I was not a fan of the original “Roseanne” and had no intention of watching its return, especially after I couldn’t make it through the first 10 minutes of the rebooted “Will and Grace,” but I had turned to ABC to watch my favorite show, “The Middle,” and there it was. I was a few minutes late and got there in time to see Jackie in her “hat.” “Where did I set that remote control?” As I got up off the sofa to retrieve it, I caught Roseanne’s response and I stopped. Is this going to be different? Not 30 minutes of Hollywood telling us how smart they are and how dumb we in “the middle” are?
Being someone who likes the full picture, I started researching what was going on. Are we being pandered to, or is there some sincerity there in the writers’ room?
I stumbled across her Jimmy Kimmel interview (Lord, I do not like that man; he is just not funny, politics aside). Then I found her piece in Vanity Fair. She realizes that it is OK to be a social liberal and an economic conservative, and understands that people don’t really vote their morals, they vote their wallets. And more importantly, that doesn’t make us bigots. She made sure that the writers’ room contained people from all political backgrounds, not just hers, and not just the ideals of “Hollywood,” so that the discussions on the show fairly and accurately represented conversations that Americans were having at their own dinner tables and with their own friends.
Maybe by seeing how the rest of us around the country have civil discourse about our different thoughts and are still able to maintain our friendships and love our neighbors, perhaps the rest of Hollywood will come to understand the need for civil discourse rather than being preached at by people who are paid to entertain us, not lecture us.
Hollywood has long misunderstood us “normal Americans” — the ones that get up every day and go to work, run the kids to dance and ball practice, come home at night and scramble to get supper on the table and homework done. Then after the kids are tucked in, pay the mortgage and electric bills and see what’s left that can be invested in our retirement.
This is the heart of America, where we don’t really care who you sleep with, as long as, you “love your neighbor.” Where we still have block parties, Girl Scouts going door to door selling cookies, and kids walking and riding their bikes to school. We care more about job security and making the next car payment than what “Nasty Women” are telling us about what rights they think we might lose. We paid attention in civics class, know what it takes to repeal an amendment, and aren’t worried about the government coming to take away our guns. After all, if the government can’t get 12 million illegal aliens out of the country, how are they ever going to get 300 million guns out of the hands of lawful citizens?
We have bigger things to worry about, like getting the neighbors and local Boy Scouts coordinated to help a single mom, who worked two jobs saving enough to make a down payment, move into her new house. Donald Trump understood this two years ago. Roseanne Barr understands this clearly and reflects this in her show. Perhaps if the rest of Hollywood could grasp this, the movie industry wouldn’t be in the slump they are in now and more television shows would make it past their freshman season. I had no intention of watching the reboot of “Roseanne” and hoped for it to pass quickly into “Nick at Nite” status. I now have a OnePass set up and look forward to getting a full hour of shows about middle America on Tuesday nights.
Now if ABC would just bring back Tim Allen.
Jennifer Jeanne Baier is a North Carolinian at heart but currently lives in Iowa. She is an implementation specialist and developer with Providence Consulting Group, a wife, and a mother to three crazy boys. She is currently working on her first book, “This is Why Mommy Drinks.” She loves Jesus, but she does swear a little.
