If there’s anyone in the world who could make good use of a time machine, it’s Roseanne Barr.
Were Doc Brown to pop by Roseanne’s house in his DeLorean, one would assume that the famed comedian might want to revisit the year 2018, when she posted a racist Tweet about former Obama administration staffer Valerie Jarrett that got her fired from her own TV show. Or at the very least, she could go back and stop herself from opening that failed vanity restaurant with Tom Arnold. Or, you know, marrying Tom Arnold.
The subject of temporal intervention came up in a recent interview with Barr. Closer Weekly asked the former sitcom star, “If you could go back in time and give yourself advice, what would you say?”
Instead of telling her past self to avoid writing that infamous social media post (presumably after explaining what “social media” is), Roseanne claimed that she would offer this advice: “Be more offensive!”
“I tell young comics today to just be prepared and be brave,” Roseanne added. “I always say comedy is like a virus or a bacteria that you’re infected with, and you can’t get rid of it.”
Virological similes aside, that seems like a pretty odd response to this particular question. For one thing, Roseanne, even when she was younger, was never one to shy away from taboo subject matter. Some critics attacked her boundary-pushing stand-up act for being “filthy and offensive,” as evidenced by an opening bit in which she claimed that “those who oppose abortion are child molesters.” (Somehow this particular theory didn’t come up during her friendly chat with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.)
A lack of offensiveness was never an issue for Roseanne. Her ability to shock, and grapple with topics others shied away from, arguably led to some of the greatest moments in TV history. But she also offended a lot of people with her objectively indefensible post. So it’s a weird answer.
The recent interview certainly implies a lack of contrition on her part, although her reaction to the 2018 scandal, at least to begin with, was remorseful. “I horribly regret it. Are you kidding?” Barr confessed during a podcast interview, just a month after she was booted from the show. “I lost everything, and I regretted it before I lost everything.”
She also admitted, “I’ve done something egregious, and I don’t want to be defended.”
That statement certainly doesn’t gel with the Roseanne of today, not just because she refused to use her hypothetical Looper-like powers to avoid becoming a pop-culture pariah, but because she later shifted responsibility for the backlash to Roseanne co-star Sara Gilbert, who criticized the tweet at the time, and has spent the ensuing years cozying up to right-wing media personalities that the Roseanne of the ‘90s would clearly hate. Not to mention the title of her Fox Nation stand-up special.
If Roseanne did somehow get access to a flux capacitor and travel back to the ‘90s, her past self might not even recognize her.
