I have always loved Roseanne. It binds me pleasantly to a very important time in my life: my last year of college and the years immediately thereafter. Long before I knew there would be a reboot — something practically unheard-of in prime-time television — I liked to go to YouTube and revisit my favorite scenes from the original, nine-season run of the program. When I needed a lift, I’d watch Roseanne, her husband Dan, and sister Jackie stoned out of their minds on an old stash of weed they’d discovered, or daughter Becky’s humiliating episode of flatulence at a school assembly (she actually got a sympathy card for this), or — my personal favorite — Roseanne accepting a dare to do a topless flash of her husband in the backyard, not realizing that at that moment he happened to be welcoming a new neighbor. This was a genuinely funny show, full of spirit and heart and brutally honest, and when it went off the air, I missed it.
Nothing even remotely like it ever came along, until it came back. I would have eagerly greeted the reboot, regardless of how the real Roseanne Barr felt about President Trump. Discovering that its reincarnation is every bit as funny and thought-provoking as the original has been an added bonus. The popularity of its return is well earned. Although it probably won’t last another nine seasons (even the kids from the original series are looking slightly long in the tooth), I hope it stays around a good, long while.
This was a genuinely funny show, full of spirit and heart and brutally honest, and when it went off the air, I missed it.
The brouhaha in the media about the program’s political implications is something I choose to ignore. There is no reason to politicize absolutely everything — except for people who want to control absolutely everything. Those of us who do not believe that every aspect of our lives should be regulated by our self-appointed betters still appreciate quality entertainment for its own sake. We know it doesn’t need to justify itself by making some politically-relevant statement.
All the same, I can’t help but appreciate that Roseanne Barr has taken a stand. Her program could not possibly be honest if it didn’t deal frankly with the ways people have struggled during the past 20 years, under a plutocracy that no longer even bothers to pretend it cares about us. If the people who are so viciously attacking the program actually liked it, I probably wouldn’t. They would be telling me that I’d been reading it wrong.
Those of us who do not believe that every aspect of our lives should be regulated by our self-appointed betters still appreciate quality entertainment for its own sake.
But I haven’t. The characters in this program endure in their love for each other. They mourn those who have passed on and lovingly embrace the new arrivals. They deal with everyday life in a way the show’s viewers recognize as authentic. They call us back to life lived simply as human beings, totally apart from membership in any political tribe or any allegiance in a political war. The anti-Republicrat libertarian in me loves this.
The mojo of Roseanne is back, and in however trivial a sense, America is better off for it. If we, as a nation, ever get to the point where we can no longer accept honest and humane entertainment, we really will be finished. That the Roseanne reboot has been enormously popular is a sign that — however it may sputter — the pulse of this country keeps pumping on.
