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| The cast of Roseanne, all grown up |
I fucking love this show. So much. I wrote during our Reproduction & Abortion theme week about why I love this show so much:
I grew up watching Roseanne. The show first aired in 1988—when I was ten years old—and it ended after 9 seasons, around the time I graduated high school. The fact that the show now appears in reruns on various television stations, during all hours of the day and night, often makes me feel like the Conners have never not been a part of my life. I saw myself (and my family) in that show, and I identified with the characters and their struggles, particularly surrounding financial issues and social status.
Unfortunately, families like the Conners just don’t exist on TV now, which is extremely problematic considering families today—and women in particular—continue to feel the never-ending effects of Wall Street tanking our economy. We simply no longer see the realities of women’s lives accurately reflected back at us in the media. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that Roseanne, a television show starring a fat, working-class, unapologetically outspoken matriarch; a television show that effectively dealt with racism, classism, feminism, gay marriage (depicting the very first gay marriage in the history of television); a television show openly addressing sexism and misogyny, and yes—a woman’s right to choose; and finally, a television show that first aired nearly 25 years ago, is a far more progressive television show than anything currently gracing the network airwaves in 2012.
You can read the whole thing here. So … who’s up for a Roseanne theme week?
Yessssss!