It didn’t take long for Roseanne Barr’s interview on last night’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to take a turn for the terse.
Roseanne and co-star John Goodman were on the show to talk about reboot of beloved 90’s sitcom “Roseanne” that premiers on ABC March 27th… but Jimmy Kimmel had other plans. Like many of us who’ve followed Roseanne’s career and enjoyed her portrayal of a working-class family on her hit sitcom, he’s been perplexed by her support for Donald Trump. Specifically, by her vote for Donald Trump.
“I’m shocked because I know you are a very socially liberal person in general,” Kimmel said, looking, well, shocked.
Barr shot back “I’m still the same, you all moved. You all went so f*cking far out, you lost everything!”
She went on to say that no one wants to see Trump fail “no matter who we voted for.”
Ominously, she added “You want Pence? You want Pence for the frickin’ president?” Kimmel had to admit that no, he didn’t, to which Barr replied: “Well, then zip that f*cking lip!”
In the age of the demagogue, one pines for the days when the worst we feared were ideologues.
As surprising as it was to learn that lifelong liberal Roseanne became a Trump supporter, it may be even harder to swallow that her fictional counterpart is now as well. Roseanne’s argument for this sea change in her character is that ““Half the people voted for Trump, and half didn’t. It’s just realistic.”
Now, ignoring the fact that’s simply not correct, it is certainly fair to say that working-class, white America helped usher Trump into office, and that Roseanne’s show focused on a white, working-class American family… but this particular matriarch couldn’t have morphed into a MAGA drone. To begin with, she’s exactly the kind of powerful woman Donald Trump seems to despise. Second, her steadfast support of the bullied and disenfranchised stand in opposition to everything Trump represents. Finally, the simple fact is that the loving, hard-working family on “Roseanne” shares working-class values… values that Donald Trump not only doesn’t exemplify, he doesn’t understand.
There’s an argument to be made that watching this family divided by politics unite in love could be healing for viewers clinging to the nostalgia of the show, and of the 90’s, sure… but more likely watching this partisan divide separate fictional family members in the same way it’s tearing so many real families apart isn’t going to feel like “Must-See TV… more like “Can’t-Unsee TV,” a programming niche already being filled by the news.
At least we can turn the channel on the TV. If only it was that easy in real life.
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