March 28, 2018

"Thank you for this article. It will save me the time I might otherwise have wasted watching Roseanne."

That's the top-rated comment — by far, with 858 up-votes — at the NYT article "Roseanne Conner Has Become a Trump Supporter. Just Like Her Creator. After 21 years, 'Roseanne' returns to ABC, and Roseanne Barr’s portrait of working-class Americans is as topical as ever."

Second-highest, with 649:
Well I'm glad I was never a big fan of the show in the first place. Not really into sitcoms, but I don't disparage them. But supporting Trump, well, that does it for me. To my thinking, someone that supports Trump wants to end democracy in America and despises me for who I am, thus they are my enemy.

It's too bad, but there's nothing I can do about the situation, so I hope the reconstituted Roseanne flops and doesn't get renewed, just as I hope Trump doesn't get another term.
Etc. etc.

From the interview in the article:
Roseanne Conner has become a Trump supporter. How did that happen?

I just wanted to have that dialogue about families torn apart by the election and their political differences of opinion and how we handle it. I thought that this was an important thing to say at this time.

Was it your idea for Roseanne to back Trump?

Yes. Because it’s an accurate portrayal of these people and people like them. In terms of what they think, and how they feel when they are the ones who send their kids over to fight. We’ve been in wars for a long, long time, which everybody seems to forget — but working class people don’t forget it because their kids are in it.
I feel sorry for (and annoyed by) people who are so anti-Trump that they've got to protect their precious minds from comedy that shows a family divided over Trump and has scenes that look like this:



Laurie Metcalf is hilarious as the Trump-hating family member. I'm speaking from first-hand experience: We watched the show last night. Why shrink from seeing your Trump-phobia played out within a particular working-class family? Maybe you were always distanced from the people depicted on that show and maybe that's part of why the deplorables elected Trump.

ADDED: "First, let's say grace. Jackie, would you like to take a knee? Dear Lord, thank you for this food and for bringing our son, D.J., home safe from Syria. Please protect his wife, Geena, and all our troops still overseas. Please watch over our son, Jerry, who's on that stupid fishing boat where apparently they don't get phone calls. But most of all, Lord... Thank you for making America great again!"



ALSO: The show was a "massive" success in the ratings with "18.2 million viewers and a 5.1 rating among adults 18-49." That's higher than the "60 Minutes" with Stormy Daniels. It seems to be "the biggest comedy rating in quite some time — even higher than NBC’s mega-hit This Is Us during regularly any of its regularly scheduled episodes.

157 comments:

Xmas said...

But we cannot and must not humanize our enemy!

David Begley said...

“someone that (sic) supports Trump wants to end democracy in America and despises me for who I am, thus they are my enemy.”

Only a crazy person would write that.

Missed the show. I was eating at the only restaurant in the Village of Mead(e), Nebraska.

Robert Cook said...

I watched part of last night's episode and I thought it was pretty good...as I thought the original show was, (though I never watched the allegedly dreadful final season).

Darrell said...

Only a crazy person would write that.

Surprisingly, the NYT readership is full of them.
Same with the Guardian readership. I suspect a trend.

traditionalguy said...

Topical humor with a truth component... that is so Trumpian. I bet Kim the Rocket man watches too.

The Bergall said...

Someday in the near future having a sense of humor will be deemed hate speech.....

AllenS said...

I would expect nothing else from NYT readers.

Henry said...

I'm never going to watch it, but it's being advertised on Spotify with audio snippets and it sounds mostly like generational humor.

"I thought you were dead!"

"Why does everything think I'm dead?"

Roseann Barr and John Goodman do know how to deliver punchlines.

Anonymous said...

To my thinking, someone that supports Trump wants to end democracy in America and despises me for who I am, thus they are my enemy.

When projection passes from ordinary sloppy thinking and self-deception into crippling mental illness.

Henry said...

“someone that (sic) supports Trump wants to end democracy in America and despises me for who I am, thus they are my enemy.”

There's so much projection in that statement, you need a telescope to see the end of it.

Henry said...

The funny thing about the first comment is the implication that the writer was all set to watch Roseanne. Someone find that person a show to watch!

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Drudge links to a positively disposed reviewer who has this to say:

it pains me to admit that the return of a bonafide television classic suffers in the most rudimentary way.

With the glorious exception of Gilbert as the still acerbic but now cowered Darlene, most of the cast seem to be speed dialing in their performances. As if this was a Roseanne tribute and not a reunion of the original band, eyelines and attention spans are all over the place as if looking for cue cards. Additionally, the pacing misses the beat repeatedly, and jokes are launched only to land far off target.

Were it not for the fact the scripts are so indomitable, Gilbert so good and Goodman so beloved, swaths of this Roseanne come off more like a time-filling Saturday Night Live skit.

rhhardin said...

It sounds overplayed. The left is funny all on its own. You don't have to rub it in.

rhhardin said...

It ought to be a high performance family with one witty black sheep, not a redneck thing.

The intelligent left ought to have to confront irony.

No laugh track.

roesch/voltaire said...

I don’t have time to watch this or most of the other crap on TV no matter what the political view, but I would watch Northern Exposer which had an interesting cross section of characters and view points.

tcrosse said...

It looks like the flip side of All In The Family. It's a clutch opportunity for pearls everywhere.

Craig Howard said...

To my thinking, someone that supports Trump wants to end democracy in America

Where has the word "who" disappeared to? Why do I see people referred to more and more as "that"?

Is it an outgrowth of the attempts to desexualize English? Must we now depersonalize it, too?

I am on a campaign to raise awareness of the improper use of "that."

P.S. I thought last night's show was pretty, damned funny.

sparrow said...

This blog is one of those rare paces where left and right engage in something other than insults, at least some of the time. That's part of what makes it so valuable.

Bill Peschel said...

When I was listening to Marc Maron's show (back when he called Trump voters "evil" -- I kid you not, his exact words), I caught his interview with Roseanne.

He had some crack about the election, and she immediately began taking him apart over it. He could have stayed and discussed it, maybe reach some understanding over his differences, but he fled the subject like a dog with his tail on fire.

I read her interview in Judd Apatow's book "Sick in the Head." She came off as surprisingly sane. She was a talented fat woman thrust into the toxic Hollywood environment, and she didn't take their shit. Her subsequent craziness is more a reflection of Hollywood's ingrained sexism than of her.

Fernandinande said...

"The Animal Hat
Fashion for women who want to be perceived as sexless and brainless."
Hello, I'm a babylady!

Matt Sablan said...

A few years ago, the big thing among conservative entertainment blogs was talking about the "liberal sucker punch," or something like that. Where, you'd be enjoying your spy thriller, action movie, rom com, or whatever--then BAM!--a reminder liberal elite Hollywood hates you.

It's kind of nice to see it going the other way. Some art just isn't for me, or you, or that person commenting on the NYT. That's OK.

MadisonMan said...

People who are so fragile that the mention of Trump in any supportive way causes them to crumble should be objects of scorn. Yet they get upvotes in the NYTimes comments. That says very much about to whom the Times is targeting their Editorial slant.

Kevin said...

Mass movements do the opposite: they pretend to give you power, while stealing what little you had; they pretend to solve your problems, while entrenching them. Movements make the frustrated more frustrated and they self-perpetuate with no regard for those who perpetuate them. The seed that they sow is frustration. -- Without a Belief in God, But Never Without Belief In A Devil

The frustrated do not wish to engage in any activity which might lessen their frustration. It is frustration they seek and frustration alone they will accept.

Why else would every reviewer write a story about a beloved sitcom returning as if it were a trigger warning?

MayBee said...

Yet people in Hollywood don’t get why the Oscars viewership keeps declining The left is usually so insulated from having their entertainment tainted with opposing viewpoints, they can’t look at Roseann and say “oh Now I get how that feels”

traditionalguy said...

“Deplorable show, I tell you boy, deplorable show.”says commenter Foghorn Leghorn.

Kevin said...

they can’t look at Roseann and say “oh Now I get how that feels

They can't watch a show where the Rosanne character isn't persuaded that she made some kind of grievous mistake.

Just to acknowledge there are two sides to the issues is to engage in behavior which is unholy or "soul-crushing" depending on whether or not your primary means of communication is Snapchat.

Humperdink said...

"I am on a campaign to raise awareness of the improper use of "that."

P.S. I thought last night's show was pretty, damned funny."


Excuse me, could you please remove the comma between the words pretty and damned? It does not belong there.

P.S. I love the grammar police.

Tommy Duncan said...

As is often noted on this blog, the left would prefer that opposing views be silenced. They prefer an echo chamber.

To paraphrase Socrates: "An examined life is not allowed."

Robert Cook said...

"I'm never going to watch it, but it's being advertised on Spotify with audio snippets and it sounds mostly like generational humor."

'I thought you were dead!'

'Why does everything think I'm dead?'
"


That's a joke about the show itself...in the last season of the original show, Roseanne's husband died.

Hagar said...

"America is a classless society; furthermore everyone belongs to the middle class."

Unknown said...


Oh my, Arrow into the X-ring, election shortly. Clever at business she is. Will gently poke at sacred cows leaving her friends to complete and laugh, happy not to be talked down to. The D's are looking hard for a "me too" expose, Only to find viewers won't care and notoriety increases profits. Clearly learned from watching the master , like Bannon, to maximize profitability at D’s expense. Can't have someone more popular than C. A queen bee, kiss my robe now, like you had to at school to even exist. I’m sorry Oprah. not a Queen Bee. This should have been you.

Sebastian said...

"someone that supports Trump wants to end democracy in America" Covered already, but, but -- what does that mean? In what sense does someone supporting Trump "want to end democracy"?

Unless, of course, we are talking progspeak here: if people vote the right (i.e., left) way, they are saving democracy, but if people vote the wrong (i.e., right) way, they are ending democracy.

To progs, the very meaning of words is just a tool.

Robert Cook said...

"America is a classless society; furthermore everyone belongs to the middle class."

I think I've heard this (incorrect) statement before, or something very close to it, but I can't remember who said it. Can you identify it?

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Nearly 60 million people voted for Donald Trump and, outside of FNC and the conservative online community, there is almost no representation of those people in the media except as slack jawed yokels and bigots. So the plan is to write off 20% of the total population, and about half of the voters? Which is how you got Trump in the first place.

If you accept the globalist world view, that Western Civilization got rich via plundering the rest of the world and is the reason so much of the world is mired in poverty, that capitalism is rapacious and unsustainable, and that nationalism is a outmoded and dangerous idea, then it makes sense to retard growth in Western countries and to move all the jobs you can to less developed nations. Its reparations. And since its the lower orders that are going to suffer, well you're woke. You deserve to prosper.

Ralph L said...

I would watch Northern Exposer

We can't look away.

rhhardin said...

It's national respect your cat day.

Sebastian said...

To my surprise, I can't recall any lefty actress or comedian being questioned about lefty choices in the way Roseanne was on the radio yesterday about what possessed her to play a Trump-supporting character on her show. Scratching my head about why that could be.

rhhardin said...

America is all middle class is short for Americans take fellow citizens as Americans.

That's been changed for the leftist half of the population.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Late night TV is leftwing TV.
Primetime Television on the alphabet channels is violent or vapid or Teh gay with Will and Grace vapidity shove teh gay sex down your throats while the kids are watching plus anti-Trump.

It's not entertainment, it's propaganda. Hillarywoodland propaganda.

tcrosse said...

"America is a classless society; furthermore everyone belongs to the middle class."

Anybody who thinks this should have a look at the wedding announcements in the Sunday NYT.

bolivar di griz said...




About the latest narrative:

https://mobile.twitter.com/_VachelLindsay_/status/978926199060578304

the 4chan Guy who reads Althouse said...

My guess is that the people who will love Sean Penn's "Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff." are the same who hate the new "Roseanne."

So to check the NYT review of Bob Honey:

"...Along the way, he’s assailed by news of the 2016 election and plunges deeper into his existential funk. Bob fumes at his fellow Americans for not embracing the unnamed female candidate: “Too shrill? Too hawkish? Isn’t it true that you never wanted qualifications? … Was she the worst possible candidate or are you the most arrogant, ill and unqualified electorate in the history of the Western world?” As for the Donald Trump stand-in, Bob considers him not just one but all four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: “You are not simply a president in need of impeachment, you are a man in need of an intervention. We are not simply a people in need of an intervention, we are a nation in need of an assassin.”

Yep.

The NYT readers will certainly find more to like in Bob Honey than Roseanne.

Because Bob Honey is about Big Thought Things. That they Agree With.

And Roseanne is about Deplorables.

Whom they find Deplorable.

Whatever you do, DO NOT OPEN THE AIRLOCK.

The Germans have a word for this.

Chris N said...

Being committed enough to select TV shows, largely based on political opinion, takes will.

Declaring your ignorance so very eloquently amongst like-minds takes grace.

Will and grace.

TreeJoe said...

Why does there not yet exist a internet-wide commenter ranking system with common log-in. Here's an example:

Level 1: Anonymous/minimal history and little up-voting
Level 2: Anonymous, some up-voting, modest history
Level 3: Verified identity, some up voting by level 3 and above, modest history
Level 4: Verified identity, substantial upvoting by level 3 and above, substantial online history, minimal down-voting
Level 5: Top commenters with enormous upvoting history from level 4, 3+ years verified history, verified identity in real life, etc.

I want to be able to filter comments, much like I can now filter reviews.

dbp said...

Leftists have always been secure in their moral superiority. This is because they live in a bubble, where to the extent they are "exposed" to conservative thought, it is in sitcoms, where the "conservative" is a boob, like Archie Bunker.

Roseanne is doing the left a huge favor, but like all good deeds, it will not go unpunished.

tcrosse said...

Back when she was married to Tom Arnold, Roseanne said that they were everybody's worst nightmare: White Trash with Money.

John henry said...


Blogger Craig Howard said...

Where has the word "who" disappeared to? Why do I see people referred to more and more as "that"?

"Who" refers to a person. "That" refers to an object.

Using that to refer to a person dehumanizes them. I have no idea whether it is done on purpose of if these people are just following their betters or if they are public school grads.

I suspect that at least some of it, maybe a lot of it, is done for the specific purpose of dehumanization.

When it comes time for the progfas to kill people to take their guns, as that South Carolina sheriff wants to do, it is a lot easier if they are seen as untermenschen. Non-persons.

Much harder to kill someone you think of as a "person"

John Henry

Henry said...

Once more only conservatives gain insight into their opponents.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Sean Penn, a Venezuelan dictator supporting socialist, doens't like the deplorables and considers Hillary Clinton qualified.

LOL. Asshole.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Humperdink said...

The upside - Trump has a supporter on a TV series. Additional upside - Roseanne did not take a knee when she sang the National Anthem.

The downside - She grabbed her crotch when she concluded her rendition.

You never know what you will get with this lady. Kinda like Trump.

Browndog said...

My TV viewing for the longest time was limited to sports, news, Discovery/History Channel. Needless to say I don't watch any tv anymore, other than the local news, and Tucker Carlson. I despised sitcoms, but enjoyed Seinfeld.

I tuned in last night to see how she was going to tackle politics in her big debut. Head on, no holds barred in a humorous way? What's not to like?

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Who does Number Two work for?!

MountainMan said...

Didn't watch the first version of "Roseanne" and won't watch this one either. Poor use of time from what I know about them. Getting ready for the new season of "Bosch" on Amazon and the final season of "The Americans" on FX. Those are shows worth watching.

Meade said...

Great humor. The new Roseanne show is one of the many things making America great again.

Meade said...

Thanks to President Trump.

John henry said...

I've seen Roseann do standup on TV (in the 80s) and she was OK. I liked her in the Larry Sanders Show. I've always been a huge John Goodman fan.

I don't recall ever seeing the Roseann show back in the day. So I figured I'd download a few eps via Amazon Prime and see what it was about.

It was kind of funny but so disgusting that I deleted it after 10 minutes or so. Why is it that when child abuse is done as a joke it is OK?

Pretty much every other line to come out of Roseann's mouth was "I'm going to sell the kids to gypsies", "I oughta just kill the kids" and stuff like that. (From memory, it was a month or two ago)

Why do networks think child abuse if OK if it gets ratings? Why do they think it is OK to present child abuse as if there were nothing wrong with it? Why do so many people watch this shit and laugh at the abuse?

It is disgusting.

Bill Cosby also had a top rated "comedy" show where he continually abused his son Theo. I found that disgusting and have probably mentioned it here before.

Having said that, I am interested in seeing the new show. Not interested or anxious enough to watch it on TV but interested enough that I will watch an episode or 2 to see what it is all about.

I did not read the Times article but did go to the comments. Priceless!!! If all the show accomplishes is to annoy this kind of people it will have accomplished an important mission.

John Henry

Mary Beth said...

Why do I see people referred to more and more as "that"?

I think they want to say "who" but are afraid it should be "whom" (and they are ignorant of the difference but don't want to appear ignorant), so they go with "that".

the 4chan Guy who reads Althouse said...

"I think they want to say "who" but are afraid it should be "whom" (and they are ignorant of the difference but don't want to appear ignorant), so they go with "that"."

Mary Beth is the commenter that gets it right.

The Germans have a word for this.

Unknown said...

I'm a little surprised that in the run up to this Roseanne revival no one has pointed out how Tim Allen's show, "Last Man Standing", no longer on and always given the worst primetime slot, Friday at 8PM, had the lead character who was very anti-Obama and a conservative. It's too bad the show didn't last any longer than March 2017, right at the start of the Trump presidency. Good for Roseanne, I hope the show succeeds just because her character's viewpoint is considered, to the artistic community anyway, counter-cultural. Hollywood writers seem to have no problem writing fairly and accurately (subjective opinion I know) for just about every audience except for Christians and conservatives, where it devolves almost without fail into stereotype and fanatical.

Sydney said...

The insanity of the Trump haters is what happens when politics is your religion.

Caligula said...

The demand is, "do not normalize Trump,ever" and, "no platform for Trump supporters."

Therefore any breach- no matter how small- must be viewed as catastrophic.

It must be terrible to live with the thought that someone, somewhere might be doing one or both of these things, but, it's simply unthinkable/intolerable that anyone within the media-entertainment complex would do so.

The question they should ask themselves is: how did we arrive at this barren, indefensible place and, having arrived here, how do we relocate to someplace that's defensible?

For if your politics depends on "never, ever a single breach" then you'll surely be driven insane by each and every one that inevitably occurs.

Trump is president. The Republic endures. Waves keep splashing over your rocky outcrop, despite your desperate efforts to keep it totally dry. How about you swim back to reality already?

the 4chan Guy who reads Althouse said...

"Thank you for this article. It will save me the time I might otherwise have wasted watching Roseanne."

Which could parallel:

"Thank you for this blog post. It will save me the time I might otherwise have wasted reading the New York Times."

You can save a lot of time when you fall back to Default Settings.

The Germans have a word for this.

John henry said...

Blogger Humperdink said...

P.S. I thought last night's show was pretty, damned funny."

Excuse me, could you please remove the comma between the words pretty and damned? It does not belong there.

Humperdink,

It was not my comment but what is the problem with the comma? The sentence makes perfect sense to me. I read it as "I thought last night's show was pretty (nice set design, costumes etc), (I also though it was) damned funny.

Did you know that lack of a comma can be deadly?

"Let's eat, Humperdink" is a friendly invitation

"Let's eat Humperdink" is cannibalism.

John Henry

Robert Cook said...

The creator of the ROSEANNE sitcom (along with co-creating HOME IMPROVEMENT) is Matt Williams, who is from my own hometown of Evansville, Indiana.

He's an alumnus of the University of Evansville, where my father got his college education. Other alums of UEvansville are: Ron Glass, (also a native of Evansville), who was on the great sitcom BARNEY MILLER; Kelly Giddis, currently appearing on the not-so-wonderful LAW AND ORDER:SVU; Marilyn Durham, who wrote the novel THE MAN WHO LOVED CAT DANCING, (made into a movie)--my parents knew her; and Jack McBrayer, who played the lovable doofus page Kenneth Parcell; and others I won't take the time to mention.

Bob Boyd said...

“You American intellectuals – you want so desperately to feel besieged and persecuted!” – Günter Grass

Kevin said...

Pretty much every other line to come out of Roseann's mouth was "I'm going to sell the kids to gypsies", "I oughta just kill the kids" and stuff like that. (From memory, it was a month or two ago)

Why do networks think child abuse if OK if it gets ratings? Why do they think it is OK to present child abuse as if there were nothing wrong with it? Why do so many people watch this shit and laugh at the abuse?


Because they never sold the kids to the gypsies or killed them.

prairie wind said...

The Bergall said, Someday in the near future having a sense of humor will be deemed hate speech.....

John Henry said, Why do networks think child abuse if OK if it gets ratings? Why do they think it is OK to present child abuse as if there were nothing wrong with it? Why do so many people watch this shit and laugh at the abuse?

It is disgusting.


Now, John Henry (one of my favorite Althouse commenters, by the way) isn't calling the child abuse jokes hate speech but I did think this was a good juxtaposition. Humor is funny that way.

I enjoyed the original Roseanne and had a friend who felt the same as John Henry about the child abuse jokes. He just couldn't understand that those jokes were about LOVE, not child abuse. The Conners didn't do a lot of hugs and I-love-yous but they loved each other. The show was a reaction to other, more saccharine sitcom families. The Conners aren't going to sell their kids to the gypsies; they are going to joke about it because selling children is not even in the realm of possibility for them.

Who is Jerry-on-the-fishing-boat, though? I don't remember a Jerry.

SeanF said...

Humperdink: The downside - She grabbed her crotch when she concluded her rendition.

Yeah, but she's a star, and when you're a star they let you do that.

Anonymous said...

R.Cook: I think I've heard this (incorrect) statement before, or something very close to it, but I can't remember who said it. Can you identify it?

It's many iterations were meant ironically. Obviously the U.S. has classes, and always has. But it was a "middle-class nation" - a broad and prosperous middle-class that set the national "tone", the upper and lower ranges of "middle class" were not all that physically segregated, and the poor and the true upper-class didn't intrude much into its quotidian culture.

The joke was supposed to be that "middle class" comprised a very large income span, and both the quite well-to-do and those of quite modest (if stable and secure) means identified as the same class. But that's a middle-class nation for you.

(Of course that's changing. Who wants a boring, vulgar middle-class nation when you can be a vibrant and exciting Brazil Norte?)

iowan2 said...

They can't watch a show where the Rosanne character isn't persuaded that she made some kind of grievous mistake.

You have missed the entire narrative. Mistakes are just that, mistakes. What is going on for the last 2 years is the accusation that any supporter of President Trump is a "less than" citizen. Stupid, deplorable, uneducated and uneducatable, treasonous, dupe, evil.

As to the asinine notion that democracy is at stake, is the real life proof that leftist have no knowledge of the United States and its founding principles. IF the federal govt was limited to it constitutional powers, the President, no matter how evil, would be incapable of threatening our govt. But alas, leftist always forget that when they usurp power, conservatives will do exactly the same, only against the leftist.

MadisonMan said...

Who is Jerry-on-the-fishing-boat, though? I don't remember a Jerry.

Roseanne had another kid late in the first series of the show. You know a sitcom is doomed when they bring another little kid in.

See: Cousin Oliver on the Brady Bunch. Andrew Keaton on Family Ties.

Chuck said...

Well, I am no fan of Trump.

But it just seems to me that it would be so much easier for television script writers to write fresh, funny dialogue with Roseanne Barr as a Trump supporter.

And does anybody think that having Roseanne as a Trump supporter will make the show pro-Trump? To me, that would be like assuming that because Archie Bunker was a bit of a reactionary racist meant that the show was reactionary and racist. In fact, the show was the opposite. It was a vehicle for the producer's (Norman Lear's) liberal politics.

Birches said...

Good for Roseanne to recognize where she came from, her characters ages and their lifestyle. Of course their Trump supporters! It would be silly if they weren't.

Michael said...

"someone that supports Trump wants to end democracy in America and despises me for who I am, thus they are my enemy."

Like so much calumny from the Left, this is pure projection. They find democracy to be an inconvenience, and despise anyone insufficiently "woke." This they justify in their own minds by accusing their opponents of it.

Anne in Rockwall, TX said...

Robert Cook with too many to mention.

Mention them! For some reason I really enjoy hearing about people from small towns or middle america that made it big.

I don't know why that is. Someone says "David Letterman went to Ball State." I think to myself, that is so cool, how did he get to where he is?

I had to Google that Jack guy though. Does anyone else think small-town-made-it-big stories are interesting?

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Archie Bunker was a bit of a reactionary racist meant that the show was reactionary and racist. In fact, the show was the opposite. It was a vehicle for the producer's (Norman Lear's) liberal politics.

The brilliance of that show came from making Archie a sympathetic character. He was a wrong thinker, but he had a good heart. He just was raised in a less enlightened time, so he had some bad ideas. If a similar show was created now that would be impossible. He would be depicted as a totally irredeemable monster. There was actually some controversy about the movie "Three Billboards" because one of the characters, a racist, was portrayed as not being totally and irredeemably evil.

Robert Cook said...

"...Jack McBrayer, who played the lovable doofus page Kenneth Parcell;"

...on the wonderful 30 Rock!

John henry said...


Blogger prairie wind said...

He just couldn't understand that those jokes were about LOVE, not child abuse.

First, thank you for your compliment on my comments.

I do not think that Roseann and Bill Cosby (characters) were intentionally abusing their children. I do not think they were trying to be hateful. I DO think that they loved their children.

Does a 10 year old child hearing her mother say "I'm going to sell you to gypsies." understand the "love" in that statement? What does a 10 year old child hear in that statement?

It is tough enough being a child without having to wonder if your mother really has your back. the child tells themself Mom didn't really mean it. Probably. But she was awfully mad. Maybe she really did mean it, sort of, for a second there."

Do you remember when you were 10? Do you remember how your mind worked? Do you remember how easy it was to plant a doubt, even unintentionally?

A parent should never allow for any doubt about it. A parent must be an absolute rock of protection, stability and a "sure thing". Not giving in to every demand of course. Not failing to discipline when needed and as firmly as needed.

"I love you" is not something that "goes without saying". Yes, of course it should go without saying and must be demonstrated daily in hundreds of ways. Including discipline.

But it has to be said too. Multiple times daily. Does Roseann ever say to her kids "I love you."? Does anyone in any sitcom? It is pretty rare. Since so many people base their lives on sitcom characters, they should be setting an example.

What must NEVER be said is anything at all, no matter how funny, no matter how insignificant it may seem to the parent "Oh, Tina, sometimes I could just wring your neck!" that can ever induce the faintest doubt about that love. the 10 year old kid just doesn't hear the love in that statement. What she or he hears is doubt about whether they care about them.

John Henry

Robert Cook said...

"Someone says 'David Letterman went to Ball State.' I think to myself, that is so cool, how did he get to where he is?">

He started out as a funny TV weather guy in Indianapolis!

Meade said...

SeanF said...
Humperdink: The downside - She grabbed her crotch when she concluded her rendition.

Yeah, but she's a star, and when you're a star they let you do that.
------------------------------------------------

Okay, I don't normally approve of this but...

WINNER!

miklos000rosza said...

"a sense of humor as hate-speech" brings to mind how in the Michel Houellebecq novel "The Possibility of an Island" the main character is a clone -- who finds laughter and the human sense of humor utterly baffling.

That's the first thing to disappear as one becomes a machine.

Meade said...

Also, I have to say — I love it when Robert Cook lets his Indiana-pride freak flag fly.

John henry said...

I said:

A parent should never allow for any doubt about it.

for should, read must.

John Henry

Chuck said...

Ron, I don't disagree with your characterization. But to take it a step further, the show was about the gradual breaking of Archie's beliefs, and the breakdown of Archie as a conservative. Archie was humanized when he broke and succumbed to the others' beliefs. Edith was depicted as warm-hearted when she almost subconsciously (or, rarely, consciously) broke from Archie.

So again I say that making Roseanne a Trump supporter doesn't necessarily make the show pro-Trump. We'll see how it plays out. I'm not predicting anything, but to me the most likely scenario is a kind of All in the Family scenario, albeit less overtly displaying the politics of Norman Lear.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Thinking about Archie I'm reminded of a article/blog post I saw awhile ago. Twentyish woman watches the original Star Trek episodes and, since some of the episodes aren't totally woke, denounces the whole thing as patriarchal bad think. To be fair, she does specifically reference the one where Kirk and an old flame switch bodies against his will so she can command a starship, and it turns out that women are too emotional for command, which is the worst episode ever, even worse that the space hippies one. But it was created in the 60s specifically to be a vehicle to advance progressive causes. But if there is even one non-woke element, then the whole thing has to be thrown in the ash heap.

Before you follow the URL, I have to worn you. You will never be able to unsee it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pNQYHvhnms

Robert Cook said...

Oh, and Halston, the fashion designer, grew up in Evansville, though he was not born there. One of mother's friends among our neighbors had gone to high school with Haltson, and she told my mother Halston was "just one of the girls," (referring to her group of friends.)

His mother was in a bridge club with my grandmother.

Gahrie said...

The brilliance of that show came from making Archie a sympathetic character.

That wasn't the intent. Meathead was supposed to be the star of the show and the popular one....Archie was supposed to be the bad guy...the audience went a different way. The same thing happened with Family Ties. The parents were supposed to be the stars, but the audience identified with Alex more, so he became the focus.

LYNNDH said...

I never watched the original show. I did watch last night and loved it. Great one liners.

Ralph L said...

My grandmother often told us about her grandmother telling her mother, "Why don't you whip her, Jennie Bet?"

The whipping granny would eat the heart off a slice of watermelon and pass the rest on to a grandchild. But she'd raised 9 children during Reconstruction on Tobacco road.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

That wasn't the intent. Meathead was supposed to be the star of the show and the popular one....Archie was supposed to be the bad guy...the audience went a different way.

Probably because most of the audience couldn't identify with a smug college student who was leaching off his father-in-law while being a prick to him.

Gahrie said...

@John Henry:

What was the purpose of fairy tales? (The real ones, not the Disneyfied versions) Were they child abuse?

I bet you are a fan of Dr. Spock (may he burn in Hell) too.

John henry said...

And one last comment (I really need to get some work done)

The pussy hat daughter in the clip makes an excellent point that we all need to make to our daughters and sons too. She does it in an obnoxious way that obscures it but it is there:

Rosean calls her grandaughter(?) "princess" and pussy hat woman (PHW) says "or engineer or doctor or..." (from memory)

Nothing wrong with calling a daughter a princess or telling her she is cute etc. She also needs to be told, pretty much daily, that she can be anything she wants to be. She does not need a man to be someone. (Hillary is a HORRIBLE role model for girls)

So obnoxious as PHW is in the way she does it and the timing, she is absolutely spot on.

My daughter daughter is a ChEng and currently director of operations for a medical device manufacturer. She grew up knowing that she could do that. Not that she had to, that she could do anything she wanted. (And a mom and mom to be. And, still, my little princess)

She also grew up knowing to never put up with bullshit from boys or men. She has had very little problem with boys or men trying to hand her bullshit to put up with.

John Henry

Anne in Rockwall, TX said...

Halston was one of my mother's favorites. She was born and raised in Fort Wayne. I wonder if she knew knew was a fellow Hoosier?

Murph said...

That laughing in the short video clip is to my ear like fingernails scratching on a blackboard. It reminded me of why I dumped my TV over a dozen years ago (and don't miss it.)

Relying entirely on that short bit for my opinion (FWIW), the script is cute and pointed, but the delivery puts me in mind of a duo-comedy team on the order of Laurel & Hardy, or Abbott & Costello -- a straight line setting up the punch line.
It's a mirror image of Bunker & fam, unoriginal but for its Trumpian political bias - so daring in these times of anti-Trump ruling the airways.
Given that bias premise, it's predictable and thus boring. Even if I had a TV I wouldn't watch it, notwithstanding that I'd be in sympathy with its direction.

PB said...

I saw the first episode and thought it was funny. Unfortunately Roseanne's voice drove me away.

Murph said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
John henry said...

Blogger Gahrie said...

What was the purpose of fairy tales? (The real ones, not the Disneyfied versions) Were they child abuse?

Not sure what your question is here. Some of them are very, very dark. Hansel and Gretel, for example, scared the crap out of me as a kid.

But they were usually about other people abusing other people's kids. Sometimes other people abusing their own kids.

It was other people. Not one's own mother doing it to oneself.

I never really though about their purpose but now that you mention it, it is a good question. Perhaps to teach kids that there are bad people out there? Perhaps just because we love scary stuff? (Halloween, horror movies, haunted houses, Edgar Allen Poe etc)

I bet you are a fan of Dr. Spock (may he burn in Hell) too.

Never read him though I have read plenty about him. Not a fan. I'm a believer in setting clear boundries, allowing quite a bit of freedom within those boundries and discipline when they break the boundries.

If I had to recommend one parenting book, it would be be Spencer Johnson's "One Minute Parent". It is pretty much what I said above and by the time I read it I had been doing it for 8-10 years. But it does explain it pretty clearly and simply.

But that's probably a topic for another thread.

John Henry

Anonymous said...

Definitely an attempt to do a mirror image of All in the Family- with the left and right sides in opposite positions. Its fascinating how the AITF character Irene Lorenzo has translated/devolved to the compulsive virtue-signaling, pussy-hat wearing Jackie. Come to think of it, Jackie is pretty close to the original.

tcrosse said...

Jean Shepherd called Indiana the Midwestern New Jersey.

prairie wind said...

John Henry, I grew up in a family where no one hugged and no one said "I love you." I never for a moment questioned whether my parents loved me. They made that clear in so many ways that saying it would have been odd. In my family. I was a kid so, of course, I knew (!) my siblings didn't want me around but we all grew out of that. As adults, we all hug and we end phone calls with "love you"...still keeping it casual, I guess, by leaving the "I" off the sentence.

My kids, though, grew up hearing "I love you" all the time. From friends, from my husband and me. Hugs were always abundant. Sometimes I think that the rock-solid knowledge that my parents loved me was better than kids hearing it so frequently that they don't really hear it.

I started watching Love, a Netflix original series, the other day and one of the characters says "I love you" to his girlfriend. She flips out, says that his saying that all the time puts a burden on her to respond in kind. Feeling obligated to respond with "I love you" devalues her response. Maybe I understand that because of the way I grew up, when "I love you" was too special to say aloud.

Our family went through a terrible time (husband was incarcerated) and the kids and I came out of that with a better understanding of "I love you." We all HEAR it now when we say it; partly because that terrible time was also the time when the kids learned that love in our family is rock-solid, that I had their back ALWAYS. You'd think my husband would be the guy most certain that he is loved (we never left him; we love him) but he is still insecure about it. When my son jokingly said "Fuck off" to me, I understood him in the Roseanne way: he said that to me not because he wanted me to fuck off but because he doesn't want me to fuck off. He knows I love him no matter what. My husband was upset by it and my son said, "She knows how I feel about her." That's love. :-) In our family. (Even with all that love and understanding, I don't encourage the kids--now adults--to speak to anyone that way.)

This might sound a little nuts to those from other families. I'm okay with that.

Anonymous said...

John Henry: Do you remember when you were 10? Do you remember how your mind worked? Do you remember how easy it was to plant a doubt, even unintentionally?

Yes, I remember being 10, and I even remember my elders using comical threats that involved business transactions with gypsies. In fact, I have fond memories of an entire cornucopia of ridiculous hyperbolic threats.

What must NEVER be said is anything at all, no matter how funny, no matter how insignificant it may seem to the parent "Oh, Tina, sometimes I could just wring your neck!" that can ever induce the faintest doubt about that love. the 10 year old kid just doesn't hear the love in that statement. What she or he hears is doubt about whether they care about them.

I'm sure there are families where threats to wring a child's neck are no laughing matter, rather than usage of a hoary folk-expression, but as a blanket statement about hyperbolic parental threats, that's nonsense. As is the notion that a child with parents who love him is going to be psychologically damaged by the slightest misstep or misjudgment ("NEVER be said" "Inducing the slightest doubt"! - oh good grief) a parent ever makes. If that's the standard, every human ever born would've been an emotional basket-case.

Thorley Winston said...

And does anybody think that having Roseanne as a Trump supporter will make the show pro-Trump? To me, that would be like assuming that because Archie Bunker was a bit of a reactionary racist meant that the show was reactionary and racist. In fact, the show was the opposite. It was a vehicle for the producer's (Norman Lear's) liberal politics.

Yes, and Roseanne is a vehicle for Roseanne Barr’s views. Perhaps not as overt as what Norman Lear did in All in the Family since she’s apparently not setting up a strawman character to knock down every week but I doubt that she would bring back the show just to make a mockery of her own beliefs.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The actual deplorables in the nation are the masses of Hillary Clinton supporters who refuse to see her Private Server for international cash as any sort of problem.

Bruce Hayden said...

“Nearly 60 million people voted for Donald Trump and, outside of FNC and the conservative online community, there is almost no representation of those people in the media except as slack jawed yokels and bigots. So the plan is to write off 20% of the total population, and about half of the voters? Which is how you got Trump in the first place.”

I think that is the point here - doubling down, then doubling down again, on Never Trumping, is not a viable business plan. We are seeing a race to the bottom there, that alienates more and more Americans, not just those on the extreme right, but in the middle too. Trump really is Making America Great Again, esp after the 8 year Obama Recession and associated malaise. Much of middle America can feel it. The better he does, the more he accomplishes, the more that Hollywood and the left double down in their #Resistance. Which ay be personally satisfying to them, but is horrible as a business plan.

walter said...

roesch/voltaire said...I don’t have time to watch this or most of the other crap on TV no matter what the political view, but I would watch Northern Exposer
--
Hey..whatever turns you on.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

I guess I thought Roseanne was a lefty. Maybe I mixed her up with Rosie O'Donnell. Anyway, I always thought she and her show were very funny.

It was a gutsy move making her character a Trump supporter, whatever he own political stance. She could have taken the easy way by making a relatively minor character the Trump fan, or even by making Dan the one. I applaud her brave choice, and I'll watch the show (I haven't seen it yet).

Gahrie said...

I guess I thought Roseanne was a lefty.

She used to be. (might still be)

I suspect she is one of those people who enjoy pissing people off and being unpopular.

Bruce Hayden said...

“I do not think that Roseann and Bill Cosby (characters) were intentionally abusing their children. I do not think they were trying to be hateful. I DO think that they loved their children.”

My partner would attest to that with Cosby. She dealt with him at one time quite a bit, whe he was working in Vegas doing shows. She would sneak his family in and out of the hotel through the shop she was running there, so that they could avoid the public. And got invited up to their suite on several occasions for champagne (he was never anything but proper, and at least one of the women she brought with her up there was willing to have sex, and he never showed any interest). He was fairly unique at the time, because he brought the entire family along. It wasn’t the usual guys gone wild, Everything that Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas, sort of thing with Cosby, as it was for most every other star of his level, but rather, he almost always had his family along, doing the family thing. He and his wife placed far more importance on their family than anyone else she saw there. It was very obvious to her that they very much loved their kids, who were a big part of their lives.

Comanche Voter said...

The average "true" IQ of the New York Times reader commentariat barely reaches room temperature on a cool day. But no I won't watch Roseanne. Has zero to do with her political stance on the show or indeed her political stance in life. But then I watch virtually no TV, so Roseanne and her show isn't losing much in my viewing absence.

Anonymous said...

Note to Lorne Michaels : its time to get back to anti-establishment humor.

Bruce Hayden said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ron Winkleheimer said...

I guess I thought Roseanne was a lefty.

She is, she's also from a working class background. So she actually knows what its liked to be screwed over by "The Man," as opposed to most liberals who pretend to be standing up to "The Man" when, in fact, they are "The Man."

I believe its in the linked interview where she corrects the interviewer who calls Trump a homophobe. She tells the interviewer that he isn't homophobic. So the interviewer states that he hasn't endorsed gay marriage, as if that settles the matter. Well, actually Trump endorsed gay marriage on the Howard Stern show 10 years before Obama and Hillary ever thought of doing so. Obama openly opposed gay marriage right up until it was politically advantageous to change his position. The opposition to Trump is not based on reason. He simply isn't the right sort. Not. Our. Kind.

cubanbob said...

And does anybody think that having Roseanne as a Trump supporter will make the show pro-Trump? To me, that would be like assuming that because Archie Bunker was a bit of a reactionary racist meant that the show was reactionary and racist. In fact, the show was the opposite. It was a vehicle for the producer's (Norman Lear's) liberal politics."

Chuck it may have escaped your attention that All In The Family debut in 1971 and Nixon won by a yuuuge landslide in 1972. Not exactly what Norman Lear ( or Carroll O'Connor) intended.

Bruce Hayden said...


“I think they want to say "who" but are afraid it should be "whom" (and they are ignorant of the difference but don't want to appear ignorant), so they go with "that"”.

I think that Who/Whom/That is a class thing. My mother was big on the distinctions. According to her, you use who/whom for people, and “that” for objects. And the difference between “who” and “whom” is their case, which in English means either nominative or objective. Knowing which to use when merely requires that you utilize the one that you would have used in Latin (because a couple hundred years ago the rules that were being developed for such were based on the Latin). Of course, few people take Latin anymore, which is one big reason that you seem to see and hear more and more incorrect use of pronouns. Dropping the “m” off of “whom” whenever you are uncertain which to use is a fairly simple and innocuous solution, which is why, I think, that the use of “whom” is starting to sound almost stilted. Unfortunately, many of the other pronouns are much harder to handle, to hide their misuse - esp to those like me, who had 6 years of Latin (and had a mother correcting his grammar welll into their 40s).

Henry said...

And does anybody think that having Roseanne as a Trump supporter will make the show pro-Trump?

They should have made her a Lannister supporter.

William said...

I mssed Roseanne, but I did catch the BBC show, The Crown. It explored similar themes, and Claire Foy based her performance on that of Roseanne. It's worth watching, even though Claire Foy doesn't have Roseanne Barr's comic timing.

William said...

This could be a shrewd business decision on the part of Roseanne. There's a vast, untapped market of Trump supporters out there, and the first sitcom to mine it will make millions.

rehajm said...

Those ratings- That's a lot of deplorables out there

Humperdink said...

John said: ""Let's eat, Humperdink" is a friendly invitation

"Let's eat Humperdink" is cannibalism."


Close, but no stogie. My point was to mock the original poster. His feeling of superiority oozes with every keystroke. A person who is on a "personal crusade" to run around the internet correcting grammatical errors has some issues, far greater than the poster committing the grievous grammatical mistake.

If the beloved poster wishes to offer classes on sentence structure, grammar or spelling, let him offer one for our wayward citizens. I am sure the class will overflow with eager students.

walter said...

Her character clearly embodies the typical "tell me how to vote" Femplorable Hil imagines.

walter said...

Rosanne should work in one of those "Trump that Bitch" shirts.

Eric said...

“someone that (sic) supports Trump wants to end democracy in America and despises me for who I am, thus they are my enemy.”

They do not seem to realize that when they "other" Trump supporters, they are "othering" themselves as well.

Yancey Ward said...

Roseanne Barr has always struck me as a born contrarian- someone who will pick up any argument and run with it if no one else in a room will do so. I think it likely that she is playacting as a Trump supporter all the time, and it is a brilliant maneuver in show business. I just question whether or not she can continue with this on ABC- the pressure on the network to cancel the show will be intense.

John henry said...

Blogger Humperdink said...

John said: ""Let's eat, Humperdink" is a friendly invitation

"Let's eat Humperdink" is cannibalism."

Close, but no stogie. My point was to mock the original poster. His feeling of superiority oozes with every keystroke

I understood what you were doing and even agree with your comment.

I was just trying to have a bit of fun with commas.

And, to help pay for this comment, let me send everyone to Ann's portal (Ain't Amazon a wonderful thing?) to buy a copy of "Eats, shoots, and leaves" Funny book and a good learning experience about English grammar.

I am editing a new, collected, edition of John McConnell's 4 books on quality. He is Australian and they spell words funny and use punctuation funny. It is driving MS-Word nuts. Interesting project on a lot of levels.


John Henry

stlcdr said...

John Henry, good comments but I think you are missing one fundamental: television is not a ‘how to’ manual. The abuse that you object to is , of course, not appropriate in the real world. The show is for adults, who have probably thought the same at one time or another. Just like violence in the movies - and more and more on TV - and cartoon violence, it attracts our base instincts that we don’t act on. It’s just an outlet.

walter said...

prairie wind said...I started watching Love, a Netflix original series, the other day and one of the characters says "I love you" to his girlfriend. She flips out, says that his saying that all the time puts a burden on her to respond in kind.
--
Heh..now there's a flip of the script..like the somewhat recent stories about boyfriends poking holes in condoms.

walter said...

Does he also ask her if his jeans make him look fat?

Snark said...

There is nothing in those NYT comments that suggest people are seeking to "protect their precious minds from comedy that shows a family divided over Trump". Seems to me that they're simply voting with their remote controls. A practice that is as old as, well, as old as remote controls. We collectively shape what ends up on our TVs - and what stays on our TVs -
through our interest or lack thereof. It's a deeply rooted form of cultural democracy, actually. And we like democracy, don't we?

WA-mom said...

When I think about it, it is just unbelievable that it has taken more than a year for someone to mock those pink, hand-made-by-woman, pussy hats. That was the thoroughly ridiculous display in my lifetime.

Real American said...

To my thinking, someone that doesn't support Trump wants to end democracy in America and despises me for who I am, thus they are my enemy.

Fixed! so easy it is just to hate people who disagree about politics, particularly over something so worth so little.

tcrosse said...

I started watching Love, a Netflix original series, the other day and one of the characters says "I love you" to his girlfriend. She flips out, says that his saying that all the time puts a burden on her to respond in kind. Feeling obligated to respond with "I love you" devalues her response. Maybe I understand that because of the way I grew up, when "I love you" was too special to say aloud.

In perhaps the only poignant Seinfeld episode, George wants to tell his latest girlfriend that he loves her, particularly to get the same back from her. He nerves himself up and says it, but she doesn't react. Knowing that she's hard of hearing, he says it again. "I heard you the first time", she says. George is demolished.

narayanan said...

RoseAnne seems very reality oriented; She even addresses child abuse

from her twitter feed

4 those who wonder-back in the day when I was called a 'liberal' by journalists, I used to answer-'I'm not a Liberal, I'm a radical' & I still am-I voted Trump 2 shake up the status quo & the staid establishment. — Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) December 27, 2017

both parties hate @POTUS bc he has destroyed both of them-those who sit at the table where $ is stolen from the ppl & put in2 private pockets. WAKE UP — Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) December 28, 2017

let's help to awaken our leftist brothers and sisters about child sex trafficking in America and the world, and how our @Potus is battling it like no Pres b4 him-send links, thanks! — Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) December 28, 2017

When the narrative gets too righty, run to the middle. When the narrative gets too lefty, run to the middle. HOW TO SAVE AMERICA. you're welcome! #MiddleWay — Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) December 28, 2017

I have the exact same ideas as I've always had-that problems r 4 solving-I just see that new methods are called for-'When they go extreme, I run to the middle'-Roseanne Barr.

— Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) December 28, 2017

When 'Roseanne' first went on the air in '88, it was boycotted by women on the right who felt that fat working class opinionated moms were a disgrace 2 America. Now, it's those same women, but they r on the left. #LeftIsTheNewRight #SameShitDifferentDay

— Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) December 28, 2017

Achilles said...

Gahrie said...
I guess I thought Roseanne was a lefty.

She used to be. (might still be)


A lot of us are what used to be leftists.

John F. Kennedy would be run out of the current democrat party. A leftist right now is indistinguishable in many ways from a Red Arm in China several decades ago.

n.n said...

The followers of tomorrow, today.

Meade said...

@narayanan: thanks for those. Really excellent.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

"Where has the word "who" disappeared to?"

That should be "Where has the word "who" gone?", or better yet, "Why say 'that' instead of 'who'?".

Jim at said...

Trump or no Trump, it's dreck.
It was dreck the first time around.
It's going to be dreck now.

Thank gawd baseball season starts on Thursday.

Robert Cook said...

"John F. Kennedy would be run out of the current democrat party. A leftist right now is indistinguishable in many ways from a Red Arm in China several decades ago."

Who in the Democratic Party is like that? Their problem is they are corporatists.

Humperdink said...

John said: "I was just trying to have a bit of fun with commas."

Fair enough. Cheers!

Jim at said...

P.S. I thought last night's show was pretty, damned funny."

Excuse me, could you please remove the comma between the words pretty and damned? It does not belong there.


Yes, it does.
The show was pretty funny. The show was damned funny.
Comma separates the two adjectives.

tcrosse said...

Who in the Democratic Party is like that? Their problem is they are corporatists.

If the Republicans are the party of the rich, the Democrats are the party of the filthy stinking rich.

JaimeRoberto said...

How dare they let a character portray a Trump supporter. It should be all Will & Grace all the time in order to convince the public that everyone is gay.

The Vault Dweller said...

I guess it is not surprise that a lot on the left don't want to see this show. My guess is most people don't like seeing their political Ox get gored, so I can understand not wanting to watch the show for that reason. But I suspect for more than a few on the left there is a deeper meaning than that. A lot of people on the left are very strongly emotionally invested in the idea that they are on the left which makes them a good person versus those evil people on the right. I suspect it related to an underlying moral inferiority complex. And since retweeting meaningless hashtags, or changing your facebook profile image to support some cause or another can only make one feel so good, and since doing actually substantively good things takes more effort than many are willing to put in, adopting a belief system that the other side, the right side, is actually motivated by evil and hatred and bigotry can help someone feel good about themselves in comparison. Seeing people on that side portrayed in a normal manner in what is their private lives, strongly conflicts with that worldview.

Gahrie said...

P.S. I thought last night's show was pretty, damned funny."

Excuse me, could you please remove the comma between the words pretty and damned? It does not belong there.

Yes, it does.
The show was pretty funny. The show was damned funny.
Comma separates the two adjectives.


No..as originally written "pretty" is describing "show" not "funny". "Damned funny" is also describing "show".

Robert Cook said...

"If the Republicans are the party of the rich, the Democrats are the party of the filthy stinking rich."

I wouldn't make the distinction myself, but granting your distinction for argument's sake, it means both parties are confederates in their betrayal of the American people.

tcrosse said...

it means both parties are in their betrayal of the American people.

You state it more elegantly than I do.





Michael K said...

I would watch Northern Exposer which had an interesting cross section of characters and view points.

R/V and I finally agree on something, although I hope that was a mis spell.

I don't watch TV except a few sports shows but my office staff convinced me to watch "Northern Exposure" and I thought it was good until the last season when the writers seemed to run out of ideas and got weird.

I do watch "Doc Martin" on British TV and like it.

Mr. Fabulous said...

(World Famous Lurker says....)

"P.S. I thought last night's show was pretty, damned funny."

IMHO, no comma is needed. "Pretty" can actually be an adjective, adverb or (in rare cases) a noun. In this usage, "pretty" appears to me to be an adverb, modifying "damned funny". So, no comma is needed. Even if it were an adjective in this usage, you still wouldn't need a comma, as you would normally instead use "and" when using just 2 adjectives in a row to modify the same noun: I thought last night's show was pretty and damned funny (damned in this case being an adverb modifying the adjective funny.) As an adverb, in this usage, "pretty" modifies "damned funny", so no comma is needed between the 2 adverbs pretty and damned. Assuming I correctly remember my grammar, an adverb can modify a verb, adjective or another adverb, while an adjective can only modify a noun.

Matt said...

So Trump hatred overrules positive (i'm assuming, didnt watch the show) portrayals of LGBTSUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPEALIDOCIOUS characters.

Add another page to the lefty rulebook.

Trumpit said...

They have a token black kid because the cast is too white? It reminds me of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - a terrible, and racist movie.

Joanne Jacobs said...

My parents used to threaten to send us to Siberia. We had long conversations on shipping methods, provision of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the trip, etc.

We were pretty sure they were joking.

HT said...

The scenes I saw with Jackie and Roseanne over the election seemed stilted and weren’t that funny. Funnier with the sound down. Roseanne was not talking to her sister, but to whom she believes are those many who disagree with her. She sounded tired. Personally I love it that she is a Dump supporter, and I only hope things loosen up in the next episodes. There are so many ways to make it funny (-ier), I hope they find some.

Unknown said...

> I doubt that she would bring back the show just to make a mockery of her own beliefs.

Scott Adams says he writes Dilbert for the audience, not for himself.

Couldn't a talented entertainer speak as her characters without selling ideology?

I guess not on late night comedy anymore. Do I have to care about Jimmy Kimmel's kid?

> Roseanne Barr has always struck me as a born contrarian- someone who will pick up any argument and run with it if no one else in a room will do so. I think it likely that she is playacting as a Trump supporter all the time, and it is a brilliant maneuver in show business

good! PC people so demand conformance to their evolving values - safe from guns, safe from speech, same from doing what the old people say, safe from Hitler others elected, safe from every feeling bad...

She can hold up a mirror for that.

Steven said...

R.Cook: I think I've heard this (incorrect) statement before,

It's not incorrect, it's ironic. It points out that in the US, people bend over backwards to pretend (or even believe) they're in the middle class.

For example, all those rich coasties who whine about the reduction in SALT deductions (or previously were demanding Congress index the AMT), then turn around and talk about the need to tax the rich and close their loopholes. Corner them on it, and they'll claim that the inflated status-position luxuries they spend their high incomes on are actual necessities, and thus they're not rich because they spent themselves into debt.

roesch/voltaire said...

MK thanks for the correction,(Yes I was in a hurry to catch bus) and I also liked Dr. Martin so now we have two things in common-- you might try first season of Black Mirror.

Yancey Ward said...

Try all seasons of Black Mirror. An amazing anthology.