ABC executives knew exactly what they were getting into when they hired Roseanne Barr.
While her off-key, crotch-grabbing rendition of the national anthem in 1990 is the most viral example of the comedian’s polarizing past, the original run of ABC’s “Roseanne” in the ’90s made headlines for being a toxic work environment: Barr herself threatened to quit, and one producer announced his exit by saying he was fleeing for “the relative peace and quiet of Beirut.”
But in the wake of Donald Trump’s unexpected victory in 2016, ABC decided it needed a show that would appeal to Middle America. So, tapping into TV’s current nostalgia obsession, it went with a reboot of “Roseanne,” in which Barr plays a Trump supporter — as she is in real life — and clashes with her family over their respective political views.
As everyone — including the president — knows, the ratings for the premiere were jaw-dropping. A whopping 18 million viewers tuned in, and that number jumped to about 25 million with DVR-delayed viewing. This week’s episode notched 15.2 million overnight viewers, a slight dip but still an outstanding number for a sitcom in 2018.
ABC immediately renewed the show for a second season last Friday. Then, mere hours later, Barr sent social media into a frenzy when she tweeted that Trump has “freed so many children held in bondage to pimps all over the world” — a debunked claim that has been circulating on far-right sites. Barr eventually deleted the tweet, but it was a stark reminder that the network had indefinitely tethered itself to an extremely controversial figure — and as a result of the show’s success, given her a very powerful megaphone.
“If this has had happened five years ago, people may have laughed it off. But people are not laughing about this anymore,” said Bonnie Fuller, president and editor-in-chief of the entertainment website Hollywood Life. “There have been too many consequences from fake news and conspiracy theories.”
It wasn’t the first time Barr’s tweets recently landed her in hot water. On the day of the “Roseanne” premiere, she accused teenage school shooting survivor David Hogg of giving a Nazi salute. (“Argh. Hit show on ABC. We have reached peak normalization,” model Chrissy Teigen tweeted with a screenshot of the tweet, echoing many criticisms.) Barr later retracted the claim and said she was misled by a doctored image.
ABC declined to comment for this story, and according to industry experts, that’s the typical decision in the TV controversy playbook — there’s little to be achieved by executives saying anything other than, “We’re thrilled that America has welcomed the Conner family back into their homes.”
“They’re smart people over there (at ABC). They knew. She was controversial the last time, so it’s not like they thought they were getting an angel,” said Preston Beckman, a veteran broadcast executive and media consultant who worked at NBC and Fox. “I think that any network who says, ‘Gee, had I known what she tweets or that there were pictures of her allegedly dressed up like Hitler, we wouldn’t have gone near it,’ they’re lying to you.”
Indeed, Barr appeared on the cover of Jewish magazine Heeb in 2009, dressed like Hitler while holding a tray of burned cookies shaped like people. Although it was explained as “satire,” that didn’t really help when those images flew around social media without context.
When the Hollywood Reporter this week asked “Roseanne” co-showrunner Bruce Helford about seeing the star of his show dressed as a Nazi, he noted Barr is a “staunch supporter of Israel” and added that he assumed it was a parody.
“My feeling is that people should just watch the show and judge it on its merits,” Helford said, emphasizing that Barr’s real-life persona is separate from her character. “Watch the show without the accompanying background noise.”
Beckman said that although ABC doesn’t have to make any excuses for Barr’s behavior, “there’s always a line you don’t want to cross.”
“Once you cross that line, there are consequences,” Beckman said. “But I think to her fans, and her kind of going against the grain and not acting like a typical TV star, is the reason why she’s popular with them. There’s a lot of similarities between her and our current president.”
Plus, history shows viewers don’t necessarily care about the behavior of stars off-camera. In early 2011, CBS entertainment president Nina Tassler dismissed concerns about “Two and a Half Men” lead Charlie Sheen, who was then in the news for trashing a hotel room in New York City and reportedly locking a prostitute in the closet. The year before, he was arrested after a domestic dispute with his ex-wife and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge.
“On a personal level, we are concerned, but he has his job, he does it well, and the show is a hit,” Tassler to
