Five ways "Roseanne" kicked network TV's butt into the next century

[Overdose]

One tough mother

BY JOYCE MILLMAN | during the nine-year run of ABC's "Roseanne," which comes to an end Tuesday evening, Roseanne Conner has been a factory worker, a hairdresser's assistant, a waitress, a lunch counter owner, a TV commentator and a millionaire. She has imagined herself as Lucy Ricardo and Mary Richards. She has been married and separated and kissed a woman on the lips in a lesbian bar. She has been pregnant and considered an abortion. She has been fat and cosmetically enhanced. She's been a mother, a daughter, a sister and a grandmother.

It's not that Roseanne Conner was Everywoman. It's more that, like most women, Roseanne Conner (who really can't be separated from her creator, Roseanne Barr Arnold Roseanne) played many roles in life, sometimes all at the same time. But while Roseanne Conner was changeable and volatile and contradictory, viewers always knew where she stood -- with her foot placed firmly on the throat of uptight society. And, more important, she always knew who she was. I can't think of a female sitcom character more self-confident, less regretful, than Roseanne Conner.

"Roseanne" was the first of ABC's family-realism sitcoms of the late '80s and '90s (to be followed by "Home Improvement" and "Grace Under Fire"). But Roseanne gave ABC a little more reality, perhaps, than it bargained for. Once she wrestled control of the show from its co-creator and producer, Matt Williams, Roseanne began incorporating bits of her tabloid-ready life into the show. Like its star, "Roseanne" was rough and loose and unpredictable, veering from intense kitchen-sink drama to boisterous comedy, usually within the same episode. "Roseanne" had good seasons and disappointing ones; it weathered personality clashes and accommodated cast members' personal needs (Sara Gilbert and Lecy Goransen's college careers, John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf's movie careers). Like a family, it went on.

"Roseanne" was a trailblazing series, but it never seemed to get enough credit (woman's work, you know). Here are five ways "Roseanne," and Roseanne, changed TV.

(1) Roseanne" was the most female-centric sitcom in TV history.

Building upon its star's stand-up comedy act as the all-knowing, all-seeing "domestic goddess," "Roseanne" brought feminism into the mainstream and suggested that it wasn't something to fear -- it was just a fancy word for "fair play," and it had relevance and usefulness in the average woman's life.

Roseanne and her sarcastic, brooding daughter Darlene (Sara Gilbert) were strong, opinionated and independent. The show kept the pot boiling under the meat and potato issues with which any woman could identify -- economic inequality at work, unequal division of labor at home. But it also turned up the heat with episodes about issues like teen sexuality (the poignant and hilarious show where Roseanne bites the bullet and takes sexually active Becky to the doctor for birth control pills), domestic violence and the abortion question (the extraordinary Thanksgiving '94 episode in which the show's four generations of women talked about their reproductive history as Roseanne waited out test results concerning the health of her fetus).

"Roseanne" was not the first sitcom to deal with these issues (Maude is still the only sitcom woman to ever actually have an abortion); what was different here was the consistently unsoftened point of view.

In its last couple of seasons, "Roseanne" became in-your-face pro-woman, with mixed results. Some of this season's surreal episodes spoofing fashion and female pampering were riotously funny (if slapped together), but the one where all the women laid hands on Darlene's fragile premature newborn in order to impart their life-saving female energy ... just forget I mentioned it, OK?

Sure, there was something rude about the way the women on "Roseanne" kept getting more and more capable and the men kept getting more and more useless and expendable -- Dan cheated on Roseanne; Jackie's ex-husband, Fred, was a bore; Becky's husband, Mark, was an idiot. But then, Roseanne and Darlene also made sport of Darlene's husband, David, the most evolved and sensitive male on the show, for being, too evolved and sensitive. Men couldn't win on "Roseanne," but then, that was the point: This was a kick-ass women's show, and if men felt left out, well tough.

(2) "Roseanne" was the most gay- and lesbian-friendly sitcom of its time.

Scratch the surface of a Lanfordian and you got a lesbian: Roseanne's co-worker Nancy, played by Sandra Bernhard, was prime time's first regularly occurring lesbian, and Roseanne's mother, Bev (Estelle Parsons), came out this past season. And we can't leave out Roseanne's former boss Leon (Martin Mull, who also served as a creative consultant on the show) and his partner, Scott (Fred Willard, Mull's old sidekick from "Fernwood 2 Night"), who took their wedding vows on the show and who provided deliciously queer asides. Without "Roseanne" to soften up the network bosses (and viewers), Ellen DeGeneres' path out of the closet might have been a lot rockier.

(3) "Roseanne" exploded TV stereotypes about blue-collar America.

"Roseanne" premiered in 1988 at the tail end of Reaganomics, when the bottom was falling out for previously middle-class families across America. But the show -- and Roseanne -- didn't really find their political footing, or nervy comedic edge, until midway through the Bush era. No other sitcom articulated blue-collar cynicism, frustration and exhaustion so well, or so sharply depicted an economy on the skids.

Roseanne and Dan both worked, but they could never seem to gain any ground; they were always a paycheck away from disaster. They'd never attended college, but they were smart (too smart for some of the brain-sucking jobs they got stuck with), culturally and politically aware and open-minded. While TV had mostly portrayed blue-collar Americans as Archie Bunker conservatives, "Roseanne" charted the rise of a new kind of working class -- the old weed-smoking, hell-raising, counter-culture boomers who had found, to their dismay, that they were never going to have a better life than their parents. The Conners frequently joked that they didn't even know what class they belonged to anymore. And hitting the lottery this season didn't provide any easy answers.

As pioneers in a new socioeconomic frontier, the Conners turned cultural perceptions inside out with punky, contemptuous humor. They left the Christmas lights up till July, worked on motorcycles in the driveway and greeted the news of Darlene's unwed pregnancy by cheering their official entrance into white trashdom. There was always something pathetic about how on "All in the Family" and "The Honeymooners," being blue-collar was equated with personal failure. "Roseanne" was the first blue-collar sitcom to say, "We're OK -- it's you rich people who've got the problem!"

(4) "Roseanne" raised the stakes for the family sitcom.

"Roseanne" was structured like a lot of other family sitcoms -- the couch and TV front and center, the kids with all the usual growing pains. But "Roseanne" subverted the content, dealing with the situations other family sitcoms wouldn't talk about (the one where the Conners' son, DJ, discovers masturbation) or dealing with typical sitcom problems in atypical ways (the birth control episode).

The Conners were often in pain. Dan's frightening rages, Roseanne's recovered memories of abuse by her father, Jackie's zero self-esteem, Darlene's inability to express tenderness toward the people she loved -- this was not light-hearted stuff. But at its best, "Roseanne" deftly walked that fine emotional line where things are so awful, you just have to laugh.

(5) "Roseanne" was the ultimate show about motherhood.

At a time when pregnancy was a politically charged issue, working mothers were being demonized by fundamentalists and traditional mothers were being ignored by organized feminism, Roseanne stepped up and made motherhood the central theme of her show. And Roseanne's version of motherhood was a fierce and mighty force that would not be denied. The series was a cycle of pregnancies (Roseanne, Jackie, Dan's father's wife Crystal, Darlene), most of them unplanned. And, fittingly, babies are the focus of Tuesday's one-hour finale, in which Darlene and David bring their daughter Harris home from the hospital (occasioning a final Conner beer-and-pizza blast) and two more impending blessed events are revealed.

With her typical contrariness, Roseanne told the truth about motherhood. It was a miracle and a pain in the ass ("This is why some animals eat their young!" Roseanne shrieked at her squabbling kids in the very first episode); it was a sacrifice (Roseanne was always giving up her basement writing room to some kid who was moving back into the nest) and the ultimate creative act. Most of all, it was a chance for a fresh start. For all Roseanne Conner's crabbing, her identity was bound up in being a mother. She was good at it, despite her own miserable childhood and despite her fear of turning into her own mother, the babbling Bev.

"Roseanne" was the perfect antidote to the bummed-out boomer parents of "thirtysomething," its onetime Tuesday night schedule mate on ABC. Roseanne's full-throttle cackle at the end of the opening credits could have been directed at Hope and Michael and their friends, and their endless worrying about parenthood making them uncool. "You can't be a parent and not be changed by it," Roseanne's cackle says. "Grow up!"

That unrefined honesty will be missed. Roseanne Conner was the toughest mother of them all.

May 19, 1997

[Overdose]

Bump

[Buffyboy323]

Whoa! I don't know who she is, but someone please give Joyce Millman a medal!

I agree with pretty much EVERYTHING she said in this article. My favorite parts were, "She always knew who she was. I can't think of a female sitcom character more self confident, less regretful, than Roseanne Connor." AND "Roseanne was rough and loose and unpredictable." It`s so true. SO TRUE.

Thanks for posting this awesome article.

[Overdose]

Originally Posted by Buffyboy323

Whoa! I don't know who she is, but someone please give Joyce Millman a medal!

I agree with pretty much EVERYTHING she said in this article. My favorite parts were, "She always knew who she was. I can't think of a female sitcom character more self confident, less regretful, than Roseanne Connor." AND "Roseanne was rough and loose and unpredictable." It`s so true. SO TRUE.

Thanks for posting this awesome article.

yeah, the entire article is great. "Roseanne" really did do a ton for TV.

[catlover79]

I was never crazy about the Roseanne show when it first aired (and I'm still not), but I appreciate it more now because it WAS a lot like real blue-collar life. The Conners had real issues and tried to keep as much humor in their lives as possible. Plus, TV has regressed so much in the last decade or so - some of the stuff on Roseanne could still be considered daring and un-PC. The big mistake was having the family win the lottery in Season 9. If they were out of ideas (and John Goodman had essentially left the show), they should have called it quits after Season 8. Roseanne was a ground-breaking show, no doubt about that.

[Buffyboy323]

Originally Posted by catlover79

The big mistake was having the family win the lottery in Season 9. If they were out of ideas (and John Goodman had essentially left the show), they should have called it quits after Season 8. Roseanne was a ground-breaking show, no doubt about that.

They weren't out of ideas. Roseanne wanted that to happen.....I for one, don't think it was that bad. I enjoyed a bunch of those episodes.

[Buffyboy323]

Originally Posted by Overdose

yeah, the entire article is great. "Roseanne" really did do a ton for TV.

Yep....Despite what some idiots said in that debate thread, last week.

[coffield3]

Thanks for posting that!

[Mr. Television]

Originally Posted by catlover79

I was never crazy about the Roseanne show when it first aired (and I'm still not), but I appreciate it more now because it WAS a lot like real blue-collar life. The Conners had real issues and tried to keep as much humor in their lives as possible. Plus, TV has regressed so much in the last decade or so - some of the stuff on Roseanne could still be considered daring and un-PC. The big mistake was having the family win the lottery in Season 9. If they were out of ideas (and John Goodman had essentially left the show), they should have called it quits after Season 8. Roseanne was a ground-breaking show, no doubt about that.

That last season was the worst I ever saw for a sitcom I liked. I didn't laugh once which is why I stopped watching it.

[Overdose]

Roseanne = best show ever created

[TJL]

"Sure, there was something rude about the way the women on "Roseanne" kept getting more and more capable and the men kept getting more and more useless and expendable -- Dan cheated on Roseanne; Jackie's ex-husband, Fred, was a bore; Becky's husband, Mark, was an idiot. But then, Roseanne and Darlene also made sport of Darlene's husband, David, the most evolved and sensitive male on the show, for being, too evolved and sensitive. Men couldn't win on "Roseanne," but then, that was the point: This was a kick-ass women's show, and if men felt left out, well tough."

Personally, I thought it was a big mistake the way they alienated the male audience by pushing the male characters into the background. It especially wasn't fair to John Goodman, whose character was an equal to Roseanne when the show began.

The constant male bashing turned me off completely.

[Overdose]

Originally Posted by TJL

The constant male bashing turned me off completely.

[Ireneparalegal]

Originally Posted by TJL

"Sure, there was something rude about the way the women on "Roseanne" kept getting more and more capable and the men kept getting more and more useless and expendable -- Dan cheated on Roseanne; Jackie's ex-husband, Fred, was a bore; Becky's husband, Mark, was an idiot. But then, Roseanne and Darlene also made sport of Darlene's husband, David, the most evolved and sensitive male on the show, for being, too evolved and sensitive. Men couldn't win on "Roseanne," but then, that was the point: This was a kick-ass women's show, and if men felt left out, well tough."

Personally, I thought it was a big mistake the way they alienated the male audience by pushing the male characters into the background. It especially wasn't fair to John Goodman, whose character was an equal to Roseanne when the show began.

The constant male bashing turned me off completely.

Then, you must hate Cosby Show as well TJL, male bashing was the norm on that show. Not to mention wimpy and being controlled.

[Brian Damage]

In my opinion, the show doesn't hold up as a classic. The male bashing was horrendous. Ok Roseanne, we get it, you don't like men. It's not our fault you chose a bunch of losers to marry.

[Overdose]

Originally Posted by Brian Damage

In my opinion, the show doesn't hold up as a classic. The male bashing was horrendous. Ok Roseanne, we get it, you don't like men. It's not our fault you chose a bunch of losers to marry.

Dan was anything but a loser.