‘Roseanne’ Revival Slammed For Insensitive Joke About Minority Families


The Roseanne revival ratings have been through the roof since the show’s premiere at the end of March. However, the series has been causing some controversy among fans who don’t like that the title character is an avid Donald Trump supporter. Now, the show is under fire for a joke deemed insensitive by some viewers.

According to an April 5 report by Us Weekly Magazine, the Roseanne revival returned for a new episode on Tuesday, and during the 30-minute show, shared a scene where Dan (John Goodman) and Roseanne (Roseanne Barr) fell asleep watching television and woke up to reveal that they had slept from Wheel Of Fortune to Jimmy Kimmel. Dan revealed that the “missed all the shows about black and Asian families,” seemingly referring to ABC shows Blackish and Fresh Off The Boat, to which his wife replies, “They’re just like us. There, now you’re all caught up.”

After the episode of Roseanne aired, Kelvin Yu, a Taiwanese-American actor, and writer took to social media to reveal his upset over the sitcom’s joke. Yu called the punchline “reductive and belittling.” The actor said to make things worse; the joke was said by an avid Donald Trump supporter, calling out the character of Roseanne, not Barr herself. “It’s a big deal. They depict her LITERALLY SLEEPING through stories about people of color,” he added.

However, Roseanne simply isn’t a show about a family of Trump supporters. In fact, the Conner family is very divided in their political and personal beliefs. In the premiere episode, the series depicts a rift between Roseanne and her sister Jackie (Laurie Metcalf) over the 2016 Presidential election, with Jackie supporting more liberal views and Roseanne siding with the conservatives. During the episode, the Conner family matriarch also revealed that she voted for Trump because he promised to “shake things up” and deliver more jobs. Roseanne and Dan’s daughter, Darlene (Sara Gilbert) is also depicted as a liberal.

It seems that fans are just as divided as the country when it comes to the Roseanne revival’s political message. However, others like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar believes that despite the character being a Trump supporter, that the show is actually anti-Trump because it continues to “reflect the failures of the Trump administration,” according to the Washington Times.

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