How ‘Roseanne’ Got It Right In The Era Of Trump
In an era of political divisiveness and familial tension all across the United States, the Roseanne revival hits the mark on what it's like to live in the midwest in 2018. People have been very vocal about the show's reboot, both for and against the show. Ultimately, the show is right on target, especially for the class of people that Roseanne the show has always represented - blue-collar America.
It's easy to get caught in the trap of knowing that our beliefs are the only ones to be true - that our ideals and morals are infallible. The 2016 election demonstrated this perfectly and revealed just how divided the people of the United States are in modern times. Once we all learned that Trump would be the new President of the United States, tensions rose and people became staunchly convinced that their viewpoint was the only viewpoint. Roseanne makes light of this - of the division, chaos, and destruction between families and friends post-election. The show perfectly captures what it's like to live in the era of Trump in places like Evansville, Henderson, Owensboro, Newburgh, Mount Vernon, and most cities and towns in the midwest.
In the midst of the chaos, we've forgotten the reasons why someone may have chosen to vote a particular way due to viewing our own ideas as being the only acceptable and righteous path forward. It becomes easier to create rifts and push against the people we love when we're so sure that our convictions are concrete truths. Furthermore, with these rifts between the people and between political parties widening, it seems as though extremism has been designated the new normal for both liberals and conservatives alike. Losing our ability to empathize and lack of desire to even understand one another, the division is now the new norm in the U.S. What Roseanne offers us is a look into this rift - a country built on the principle of standing united, now divided.
Roseanne perfectly highlights the new dynamic of the typical, blue-collar Midwestern family. What it really offers us, though, is a look into our own unwillingness to embrace understanding. The new revival does what its predecessor had always done - takes heated issues and makes light of them in a serious enough way to get people thinking but also entertains by doing it all with a comedic twist. It's worth noting that politics is only the main focus in the first episode, and the second episode is more of a throwback to the original Roseanne dynamic. The revival tackles many issues including racism, sexuality, gender identity, human rights and many other modern issues in America, just as the original did in its debut in 1988.
Is the new Roseanne going to be another television game-changer as it was in the 90's? Who knows. One thing is for certain - the Roseanne revival's true purpose is to promote awareness through humor, acquaint people with the issues, and bring all of us, differences and all, together once again. So far, Roseanne is accomplishing what it set out to do because whether you're for it or against it, it's definitely got people talking again and that's just the beginning.
Watch a trailer for the Roseanne revival here: