{"id":3947,"date":"2018-06-04T04:39:15","date_gmt":"2018-06-04T11:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=3947"},"modified":"2018-06-04T04:39:15","modified_gmt":"2018-06-04T11:39:15","slug":"all-about-roseanne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2018\/06\/04\/all-about-roseanne\/","title":{"rendered":"All About Roseanne"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s get some things out of the way.  I didn\u2019t watch the original Roseanne<\/em><\/strong> sitcom.  I don\u2019t know why, but I never did.  However, I have met Roseanne <\/strong>several times and she\u2019s always been extraordinarily nice to me \u2013 and, let\u2019s face it, there\u2019s no need for that.  I\u2019m not entirely sure I could identify Samantha Bee <\/strong>in a police line-up.  In fact, I\u2019m not exactly sure who she is.  I\u2019ve never seen her show.  And up until this past week, I thought her name was Samantha B <\/strong>\u2013 like Stacey Q <\/strong>or Robin S<\/strong>.  I was fairly certain that I danced to a Samantha B song at a recent circuit party.<\/p>\n

With that, lemme give you my completely biased take on the past week.  Roseanne posted a racially insensitive Tweet <\/em>comparing Valerie Jarrett <\/strong>(someone else I don\u2019t know) to an ape.  Well, that\u2019s what I thought she did.  When I started researching this column \u2013 yes, this stuff is actually researched \u2013 I discovered that what Roseanne actually Tweeted <\/em>was this: \u201cmuslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj\u201d.  Nobody seems to have been upset about the slam to the Muslim Brotherhood.  I guess they\u2019re fair game.<\/p>\n

The first whiff of a problem came when Wanda Sykes <\/strong>quit the Roseanne<\/em> show.  Then the floodgates opened and everyone piled on Roseanne \u2013 which I found fascinating since this seemed far from the most offensive thing she\u2019s ever said.  Almost immediately, apologies started \u2013 my favorite being that she blamed the Tweet <\/em>on Ambien.  Been there, done that, driven to the Carl\u2019s Jr. <\/em>drive-thru and didn\u2019t remember it the next day.  Hell, I\u2019ve written columns on Ambien – but it\u2019s still on me.  ABC<\/em> cancelled Roseanne<\/em>, even after Barr\u2019s personal pleas to the head of the network.  Then Viacom <\/em>and Hulu <\/em>dropped the old Roseanne<\/em> show.  It\u2019s worth noting that it took over 60 women to say Bill Cosby <\/strong>drugged and sexually assaulted them before The Cosby Show<\/em><\/strong> was pulled from cable.  But one Tweet <\/em>about a Muslim and an ape having a baby and Roseanne<\/em> was history.<\/p>\n

Now let\u2019s look at Samantha Bee.  On her TBS <\/em>show Full Frontal<\/em><\/strong>, she said, \u201cYou know, Ivanka<\/strong>, that\u2019s a beautiful photo of you and your child, but let me just say, one mother to another, do something about your dad\u2019s immigration practices, you feckless cunt!\u201d  This is not one person\u2019s late-night Tweet <\/em>on Ambien in the privacy of their home.  This was something prepared on a scripted show, presumably approved by writers and producers, shot in advance, and then aired on a major network.  This is a statement \u2013 better or worse, I cannot say \u2013 which was greenlit by dozens of people.  Samantha and TBS <\/em>made an apology and everyone moved on.<\/p>\n

Roseanne\u2019s crazy.  We all know that.  She may be filled with hate.  She may be a racist.  And she may have said something \u2013 clearly individually and spontaneously \u2013 that was wrong.  Samantha Bee, on the other hand, planned something, worked on it with various people, filmed it, and had the support of a network that aired it.  Is a questionable comparison of a black woman to a Muslim and an ape more heinous than calling someone a word most women believe to be the most insulting term imaginable?  As always, I defer to Wanda Sykes.  After all, Wanda\u2019s a woman.  Wanda\u2019s black.  Wanda\u2019s a lesbian.  While not germane to this story, Wanda\u2019s also married to a French woman \u2013 so I kinda feel she doesn\u2019t put up with any crap.  As far as I\u2019m concerned, I\u2019m on whatever side Wanda is on.  If Wanda quit Roseanne<\/em>, then that\u2019s that.  Would she have quit Full Frontal<\/em>?  I dunno.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s get some things out of the way.  I didn\u2019t watch the original Roseanne sitcom.  I don\u2019t know why, but I never did.  However, I have met Roseanne several times and she\u2019s always been extraordinarily nice to me \u2013 and, let\u2019s face it, there\u2019s no need for that.  I\u2019m not entirely sure I could identify Samantha Bee in a police line-up. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3947"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3947"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3956,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3947\/revisions\/3956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}