Roseanne Bar took to Twitter over the weekend and called out a political pundit who claimed that her wildly successful sitcom reboot has some at CBS concerned that the show is being used to “monetize” President Donald Trump’s supporter base.
Jared Sexton — a professor at Georgia Southern University and political commemorator, who once wrote an article analyzing President Donald Trump’s ‘Toxic Masculinity” — penned an article titled: The New Roseanne Ignores the Very Real Racism of Many White Working-Class Families.
Shortly after the article was published, Sexton tweeted that “multiple people at ABC” had reached out to him and complained of “a real discomfort” over the “propagandist nature of the reboot,” and a sense that “the project is meant to monetize Trump’s base:”
That tweet garnered a response from Roseanne Barr, who asked Sexton to name the episodes which made the employees feel uncomfortable. Implying that, other than the premier, future episodes don’t have a political theme:
oh, really? which episode r they uncomfortable about? the one where we get a dog or my mom gets a boyfriend or I drive for uber or darlene gets a new job or david comes back? which ones monetize trump's base?
— Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) April 1, 2018
However, Sexton was only able to give an example of the episode which already aired:
The one where your character’s support of Donald Trump was framed simply as an economic choice. They have real concern this is sanitizing a really problematic worldview and dismissing the inherent bigotry. https://t.co/JN8lGIDxOf
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) April 1, 2018
The incredibly successful reboot of Roseanne drew huge numbers of viewers and tremendous amounts of praise from everyday fans, all the way up to the White House.
Sexton’s tweet also seems to suggest that President Trump’s base has or is willing to ignore the president so-called “inherent bigotry.”
Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter @themightygwinn
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