what doesn't kill us is making us stronger

I recently experienced 10-months of unemployment. During that time I had periods of usefulness and periods of time where I really took life by the reins, but for most of it I caught up on television. So in the interest of full disclosure, I very recently watched every single episode of Roseanne from start to finish. I watched it pretty often as a kid, both during prime-time and in reruns, but as an "adult" (I think we all know why that's in quotations) I have a whole new appreciation for both Roseanne Barr and the show. During my 2 week long Roseannathon I followed Roseanne and Dan’s several career changes and bad financial decisions; Becky, Darlene and DJ growing up from kids into adults (and in the case of Becky, into a whole new person entirely); and I even watched the last season where Dan was mostly absent and the Conners won the lottery. I was so obsessed with watching it I stay up until 2:00 and 3:00am trying to fit in as many episodes as possible until I crashed, and when it was time to watch the season finale, I sat in the bathroom watching it on my phone in the middle of the night. Spoiler alert: Dan died, and I bawled my eyes out. Husband was pretty pissed when he found out I was crying about Roseanne instead of a real problem.

The Conners were down to Earth and real. Yes, many of the problems they faced were no more than your average situational comedy plots, but many of them were “firsts” of that generation, like leading characters who were overweight and a realistic blue collar family, and that dealt with taboo topics like birth control, social class and sex (fat seks at that!). And you know what, they fought with each other. The way real families fight. Not the way TV families fight, but the way you and I fought with our parents, our partners and our employers. (Okay, maybe we’ve never instigated a walk-out, but you know what I mean.)

Anyway, it’s not news that Roseanne is a progressive feminist and absolutely totally fucking awesome, but recently she’s been making her rounds back into the spotlight, and it couldn’t be better. I mean, she’s still kind of fat, but is visibly happy and healthy, and *gasp* she has gray hair. Let me rephrase. She is ROCKING the gray hair. Could I love her any more than I already do? Apparently I can.

So when this article was recently published in New York Magazine about Roseanne being a domestic goddess and a feminist pioneer (and subsequently made its rounds on the feminist blogosphere) I just had to make my comments on it. It’s totally worth the read but if you find it too lengthy here is my favorite highlight.

"Nothing real or truthful makes its way to TV unless you are smart and know how to sneak it in, and I would tell you how I did it, but then I would have to kill you. Based on Two and a Half Men’s success, it seems viewers now prefer their comedy dumb and sexist. Charlie Sheen was the world’s most famous john, and a sitcom was written around him. That just says it all. Doing tons of drugs, smacking prostitutes around, holding a knife up to the head of your wife -sure, that sounds like a dream come true for so many guys out there, but that doesn’t make it right! People do what they can get away with (or figure they can), and Sheen is, in fact, a product of what we call politely the 'culture.'"

You say it, sistah! There's almost nothing progressive on TV anymore. And don't even think about commenting about how Modern Family or The Closer or The L-Word or Murphy Brown whatever fucking show you think is so progressive is truly modernizing television. They're not really. I'm not saying Roseanne was a total game changer. In fact, it obviously wasn't, because even Roseanne claims that it was "television’s first feminist and working-class-family sitcom (also its last)."

But in reality, I think Roseanne's shining feminist moment was in the very last episode in her revealing monologue. She said:

"We didn’t hit our children as we were hit, we didn’t demand their unquestioning silence, and we didn’t teach our daughters to sacrifice more than our sons.

As a modern wife, I walked a tight rope between tradition and progress, and usually, I failed by one outsider’s standards or anothers. But I figured out that neither winning nor losing count for women like they do for men. We women are the ones who transform everything we touch — and nothing on earth is higher than that."

Well to the major networks and the cable stations, I say: You've underestimated us. Trust us, we can handle it. Just try it. And don't be snarks about it. Do it for real. We're capable of handling it. And don't say you don't know how to create a progressive, real tv show that's also funny and gets high ratings. We have faith in you. We know you can do it :)

And for a little fun, the funniest Roseanne moment ever. Guess what? Sometimes parents are irresponsible. And it's fucking hilarious.

And for good measure, here's the closing song from the finale, because not only was the message a pivotal part of the show, but because it signaled the end of my Roseannathon, and I'm still grieving.