It’s been less than a month since Roseanne Barr got her show, Roseanne, cancelled because she crossed the line from covert to overt racism on Twitter when she said that former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett was like if the Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes had a baby. As you know, there’s a long, racist history of comparing black people to monkeys and apes, which is why doing it is absolutely racist.
I was kind of expecting Roseanne’s first defense of her tweet to be along the lines of “well, all humans are technically apes, biologically speaking, so it wasn’t racist,” which is true, humans are great apes, but it was still racist. But no, Barr has instead gone with “Planet of the Apes is about antisemitism and I was just calling her an antisemite for helping draft an agreement to end Iran’s nuclear weapons program instead of invading Iran the way Israel’s far-right government wants.”
Rod Serling wrote Planet of The Apes. It was about anti-semitism. That is what my tweet referred to-the anti semitism of the Iran deal. Low IQ ppl can think whatever they want.
— Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) June 14, 2018
So, is it possible that Roseanne just accidentally compared a black woman to an ape without considering the racial implications? Well, sure, it’s plausible, she’s exactly the type of person who would be dumb enough to do that.
Of course, she also retweeted this in the aftermath of being fired, trying to prove how non-racist she is by saying she didn’t know that black woman she compared to an ape was even black. Just trying to see what sticks, I guess.
So basically, Roseanne has learned nothing and having her on the air is going to be detrimental to the network and its brand, regardless of the fact that her show is a hit. And there have been talks about creating a spin-off or continuation of Roseanne without Barr involved. Personally, I think they should just hire Sarah Chalke to play Roseanne and continue as if nothing has changed, aside from making a few meta jokes about it. I would watch that.