wondered why they would bother?
The answer is easy. Media gets paid to stir the pot. When we get riled up, it’s money in the bank. How gullible are we? Pretty gullible, if you can’t see the hook for the worm. I mean, the shows are called “Black-ish” and “Fresh Off The Boat.” Hello? Why not rename the Roseanne show? Call it “The Deplorables.”
