18 million people tuned into the premiere of the “Roseanne” reboot this week. And that’s not sitting well with “writer, academic, and political correspondent” Jared Yates Sexton. He’s got a lotta problems with Trump-supporting “Roseanne” fans, and now, you’re gonna hear about ’em.
Man is this a garbage take. https://t.co/Fi154ILHMp
— neontaster (@neontaster) March 29, 2018
Why Trump Won, example # 459832. This entire thread is bigoted, ignorant, self indulgent nonsense. https://t.co/Igg0Dm790D
— Heather (@hboulware) March 29, 2018
That’s it in a nutshell. But we’ll let you see it for yourselves:
The Roseanne reboot is going to be popular with the Trump crowd because it provides a sanitary, cleaned-up reality in which they’re just concerned about their country. 1/
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) March 29, 2018
It’s a fiction we’re going to see more and more of, that this movement is about working-class people who just don’t know what to do anymore. That’s the heart of the show. 2/
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) March 29, 2018
To stave off any criticism, they’re now a mixed-race family, there’s a grandson who challenges gender binaries. It’s an attempt to stop any argument this is a racist or ignorant movement. 3/
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) March 29, 2018
But it’s a cleaned-up lie. To support Trump in the way Roseanne does in the show you’d have to turn a blind eye to Trump’s many, many bigoted statements. 4/
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) March 29, 2018
Television narratives do this. They sell idealized versions of yourself back to you. Roseanne is going to prosper because it might be the one thing that reassures the Trump base that they’re justified and not intolerant. 5/
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) March 29, 2018
The original show was a warts and all look at middle-America. They were dysfunctional and they suffered. Now, it’s progressed the narrative forward without admitting the other truth… 6/
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) March 29, 2018
Much of white working-class America is racist and intolerant. It’s from generations of social manipulation, not to mention socialization and history. The show goes out of its way to not show that, and has thus lost the pulse. 7/
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) March 29, 2018
What we are seeing, however, is how that part of America truly sees itself. That’s useful in terms of understanding, empathy, and might be a way to start undoing some of this terrible damage. 8/
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) March 29, 2018
Whereas Fox simply spins an alternate reality, Roseanne shows is the idealized, sadly delusional view the Trump base lives in. They’re just working to survive while the world leaves them behind. 9/
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) March 29, 2018
It’s an effective roadmap for appealing to them on certain issues, which, once addressed, the more toxic elements might possibly start receding or maybe lose some grasp. 10/
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) March 29, 2018
A lot of the job is retaking populism from the party that has corrupted it, twisted it, remembering that a lot of work needs done to repair the damage of corporate-owned government. Buying into this fantasy, however, could lead us into even deeper waters. 11/11
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) March 29, 2018
Wow. Just … wow.
People like that don't actually exist. Or at least not in the numbers required to win an election. The more rational conclusion is that they're all Nazis.
— [shrug emoji] (@jtLOL) March 29, 2018
His thread cracks me up. "All these rubes are so intolerant…Also, everyone who voted differently than me is a racist."
— Josh ? (@hosesway) March 29, 2018
https://twitter.com/iLLeStEyECoN/status/979403768927342593
Hard to argue with that assessment.
Yep.
https://twitter.com/LDoren/status/979405895502389248
This is what true bigotry looks like.
He sees natural diversity and modern family dynamics portrayed and twists it into a paranoid conspiracy in order to validate his belief of who the audience is supposed to be.
He is incapable of empathy or recognizing his own prejudice. https://t.co/8LI6Yg73tx
— Chad Felix Greene (@chadfelixg) March 29, 2018
In his profound hatred he cannot grasp how absurd it is to insist that a racist, bigoted population tuned in to celebrate a show filled with the very diversity he claims they have organized a movement to oppose.
All as a clever ruse to pretend they are really supporting it. https://t.co/8LI6Yg73tx
— Chad Felix Greene (@chadfelixg) March 29, 2018
A progressive sees a popular TV show with diverse characters and storylines and the first thing he thinks is 'This must be a trick…'
Tells you more about him than the show or audience.
— Chad Felix Greene (@chadfelixg) March 29, 2018
This reminds me of my grandfather and his friends bitterly scoffing at TV shows featuring racially diverse casts, women in power roles or gays.
'These people think they're fooling us showing this as normal! We know better!'
Bigotry never changes, the people do. https://t.co/2GmREjJ5tS
— Chad Felix Greene (@chadfelixg) March 29, 2018
Your bigotry is duly noted https://t.co/5gpONOOwb0
— ArborDayWorshipper (@PollySpin) March 29, 2018
Indeed it is.
(For a far better — and much less smug — analysis of “Roseanne,” read this from Ben Shapiro.)