Roseanne cancelled after a racist tweet
i24NEWS ·
Live from New York for i24NEWS, after ABC cancelled the second season of the revival of Roseanne, the sitcom about an explosive, very conservative family. Roseanne and the actress of the same name, Roseanne Barr, are "a phenomenon of American pop culture": the 1990s series dared to tackle every subject, from abortion to racism, gun carrying and gay rights. When it came back twenty years later it was a smash hit, number one in the ratings, with the only family on television to openly vote for Trump, and it managed to bring a divided America together a little. But the character, like the actress, often flirts with controversy, "and reality has overtaken fiction": in a tweet deleted right away and for which she apologized, Roseanne Barr targeted Valerie Jarrett, a former Barack Obama aide, in racist terms. She had already made racist and antisemitic remarks on social media and relayed conspiracy theories about the Clintons, the Soros family or Nazi money, debunked as fake news but still circulating. "The uncontrollable Roseanne has thus paid the price for what made her successful, total freedom of tone and expression", and the two Americas have retreated into their respective camps. Correspondence by David Benaym on i24NEWS in French, May 30, 2018.