“Roseanne” has been the big sitcom story of the season, and recently Ad Week talked with ABC honcho Ben Sherwood about the show’s revival. If Hollywood has been out of touch with “mainstream America, ” Sherwood asserts — a sweeping assumption Ad Week simply repeats as fact — the obvious move postelection was to ponder: “What is our responsibility to reflect what just happened on our airwaves?”
ABC then “began to develop some ideas about how perhaps inclusion doesn’t just mean ‘Fresh Off the Boat’ and ‘Black-ish.’ Maybe inclusion also means reflecting the working poor in America, and the middle of America where there is daily struggle.”
OK, hang on. Hang on. There’s so much to unpack here. For nine seasons the network did carry a show about the limited finances and daily struggles of a family in middle America called, ahem, “The Middle,” which just aired its series finale this week — what kind of revisionist history is Sherwood selling?
Interestingly, his fuzzy understanding of inclusion brings to mind a sour joke that appeared on “Roseanne” earlier this season: Dan, after falling asleep in front of the TV one night: “We missed all the shows about black and Asian families.” Roseanne, shrugging: “They’re just like us. There, now you’re all caught up.” If you take Sherwood at his word, it sounds like ABC feels the same.
There’s also the reality that “daily struggle” isn’t just the province of white middle America. Should we wade into weeds a bit further? Without coming right out and saying it, Sherwood is working off the idea that America’s working poor overwhelmingly voted for Trump. And yet a majority of voters earning less than $49,900 — the Conner family income, in other words — went for Hillary Clinton. It would be interesting to hear how invested Sherwood is in reflecting the lives and daily struggles of those Americans, as well.
Ahead of the season finale, “Roseanne” showrunner Bruce Helford told Variety that next year the show will seek to better capture the changing cultural makeup of small towns like the fictional Lanford, which “represents the suburbs of Chicago and, particularly around the Elgin area which now, as everybody has noted, is primarily Hispanic. We started to represent that. We didn’t have time in the first nine (episodes) to go too deep into it. We started to represent the fact that the new family hangout is a Mexican restaurant, which there are plenty of in that area.”
How strange to acknowledge the town’s Latino population not with any human beings but with a restaurant. (A chain restaurant at that, judging by the looks of Becky’s uniform and company-mandated birthday song-and-dance routine.)
We don’t know why “Roseanne” has drawn such a large audience. We can guess; that’s what Sherwood is doing. That’s what everybody is doing. (Even as ratings dipped a few million since the show’s premiere, it still is bringing in huge numbers; a little more than 10 million viewers for its finale.) I’ve watched the entire season out of baffled professional curiosity, and my own theory is that the look of the Conner home itself — which remains unchanged from the original — is a big part of the appeal, subconsciously at least. The dated wallpaper, the dilapidated furniture and the architecture of the set itself are familiar to such a degree that it does the work of transporting you back a few decades to a time that isn’t … now.
Earlier this year I spoke with Li Lai, the founder of mediaversityreviews.com (which reviews shows and films by how inclusive they are), and she had a smart theory about the appeal of reboots and revivals: “Things are really kind of freaky right now and if you want to hide in your childhood, that’s fine!”
There were three reboots that didn’t get picked up by the broadcast networks for next season: “Cagney & Lacey,” “The Greatest American Hero” and “Get Christie Love.” All were female-led shows featuring women of color. The networks said “no thanks.” Make of that what you will. Maybe the pilots weren’t good. Or maybe they didn’t capture whatever it is ABC’s Sherwood believes “mainstream America” wants to watch on TV.
“Greatest American Hero” starred Hannah Simone (so funny on “New Girl”) and “Get Christie Love” starred Kylie Bunbury (of the terrific but short-lived “Pitch”), both for ABC. Bunbury is exactly the kind of actress who should be leading a show; she had a guest spot this year as a cop on “Law & Order: SVU” and instantly stood out despite the hacky storyline. Whatever is guiding these decisions at the network level, it’s not about a lack of talent in front of the camera.
Looking ahead to next season, Vulture writer Maria Elena Fernandez notes that out that of the 35 new shows picked up by the broadcast networks, half have people of color in lead roles. That’s the good news. But only four of those shows have people of color “in key creative and producing positions.” Of the remaining shows starring white leads, “there isn’t a single person of color in those key positions.”
Taking a page from Sherwood, Bravo has announced plans for a new show called “Real Housewives of the 1960s,” spinning off from its reliably junky (and yes, reliably watchable, I can’t explain it!) “Real Housewives” reality franchise.
Here’s the description: “A cast of modern women will be sent back to the 1960s to experience the ultimate era of the American Housewife.”
A good deal of cultural change took place over the course of the ’60s, but OK: “These women and their families will be transported back to a traditional decade where men made the money, women made the home, and teenagers actually did as they were told. In living through the ‘golden age’ of the sixties family life, the cast will discover if more time spent together, traditional husband and wife roles, and no digital distractions might actually improve their chaotic lives and even fix their relationships.”
So much of reality TV is driven by cynical impulses, but even by those standards this is an absurd premise. It’s basically internet trolling in TV form. Let’s point out the obvious: The coded language here suggests a specifically white and middle-class world (not to mention one that’s idealized; when teenagers did as they were told? Ha!) when in fact this wasn’t the universal 1960s experience. Women in working-class families — white women and women of color — have always had jobs outside the home. They had to. Also, what does “a traditional decade” even mean? Euphemisms abound when Hollywood wants to talk about things it doesn’t actually want to name.
In other news this week, Barack and Michelle Obama have signed a multiyear production deal with Netflix that will include both scripted and unscripted series, as well as documentaries and feature films. The first projects are slated to premiere next year. The Obamas will be on camera in some cases; in others they will function only as producers. That’s all we know at the moment; I’m especially curious to see what kind of scripted series they have in mind.
“We hope to cultivate and curate the talented, inspiring, creative voices who are able to promote greater empathy and understanding between peoples, and help them share their stories with the entire world,” Barack Obama said in a statement.
With 125 million subscribers, Netflix is ubiquitous, and the potential audience is huge — but the streaming service doesn’t reveal its numbers, so we won’t actually know how many viewers these various projects attract.
The “Roseanne” revival was originally headed to Netflix before ABC made a play for it. Would the show be as big a story if we didn’t know about its massive ratings? I suspect not.
Circling back to Sherwood, I do think there’s something to what he’s saying. There are an abundance of shows, especially on the broadcast networks, that focus on elite professionals and upper-middle-class families who live and work in stylish environments. Where money worries aren’t part of the equation.
There are outliers. “Mom” on CBS (which returns for a sixth season in the fall) is consistently funny and perceptive about the economic concerns of its working-class characters, along with its stories about addiction and recovery.
Netflix’s “One Day at the Time” reboot (recently renewed for a third season) is another stellar example, centering a Cuban-American family and the stories that unfold in their cheery if modest apartment. Mom is the breadwinner, a military veteran who is divorced and raising the kids on her own. We see her struggle with the demands of parenting along with her job, a new relationship and night school — as well as a good many social-political issues that find their way into the Alvarez home.
“Hold on tight we’ll muddle through, one day at a time,” the infectious theme song promises. Talk about encapsulating our current moment.
nmetz@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @Nina_Metz
