Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Roseanne Barr Doesn't Think Much of Television Producers

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Posted By on Tue, May 17, 2011 at 12:50 PM

I watch far too much television, so Roseanne Barr's essay on her experience developing her self-titled program for ABC was always going to be fascinating for me, but even for people with actual lives, her thoughts on the nature of fame might be the most interesting non-Tucson Weekly-related thing you read this week:

Nothing real or truthful makes its way to TV unless you are smart and know how to sneak it in, and I would tell you how I did it, but then I would have to kill you. Based on Two and a Half Men’s success, it seems viewers now prefer their comedy dumb and sexist. Charlie Sheen was the world’s most famous john, and a sitcom was written around him. That just says it all. Doing tons of drugs, smacking prostitutes around, holding a knife up to the head of your wife—sure, that sounds like a dream come true for so many guys out there, but that doesn’t make it right! People do what they can get away with (or figure they can), and Sheen is, in fact, a product of what we call politely the “culture.” Where I can relate to the Charlie stuff is his undisguised contempt for certain people in his work environment and his unwillingness to play a role that’s expected of him on his own time.

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