Roseanne reboot should get the boot
I admit it. I didn't
last ten minutes into the show. I got
up and began working on my blog trying to finish an article I started two years
ago. Three minutes into the show, I
wanted a Dramamine pill, and I don't take pills for anything except as a last
resort. I held on for a few minutes
longer, but couldn't take it any more.
I worked on my article with the show playing in the other room as some
friends watched it.
Let's start this review with the quote of the night after the two
episodes aired:
"I'm gay and I want to beat that kid up. Get rid of the
little fairy fly and the show would be tolerable." That quote isn't made up and, yes, the guy
who said that really is gay.
 |
| Gender creative or cultural misappropriation? |
The audience is left guessing no more. He's not transgender, a possibility that
could've taken his character in a direction that would be informative and
believable. Instead, we learn he just
likes "being himself," a concept that becomes clearer as the show
progresses that "being himself" is sometimes referred to as
"gender creative."
I'm not sure what gender creativity is but I do know it
doesn't mean do whatever you want, whenever you want, wherever you want. Since the boy said he was comfortable being
a boy, at what age should a parent step in and set boundaries on their child's
behavior of "being himself" and balancing his desire with the rules
of living within society without becoming the flamboyant center of distraction? Despite what executive producer Sara Gilbert says, an eight-year-old is not necessarily too young to know he's gay and is certainly old enough to understand why certain societal norms should be followed. There's certainly nothing wrong with letting a child push the boundaries of the norm, but allowing a child to thumb one's nose at society to do whatever one wants, whenever one wants, and wherever one wants creates selfish, self-centered adults with no sense of obligation to the societal contract, a concept that is the glue for a peaceful and cohesive society.
The rest of the show was too much for me even if Darlene's
son weren't a flamboyant drag queen wannabe.
Roseanne left its roots of being a story of a struggling working
class family to being a political parody of stereotyped political
rivalries. The characters were stale
and predictable. Roseanne and Dan were
lethargic in their delivery and the rest of the cast responded to them like
programmed drones, but without the sweet voice of Alexa. They deadpanned their
lines like only a robot going through the motions could.
One of the reasons I stopped watching the original Roseanne
is towards the end of its run, everyone was turning gay (even Roseanne's Mom)
and Dan was reduced to an impotent figurehead.
Sorry, people don't "turn gay" and at the time, I was pretty
much fed up with Hollywood's portrayal of men as being bumbling idiots who
couldn't do anything right. The show
had stumbled down the rabbit hole and, fortunately, was cancelled before it
dragged its audience down with them.
The new Roseanne has picked up where the cancellation
of the original show was left in the rabbit hole twenty-five years ago. Roseanne surely will continue its
fall further down the rabbit hole, hopefully into oblivion and
cancellation. Jackie should go back to
Texas and be Sheldon's Mom (she was excellent in that role), Darlene should
stick to her daytime talk show and occasionally show up to be a thorn in
Sheldon's side, Roseanne and Dan should retire to a nursing home and maybe
start a new show akin to BBC's Waiting For God,
and the rest of the cast should run as quickly and as far away from the Roseanne
reboot as possible so they can save whatever acting career they may have left.
But what do I know?
My idea of fine TV is Green Acres, at least in the top five
greatest all time TV comedies if not the greatest, but I have yet to find anyone who agrees
with me.
Posted by Five Drunk Rednecks
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