A daily chronicle of creativity in film, TV, music, arts, and entertainment, produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from November 2014 – March 2020. Host John Horn leads the conversation, accompanied by the nation's most plugged-in cultural journalists.
When comedian Roseanne Barr ran for President of the United States in 2012, a lot of people didn’t take her seriously. But she was actually pretty serious about the issues.
Running on a socialist platform that included single payer health care, abortion rights, and marijuana legalization she became the candidate for the Peace and Freedom party after losing a bid to represent the Green Party. All of this is documented in the new film “Roseanne for President!” At one point in the film she gives a speech in which she said:
There's another kind of comedy. There's the kind that speaks truth to power and not to pacify the victims of power. That is the difference between a serious comedian and a clown.
Barr's hit sitcom from the '90's "Roseanne" tackled socio-political and economic issues that pushed the envelope for television at the time. Unemployment, poverty, abortion and a much-debated lesbian kiss were among the topics that set her show apart. In the documentary she talks about a pilot for a new show she was developing for a year that didn't get picked up. When asked about this, Barr told The Frame that her politics "killed" her TV career.
Below find interview highlights from her conversation with The Frame's John Horn or click on the play button to hear the interview...bleeps and all.
Trailer: Roseanne for President!
Do you think because of who you are and what you've done, people were reluctant to take you seriously as a presidential candidate?
That's exactly what happened, but if they had any brains, which they don't, they would have seen that I could be very useful to a third party and I think I have been. This year is the first year in American election history that almost 16 percent of the public is going to vote for a third party. I think I was ahead of a trend.
In your campaign, you talked a lot about politicians and parties being in bed with the big banks and the need for universal single payer healthcare. All of that sounds reminiscent of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Do you think that his campaign picked up where yours ended?
Yeah, I think he stole my s***, but I offered it freely and I hoped somebody would for God's sake and I'm very honored that he did and sometimes word for word. And I also think that Trump stole a lot of my s***, too, because I also considered this government a failed senate and they are not representing the people who put them there.
In what ways did being in entertainment prepare you for your presidential run?
Like I said in the debates, I and I alone convinced a gaggle of very conservative television executives that having gay people on in the family hour was indeed a good idea. And I felt that because I did that, I could run for president and not only run for president, but be president and make America great again, along with the rest of the damn world with it.
How effective do you think you were in using your sitcom to put issues that you cared about into the public conversation?
Once, I think it was a New York Times reporter that asked me, "Do you think there would be a Hillary Clinton without a Roseanne Conner? and I said, "No. I don't." The writers on the show and I made it palatable to middle class America, to working class America, and even to the halls of those people in power, that women were smart and they were very shocked to hear that.
There was a lot of controversy over an episode of "Roseanne" which features two women kissing, the episode eventually did run. How were you able to convince ABC to air it?
Just bottom-line, common-sense talking about demographics, which is something that I used to study a lot, so I approached them on that. It was a very professional, uptown, Harvard-ish way of talking. And I do wanna say for the gay thing, I do have a gay brother and sister, so that was something that I knew was very important at that time.
By demographics, you mean that you felt that there was an audience out there that would not only identify, but also not be offended by a lesbian kiss?
Yeah, cause I always thought that my whole life as a little girl watching television and going, "Why is it only 'Father Knows Best' and all the women have pretty dresses and pearls on? None of the women in my family looked like that. They all weighed 300 pounds and worked harder than men physically, so why isn't that ever on there because everyone that I see and grew up with that was the reality." It's just class bulls*** and I wanted to kick that in and I did.
It seems that television has come a long way since your show was on the air on a variety of issues including LGBT issues. Are you happy, excited, or do you feel TV still has a long way to go?
There's a lot of great stuff to watch on television and Netflix and a lot of great content out there and I'll tell you one thing: There's nothing about class in America. I think that is such an uncomfortable conversation in our country right now and we probably won't see it because it's just too real. And if I did come back that's all I would talk about and I would be nude.
Do you foresee a "Roseanne 2.0" coming up?
I don't know. I mean I'm tired. I could never work that hard again. I'm sixty-four now. I got six grandkids. I like teaching them to swear and stuff more than anything else.