Wanda Sykes leaving Roseanne, consulting producer role
Sykes first made the announcement on Tuesday morning, very much prompted by Roseanne Barr’s racist comment on Twitter regarding former President Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. Barr removed the comment and later apologized, claiming that she was going to leave the social-media site as a result of that.
There has been fear for months on some level that Barr’s controversial account could lead to ramifications regarding her show, especially given the fact that she has a history of making incendiary remarks there and stoking the flames of controversy. Many around her on the show have done their best to try to minimize some of the damage, saying that their goal is to have Roseanne the series speak for everyone. However, that hasn’t changed much of the narrative surrounding the show or its star. Instead, there have been accusations that ABC has turned a blind eye for the sake of getting big ratings — the Roseanne revival performed very well with its premiere and was one of the most-successful series on all of network TV over the past year.
What Roseanne has done now, just through one tweet, is put ABC into an enormous pickle that is going to be difficult for them to resolve. If they continue to air the show (which was renewed earlier this year), they face the backlash of a number of fans upset about the lack of consequences for the show’s star. Meanwhile, if they cancel the show they then have to deal with backlash from Roseanne supporters threatening to not watch any other ABC program. They can come up with a compromise, including suspending Roseanne from some episodes of her own show, but that probably makes zero people happy and no one is really getting what they want.
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