“Roseanne” Canceled After Racist Tweet
May 31, 2018
ABC’s “Roseanne” was canceled on Tuesday, following a racist tweet from the star of the show, Roseanne Barr. Barr had been engaged in a twitter flamewar with former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett and tweeted the following: “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj.”
Since then, Channing Dungey, the president of ABC Entertainment, took swift and final action by canceling the show shortly after the tweet. Bob Iger, the chairman and CEO of Disney, added that “There was only one thing to do here, and that was the right thing.”
Donald Trump responded on twitter, not with outright defense of Roseanne Barr, but with strong language against Iger: the president accused him of hypocrisy in that he responded strongly to Barr’s foul language but not other insults and/or mistakes from ABC directed at Trump.
“Bob Iger of ABC called Valerie Jarrett to let her know that ‘ABC does not tolerate comments like those’ made by Roseanne Barr. Gee, he never called President Donald J. Trump to apologize for the HORRIBLE statements made and said about me on ABC. Maybe I just didn’t get the call?” Trump tweeted.
But the story took a turn after comedian Samantha Bee called Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump a “feckless c**t,” with the President expressing fury over a double standard and calling for Bee’s show to be cancelled like Roseanne’s. “Why aren’t they firing no talent Samantha Bee for the horrible language used on her low ratings show?” Trump wrote on Twitter. Bee expressed remorse and apologized but her show was not cancelled amid conservative outcry that such a sexist and misogynistic comment was allowed but Roseanne’s show was cancelled over one racist one.
Sophomore Stella Park told the Patriot Press that “[Barr’s] costars shouldn’t have been punished as well by canceling the entire show.”
Senior Samatha Segreto condemns Roseanne’s racism. “I think the saddest thing is the fact that so many people feel exactly the same way Roseanne does, it’s just that not all of them come right out and say it like she did. To blame her behavior on a medication is like saying that racism is an illness..it’s not. Unlike a mental illness, it can be much more easily controlled.