ABC had brought back Roseanne Barr, and at first all was well. Ratings were good, and as the BBC has reported, “critics praised the sitcom for tackling American political divisions in a manner sympathetic to the millions of people who voted for Mr Trump - a group which often complained that TV wasn't made for them any more - while still entertaining millions of his opponents”. Then Ms Barr began to express herself via Twitter.
And that was when it all began to go downhill, because what she Tweeted was neither funny, nor excusable. It was just plain racist. She “said Valerie Jarrett [long term aide to former President Obama] was the child of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Planet of the Apes film”. On top of that, she claimed that George Soros was a Nazi who turned his fellow Jews in to the Germans, while stealing their wealth.
Departures from the team lined up for the second series of the Roseanne revival began. She said she would be leaving Twitter. Then she belatedly began the apologies. It didn’t work. ABC has cancelled her show. But somewhere in Contrarian Land, the excuses were being readied. And there with them was Brendan O’Neill.
Bren starts almost coherently, telling “Her tweet was racist as hell. It wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t ‘un-PC’. It wasn’t a political remark that got a bit too spicy. It was racist … ABC is within its rights to cancel shows. This is what has happened to Barr: her recently resurrected sitcom Roseanne has been pulled” before going totally gaga.
“The unrestrained glee with which the liberal media and Twitterati have greeted the cancellation of Roseanne is not about Barr’s comments on Jarrett. Or more accurately, it isn’t only about that. They’re delighted primarily because they hate Barr. They loathe that she is an extraordinarily popular comedienne who bristles at and mocks the liberal elite. She hates Hillary. She has said positive things about Trump, the greatest no-no in LA”.
Er, WHAT? But there was more. “To the new left, anyone who cares primarily about ‘jobs’ is suspect because it means they prefer to focus on economic issues over the identitarian, emotionalist and esteem-driven blather that makes up so much of left thinking today”. Brendan, she was bang out of order. It’s got stuff all to do with the “new left”.
More relevant, as Ken Vogel noted, was that “GEORGE SOROS spokesperson responds to ROSEANNE's claim that he turned in fellow Jews to the Nazis, while stealing their wealth: ‘Such false allegations are insulting to the victims of the Holocaust’ & ‘an affront to Mr. Soros & his family, who against the odds managed to survive’”.
Or that, as Mehdi Hasan warned, Combover Crybaby Donald Trump would side with Roseanne the racist: “Lots of journos joking about the fact that Trump will mention Roseanne and her cancellation tonight. What's not funny is that we know the president of the United States will defend/promote an open racist tonight and the media won't call him out for it. It's baked in. Expected”. And the cries of “censorship” weren’t making it.
Not with Ricky Gervais, who knows a thing or two about rubbing up against the limits of acceptability: “This wasn't censorship. This was business. She hasn't been prosecuted. She hasn't been silenced. She can carry on saying what she wants. It's just that her employers have decided they don't want to employ her any more. This is freedom”.
And yet more relevant, as Bonnie Greer reminded everyone, was that “This #RoseanneCancelled really hasn't happened before. The head of the network-ABC Pres. #ChanningDungey is an African American woman. She did it, and her bosses backed her up It's pretty amazing”. Roseanne had been raking in the money for ABC. The easy decision would have been to continue letting it be raked in .
It took a brave network head, backed up by brave bosses, to do the right thing. But closeted away in his contrarian bunker, Brendan O’Neill bleats about the “new left”, while pretending the cancellation of Roseanne is some kind of “liberal media” stitch-up.
It’s about someone overstepping the mark, and someone else doing the right thing. If Brendan O’Neill can’t get his head round that, that is very much his problem.
6 comments:
I had assumed that even ABC had brought back Roseanne in order to monetise Donald Trump's base, since the business of business is business. But I now reckon that the network always knew that she would do something like this.
Thus, by discrediting and removing her, the people of whom and for whom she spoke could once again be silenced, and rendered invisible. Silenced, and rendered invisible, despite supporting and including the President of the United States.
Britain has the most Americanised media culture outside that country. We have been warned.
I don't like Soros - he made billions from gambling on exchange rates and currency manipulations. Which makes him suspect at the very least. I wouldn't trust the fellow to hold a door open. But this accusation against him is a load of bollocks. He's just another capitalist spiv, nothing more.
Barr is a racist shithouse and O'Neill is a tenth rate opportunist far right hypocritical gobshite. Unfortunately, there are way too many of both aberrations. Hence the appalling condition of mainstream media and what passes for "entertainment" therein.
Brendan has blocked me on Instagram after I pointed out his hypocrisy about politicisation of Islamic terrorist attacks and school shootings.
Lol
Brendan's problem is that he's trying to be a contrarian, but only ever produces what everyone expects of him.
I think he and Douglas Murray toss a coin to see whose turn it is to do it next.
Wow, Ricky Gervais seems to have changed from his usual schtick of defending awful bigotry with claims of censorship, but I'll praise him for this. He explained the truth perfectly here, well done to him.
Barr should be hated. Brendan could never hate a racist because he is one, and so thinks people rightly hating bigoted morons is somehow a massive affront. She deserves to be hated, and so too do Trump and all his supporters who still support this kind of evil racist crap.
Well done, ABC. Somehow I had a feeling they would do the right thing here, but not quite sure why I thought that. The laughs one can get from Trumpeters hoping Fox will pick up Roseanne, when both Fox AND ABC will soon be owned by the same people, are good too.
How can Bren say the left hate Barr for mocking liberals? Here's one who doesn't; I also don't hate the idea of a Conservative show being popular (King of the Hill was deliberately Conservative, and that is one of the best comedy shows of the last 20 years). Come to that, most comedy mocks liberals: look at Stewart Lee.
It is possible to be Conservative without being bigoted (as Mike Judge showed, and as Barr showed in her last Roseanne series).
And I'm not delighted that the other actors (and everyone else connected with the show) have lost their jobs - especially Sara Gilbert, who isn't on TV enough these days.
"Liberal elite" though: from someone who defends the non-liberal elite whenever he gets the chance.
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