So you’d be aware that US network ABC canned the Roseanne reboot after its titular star Roseanne Barr tweeted that African-American Obama advisor Valerie Jarret was a cross between “muslim brotherhood + planet of the apes” in her increasingly conspiracy-theory-heavy social media posts.
The backlash was unexpectedly swift: the head writer announced she was done, a cast member contacted her management about getting out of the show, and the network announced the series was over effective immediately.
Roseanne apologised and announced she was going off Twitter – a promise she kept for about six hours before coming back to start walking back some of that apology – among other things, claiming that “It was 2 in the morning and I was Ambien tweeting.”
Except the drug company itself wasn’t, ahem, having a Barr of it.
People of all races, religions and nationalities work at Sanofi every day to improve the lives of people around the world. While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication.
— Sanofi US (@SanofiUS) May 30, 2018
Yes, friends. That shiver you felt was the uncomfortable realisation that you were just taking the side of Big Pharma in a Twitter war. Truly, there are no winners here.
But matters have not been left to lie. Roseanne’s been taking aim at those she feels have betrayed her – costars Sara Gilbert and Michael Fishman in particular, and former head writer Wanda Sykes – and the president naturally weighed to know where his apology was, since ABC had apologised to Jarret and clearly saying sorry to a Democrat was evidence of a liberal conspiracy. Also, because everything’s about him.
There’s also been a short-lived conservative tit-for-tat demand that if Roseanne is being silenced, then The Left must sacrifice… um, Bill Maher?
Oddly enough, Bill Maher was also dumped by ABC many years ago for saying controversial things in public, so presumably all those angry conservatives are juuuuuust about to go “oh, so he did. ABC is entirely consistent with their policies then, it would appear: we’re totally satisfied, please carry on.”
And on a somewhat more productive note, Lena Dunham and Mindy Kaling jumped in to let the world know that they were up for writing the non-Roseanne-involving spinoffs. Which, to be fair, do sound like kind of awesome ideas.
Laurie Metcalf and John Goodman let me write things for you
— Mindy Kaling (@mindykaling) May 30, 2018
I will do the spin off of your show starring Darlene’s cool kids https://t.co/5A2129BTl0
— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) May 30, 2018
And speaking of things that are more fun than angry , at least someone had some fun changing the Wikipedia entry for adverse effects of zolpidem (the generic name for Ambien) page to briefly read as follows:
“In May 2018 the American Roseanne Barr made the public aware of a number of previously undiagnosed side effects of Zolpidem, including: racism, trump-tweeting, anthem-spitting, unpatriotic crotch-grabbing, public irritation, political agitation, sore losing, sore winning, special election upsets, butthurt, hate, avalanches, and loss of sitcom.”
Avalanches?
So everyone’s keeping busy, at least. And as we’ve said before, this will continue at least until Barr is given a nice White House appointment. Any second now!