|
|
|
|
|
|
Resources |
|
|
|
Roseanne: TV's All-American Mother
| Article
# : |
17808 |
|
|
Section : |
THE ARTS
|
| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1990 |
1,787 Words |
| Author
: |
Brad Miner
Brad Minor is literary editor of the National Review in New
York. |
"The drama of daily life is greatly heightened if one feels that society is organized against one"
With any luck, you don't know what this is about. You've never watched ABC-TV's Roseanne, and you've never seen its star, Roseanne Barr, although I don't know how you've managed to miss her. The sitcom is a hit, having dethroned the venerable Cosby; it is No.1 in the Nielsens, and fifty-five million of your fellow citizens tune in every Tuesday night. Her autobiography, Roseanne: My Life as a Woman, is a big bestseller; the publisher can barely keep up with reorders, and it may sell a million copies this year. The tabloids love her; you won't see an issue at your neighborhood movie house is She-Devil, a major motion picture in which Roseanne stars with Mery1 Streep, but does not, to her dismay, have a nude scene. Roseanne is five-feet-four-inches tall and weighs more than two hundred pounds, and the thing is, she wants you to see her naked; she is determined that one day you shall.
Now there's nothing revolutionary about Roseanne's TV show. She and her hubby are overweight, working stiffs, whose three kids are the serious-minded foils for their parents' post-adolescent buffoonery. "Roseanne Connor" is the video version of Roseanne Barr's nightclub persona. (This is the new obsession at ABC: Create a series based upon a successful stand-up comedian. Call it the Cosby Syndrome. There is Roseanne, of course, but also Richard Lewis of Anything but Love and Jackie Mason of Chicken Soup.)
Roseanne Connor is really Ralph Kramden in drag; she's Archie Bunker turned inside out. Her children probably go to school with the Bundy kids of Married with
... (1992 of 10430 Characters)
Read Full Article
|
|
