Roseanne's Weak Apology on Hannity

[Randolph]

Okay, then.

[Bullitt]

@Baker

I’m still, after all these years, disgusted by her so-called singing of the National Anthem. My father, who was quite the conservative and not a bit of an activist, told me it would have been worth getting arrested to have run out onto the ball field and grabbed the mike away from her, hoping he’d have time to tell the crown “Now, let’s do it right!” He figured he wouldn’t make it, because of security. But as his liberal daughter, whose politics were exactly the oppostie, I told him I would have run interference for him, blocking the aisle or something.

I’d almost forgotten about that. That was 28 years ago. From wiki:

Barr sparked controversy when performing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a nationally aired baseball game on July 25, 1990. After singing the anthem in what many perceived to be a deliberately disrespectful manner, Barr grabbed her crotch and spat. This performance was met with condemnation from baseball fans and sportswriters, and was called “disgraceful” by then-President George H. W. Bush.

I found a Sporting News clip of it. They say it’s from 1993 and I believe that date more, because I don’t think I was still in (USMC) when she did that. I won’t include the video link here. Disgusting, and especially so because I did some color guards for some SF 49ers Monday Night home games, carrying the flag during the singing of the National Anthem.

That was a terrible and and extremely disrespectful that she did.

[Rushgeekgirl]

@puddleglum

Jarrett has an odd haircut and odd looking skin presumably from plastic surgery. It seems obvious that she was saying she looks like her face is a mask. She was being mean and catty. She needs to be getting treatment for her mental health issues instead of doing interviews and melting down further.

I’m sorry but that didn’t seem obvious at all to me that she meant her face is a mask. “Muslim brotherhood & Planet of the Apes had a baby = VJ” doesn’t at all to me read like she’s saying her face looks like a mask. It’s more like she sounds like she’s trying to say she’s a combination of a Muslim and an ape.

And I’m pretty sure Jarrett’s skin just looks like skin. Her daughter’s skin looks just like hers.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Bullitt

That was a terrible and and extremely disrespectful that she did.

I think she was slightly redeemed when she hosted SNL on February 16, 1991 (the anthem incident was indeed from the summer of 1990) and participated in a skit about a Jeopardy!-like game show called “Comedy Killers”, about topics that bring comedy routines to screeching halts (i.e. at a Republican Convention, don’t joke about John Hinckley. At a Democratic Convention, don’t joke about Walter Mondale). It included her making a rather sheepish reference to the national anthem as the “ultimate” comedy killer.

[Bullitt]

@Bryan_Ekers

I think she was slightly redeemed when she hosted SNL on February 16, 1991 (the anthem incident was indeed from the summer of 1990) and participated in a skit about a Jeopardy!-like game show called “Comedy Killers”, about topics that bring comedy routines to screeching halts (i.e. at a Republican Convention, don’t joke about John Hinckley. At a Democratic Convention, don’t joke about Walter Mondale). It included her making a rather sheepish reference to the national anthem as the “ultimate” comedy killer.

Okay, maybe that was her attempt at an apology. If so, it’s consistent with what I saw on Hannity for the 15-20 minutes I watched before getting tired of rolling my eyes at her.

[Bryan_Ekers]

Oh, it didn’t strike me as an apology, just a rather rueful and self-effacing recognition that she’d gone too far. It’s an infinitely better response than either:

1. Doubling down on it and claiming you were 100% serious and what’s with all this pc-faggoty stuff that would never fly in the real America you grew up in, or
2. Reciting a lawyer-approved apology with all the enthusiasm of Harrison Ford doing the contractually-obliged Blade Runner DVD commentary

[Bullitt]

Okay. And yesterday, when Hannity served up some softballs and asked what she’d say to VJ if VJ were on the phone right now, Roseanne’s ramblings were almost leading to her doubling down. Almost, but she did dance around it a bit.

[seal_cleaner]

@Baker

I’m still, after all these years, disgusted by her so-called singing of the National Anthem. My father, who was quite the conservative and not a bit of an activist, told me it would have been worth getting arrested to have run out onto the ball field and grabbed the mike away from her, hoping he’d have time to tell the crown “Now, let’s do it right!” He figured he wouldn’t make it, because of security. But as his liberal daughter, whose politics were exactly the oppostie, I told him I would have run interference for him, blocking the aisle or something.

What did they expect? They didn’t invite her because she’s a singer. I blame the team for expecting her to somehow bring some dignity to the situation.

Edit: Of course I don’t blame the team, I blame management.

[Patx2]

@F.U.Shakespeare

I’m baffled by her assertion that her tweet calling Valerie Jarrett the offspring of the Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes wasn’t racist, because she claims that she didn’t know Jarrett was African American - “I thought she was Middle Eastern”.

Which begs the question of what in hell the PotA comment was supposed to mean.

And, as if it makes the statement ok now. Who cares, if she’s Middle Eastern? Wow, still very screwed up.

[elbows]

I’m not seeing how ‘I didn’t know what she looked like when I called her ugly!’, is any kind of a defence.

Also she didn’t ‘lose everything’, she’s still living on a farm in Hawaii, so a pretty loose definition of ‘everything’. Unlike several people working on the show, who did, in fact lose everything!

[CarnalK]

@elbows

I’m not seeing how ‘I didn’t know what she looked like when I called her ugly!’, is any kind of a defence. !

How can you not understand? Describing a black person as a monkey has a long ugly racist history but it’s not a generalized racist comment. Was it racist to call Bush the “chimp in chief”? No, but it was to call Obama that.

[beowulff]

Why the hell was she tweeting about Valerie Jarrett at all? Was she in the news recently? I hadn’t heard anything.

[blob]

@CarnalK

How can you not understand?

The poster is saying that the purported “defence” is just complete nonsense. If you don’t know what the person looks like, you’d make no remark about them or their looks. The “defence” doesn’t get you out of racism (as it was supposedly intended to do) because it doesn’t explain why you’d volunteer such a (nasty) remark at all.

[BigT]

For those offering defenses: Offering a defense that the person themselves didn’t offer is just an asspull. If they couldn’t come up with it, then it clearly isn’t true. The truth is the easiest excuse to come up with, after all.

As for Barr’s racism, Barr had offered a similar tweet before, so this isn’t the first time. If you listen to this podcast, you can find out all about the conspiracy nonsense she believes: basically there’s this guy who acts like he has an inside track that proves that Trump is really fighting this underground conspiracy. (The tweets they reference can be seen here.) It only makes any sense among the racist conspiracy theorists at 4chan’s /pol.

Edit: that podcast (which has a transcript if you’d rather read) also explains why she even brought up Jarrett in the first place. She was part of the “conspiracy.”

[nelliebly]

Which of Barr’s excuses have I missed?

• She thought Jarrett was white.
• She thought Jarrett was Saudi.
• It was the Ambien talking.
• Her tweet was “misunderstood” by “low-IQ people.”
• She didn’t know “ape” is a racial slur.
• PofA was “about anti-Semitism.”

[Rick_Kitchen]

@beowulff

Why the hell was she tweeting about Valerie Jarrett at all? Was she in the news recently? I hadn’t heard anything.

She was responding to a right wing conspiracy site called SGTReport which was talking about all of Obama’s “crimes”. And somebody said Valerie Jarrett was great at covering up Obama’s crimes.

[Helena330]

At the time, she was also referencing some QAnon conspiracy crap that had discussed Valerie Jarrett.

[dorvann]

http://www.bostonherald.com/inside_track/celebrity_news/2014/11/25_things_you_dont_know_about_me_roseanne_barr

Here’s an excerpt from this article about Roseanne:

I’m bipolar and have ADHD and multiple-personality disorder - but they’re all now in remission due to the powerful drugs I smoke.

She claims to be bipolar. I have to ask if she had claimed that she only made the posts because she was in a manic state due to her bipolar disorder, could Disney have legally fired her? It’s illegal to fire someone because they are mentally disabled, is not? How should we be responding when a celebrity who is known to be mentally ill says something offensive?

Edited to add: The article is from December 2014.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Rick_Kitchen

She was responding to a right wing conspiracy site called SGTReport which was talking about all of Obama’s “crimes”. And somebody said Valerie Jarrett was great at covering up Obama’s crimes.

@Helena330

At the time, she was also referencing some QAnon conspiracy crap that had discussed Valerie Jarrett.

I gather her biggest problem was not knowing her audience, which is just plain death for any comedian. Trevor Noah can get laughs in a South African auditorium with material that wouldn’t play elsewhere, as can be expected. Barr was on the internet, a much less controlled environment, and if her audience was limited to just conspiracy theorists who were already inclined to hate authority (and possibley Obama in particular), then she could say ugly things about Jarrett and get laughs for it. Trouble is, the instant you leave that comfortable niche and your material escapes into the real world, you don’t get laughs in large part because your wider audience doesn’t know who Valerie Jarrett is, so their reaction is confusion, not laughter. And then when the comment is studied (which is something no joke wants to be), the reaction morphs from confusion to disgust.

Noah is not without his Twitter issues. I don’t know if he still does this sort of thing, but I expect any attempt at “edgy” comedy by anyone will have the same result. You just have to decide how much you want to care about a negative reaction and hope your employers are similarly flexible. Noah’s might be. Barr’s were not.

[nelliebly]

@dorvann

http://www.bostonherald.com/inside_track/celebrity_news/2014/11/25_things_you_dont_know_about_me_roseanne_barr

Here’s an excerpt from this article about Roseanne:

She claims to be bipolar. I have to ask if she had claimed that she only made the posts because she was in a manic state due to her bipolar disorder, could Disney have legally fired her? It’s illegal to fire someone because they are mentally disabled, is not? How should we be responding when a celebrity who is known to be mentally ill says something offensive?

Edited to add: The article is from December 2014.

She SAYS she’s bipolar. She SAYS that’s why she tweeted what she did. She also claimed it was Ambien and blah, blah, blah. IANAL, but merely laiming you have a mental illness doesn’t mean you can’t be fired. You have to provide evidence that you have the mental illness and that the mental illness and not, say, stupidity combined with racism, caused the issue.

And that’s how we should respond if someone (not just a celebrity) who has a mental illness says something offensive: Is the illness verifiable? Is there a direct connection between said mental illness and offensive behavior?

And for the record, marijuana makes bipolar symptoms worse, not better. There are a lot of cites, but here’sone.