You’ve no doubt heard that the third most popular show on television was cancelled Tuesday. The show’s star and namesake, Roseanne Barr, had tweeted a slur about former Obama adviser, Valerie Jarrett. Despite the show’s ratings, ABC cancelled the show immediately, despite Roseanne’s almost instant apology.
Liberals were quick to jump on the indignation bandwagon. Conservatives stopped to think—with mixed results. Bill O’Reilly, who also lost his job at Fox, despite his stellar ratings, was quoted in the Washington Times.
“Roseanne Barr’s vicious personal attack on former Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett came out of nowhere and cost Ms. Barr and the entire staff of her program their jobs. @ABC/@Disney could not continue with the show without insulting millions of Americans.” – Bill O’Reilly, via Twitter.
Meanwhile, RedState was unimpressed with liberal self-righteousness, which was probably more aimed at the show’s premise, rather than Roseanne’s actions.
Johnny Depp gave a speech at the Glastonbury Festival last year and asked the audience “when was the last time an actor assassinated a president?…[I]t’s been awhile, Maybe it’s about time,” — remarks he later claimed were jokes. Depp is continuing to be cast in major roles, including the next in the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them film series from Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling and an upcoming biopic about antivirus software developer John McAfee.
Daily Kos founder and Vox co-founder Markos Moulitsas tweeted that “Republicans are getting what they want” after Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) and other Republican members of Congress and staffers were shot at a practice for the Congressional Baseball Game. He hasn’t been run off his websites by the torch-and-pitchfork brigade. . .
It’s hard to logically explain this as based on anything more than Barr’s support for President Donald Trump, both personally and as incorporated in the plot of the reboot’s pilot episode. The foul-mouthed, abrasive Roseanne and her squabbling brood were hardly a conservative show by any means other than the title character’s 2016 vote for Trump.
The National Review wrote a litany of Roseanne’s sins, questioning why this one is different.
If Roseanne Barr is a poster child for anything, she’s a poster child for cultural brokenness. . .
First, ABC shouldn’t have brought her back. She was, quite obviously, one of the more toxic and troubled personalities in American public life. This was a woman who, after all, trafficked in grotesque conspiracy theories, said that anyone who eats at Chick-fil-A “deserves to get the cancer that’s sure to come,” and defiled the National Anthem more thoroughly than a thousand kneeling football players. J. J. McCullough chronicled the crazy in an essay just last month:
Barr has never met a conspiracy theory she didn’t love. She’s a 9-11 truther who believes that “Bush did it,” and she has called the Boston Marathon bombing one of many “false flag terror attacks” perpetrated by the Obama administration to “remove” the Second Amendment. For good measure, she also believes that the old man Bush killed JFK.
You can find YouTube videos of her rambling about “MK ULTRA Mind Control” on RT, and she seems particularly fond of the notion that the American ruling class is running some manner of pedophile sex cult. Her views on Jews and Israel fluctuate wildly — in the past, she has called Israel a “Nazi state” and alleged that Zionism was created by the Third Reich (or something — I challenge you to succinctly summarize the opinions expressed here), though more recently she’s taken to accusing Hillary Clinton of plotting Israel’s destruction and labeling aide Huma Abedin a “Nazi whore.”
Second, Trump World shouldn’t have embraced her new show. Remember when President Trump called Roseanne to congratulate her on her ratings?. . .
Third, hypocrisy and double standards abound. So, where are the lines for acceptable speech? Even now, Twitter is lighting up with examples of progressive celebrities saying terrible things and keeping their jobs. ESPN is expanding Keith Olbermann’s role at the network despite a Twitter feed full of hysterical, profane insults and unhinged commentary. Fire one celebrity and you can dredge up six more who’ve posted their own deranged rants.
The Weekly Standard noted that Roseanne is hardly a conservative, despite her praise of Donald Trump.
She’s not even close to a conservative, but people on the right embraced her anyhow. . .
They should have known better, because Roseanne isn’t just “not any sort of conservative.” She is, at best, a vulgarian and, at worst, a cretin. Remember the crotch-grabbing national anthem? Remember her publishing the address of George Zimmerman’s parents? Remember her dressing up as Hitler? Or speaking to the Occupy Wall Street protesters? Or running for president with anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan as her running mate? Because those are all things that happened in the very recent past and this isn’t even the whole list.
. . . let’s dispense with the liberal-MSM conspiracy stuff. Yes, Roseanne was the highest-rated show on network TV for half of this season, but the show’s trajectory was heading in the wrong direction, from 27.3 million viewers at the show’s debut to a season average of 19 million viewers. Did Roseanne make money for ABC/Disney? Sure. But this isn’t like Fox killing American Idol in 2003. Roseanne was a novelty act and no one thought it would be running at a high clip two seasons from now.
Independent Journal Review wrote about a panel discussion on Fox News, which asked if what Roseanne said was really that bad.
Conservatives on social media questioned why MSNBC anchor Joy Reid still has a job following ABC’s decision to cancel “Roseanne” . . .
Reid, on the other hand, received widespread support from both NBC News and MSNBC after old blog posts resurfaced in which the anchor made what critics have described as “homophobic” remarks.
If you like “Roseanne,” take heart. A number of TV shows have had a “second life” on a competing network, going back to the 1960s. And now, there are a multitude of channels, on-air and online, compared to the three slots available, back then.
Despite ABC’s cancellation of the series, the show could still return to television. ABC and its parent company Walt Disney did not own the show. The show was produced and owned by independent production company Carsey-Werner Television Distribution. This company may sound familiar because they are also behind other hit shows such as “The Cosby Show,” “That 70s Show,” “A Different World” and “Cybill.”
Carsey-Werner Television Distribution could sell the show to another television network or online streaming service. When a revival of “Roseanne” was first being shopped, Netflix showed interest in bringing the series to its stable. Ironically, Barr recently referred to the streaming service’s production deal with the Obamas as an “unholy alliance.”
Earlier this month, Carsey-Werner licensed the rights of the show’s first incarnation to streaming service FilmRise. The service lives on Roku devices as well as the Microsoft store. The original pre-2018 version of the series was also available on Amazon Prime as well as Paramount Network, TV Land and CMT. . .
After Don Imus was fired for calling Rutgers women’s basketball players “nappy headed hoes” in 2007, the infamous radio host was able to return to the airwaves a couple of months later on ABC Radio and RFD-TV. Bill Maher was fired from ABC as a late night host after saying that terrorists from September 11th weren’t cowardly. He was eventually re-hired by HBO to host a political panel show which he still helms to this day. Bill O’Reilly was fired from Fox News in 2017 after being accused of sexual harassment. The conservative commentator is reportedly in talks with Newsmax TV for a return to his old 8 p.m. time slot, according to Page Six.
And, we have come full-circle with Bill O’Reilly. Stay tuned.
