ABC has wasted no time acting on a racist tweet that was posted by Roseanne Barr. The network has canceled their hit revival of Roseanne amid the controversy surrounding Roseanne’s tweet.
ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey has this to say about the cancellation:
“Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show.”
In the tweet, the ABC star of her self-titled show attacked former President Obama White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, connecting her to the Islamist organization Muslim Brotherhood and the movie Planet of the Apes. The tweet reads “Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj,” Barr wrote, using Jarrett’s initials while replying to a tweet which accused Jarrett of helping to cover up alleged misdeeds for the Obama administration.
When users pointed out that the tweet seemed racist, Barr replied, “Muslims r NOT a race.” Barr then later tweeted her first tweet was “a joke.” This was followed with an apology post: “I apologize to Valerie Jarrett and to all Americans. I am truly sorry for making a bad joke about her politics and her looks. I should have known better. Forgive me-my joke was in bad taste.”
All this was too little too late and now a hit show is no more at ABC & many people are now out of jobs because of the actions of ONE person. In this day and age where everything we say is scrutinized with a fine tooth comb, this was truly stupid on her part. I have to give ABC credit making an example out of her, even if it comes at the cost of others.
Canceling Roseanne had to be no easy feat for the network despite their swift action. The revival debuted its nine-episode run midseason and finished as the TV season’s number one scripted series on all of broadcast. Roseanne averaged a 5.5 rating in adults 18-49 and 19.3 million viewers with live-plus-3 lifts. With a full week of time shifting, those numbers climbed to a 6.4 rating in the key demo and 22.1 million viewers. These numbers made it the highest-rated and most watched series of the broadcast season, eclipsing NBC’s This Is Us and CBS’ The Big Bang Theory.
