I'm only going to make one post about this, and I'm sure the replies will throw words into my mouth, try to interpret them in the worst possible way, accuse me of being some horrible things, and I'm okay with that - I am going to say what I have to say, and then (as the mob internet mentality we live in today dictates) people will then think whatever they want that fits their own internal narrative.
What happened today with Roseanne is the epitome of what the hell is wrong with all of us today. It is why I am, no joking, no exaggeration, really concerned for the future of our nation. It shows that we have lost most critical thinking skills, that our bar for things like "virulent racism" is ridiculously low (anyone who actually thinks Roseanne is some terrible racist have never met nor seen a terrible racist), that people will pounce on to something and use it to further their own narrative no matter what the truth or context may be, and that corporations are now ruled by social media. We all see everything through the lens of identity politics, and it is going to be the ruin of our culture as this goes further and further (and I say this as a gay man who is sick to death of everyone who isn't gay telling me how "marginalized" I am).
What Roseanne said was stupid, and she should have known better. She is also quite famous for having rather severe mental health problems (impulse issues, bipolar, etc.). In the middle of the night she made a tweet, deleted it when the sun came up, issued what was a rather sincere apology for it, and left the platform - all BEFORE most of us were out of bed this morning, and before the media even picked it up.
Her tweet refereed to "Planet of the Apes" - and clearly she was referring to the classic films. In which they were all played by...white people. I'm sorry, condemn me for it - it was not right to say, but yes, when it is pointed out, the shape of the face of the woman she was talking about strangely does resemble the sort of streched faces of the masks used in that film. I'm not going to put up comparison pictures here, but if anyone honestly can look at a picture of her and look at a picture from that film you will see what I honestly believe she was actually referring to.
She had a really stupid thought in the middle of the night (and who knows what medications she is on), did not properly control her impulses, hours later, again, before any of us even knew about it, issued a frank apology and did the right thing by realizing that twitter just isn't a place for her, and...REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE the outrage machine had a long weekend off and were ready to just pounce. This was so perfect for it, because of all the misinformation and bullcrap said about the new show, to begin with (mostly from people who didn't even watch it).
Again, it was in bad taste. She should not have gone after someone's appearance. But to see it reported as "virulently racist" and enough to just delete someone from society is so troubling, especially since most people who are jumping on this aren't putting what she said into context. Putting it into context doesn't make it right, but it does show that she was making a poor joke about someone's appearance, and by labeling it as racist it just amped it all up and now 100's of people lost their jobs, and millions of people just lost a show they obviously connected with in these troubled times.
I am sure people will vehimently disagree with this, and somehow label me some racist or other -ist for saying these things, but like I said, this is the internet age - 1984 is here, but the twist is it is not the government that is imposing it - it is social media, we are doing it to ourselves. The supposed "compassion" we are supposed to show is a joke, when people cannot see that indeed, like many creative people (and let's not pretend that until her politics and tweets became involved, Roseanne has been called a comic genius for decades) she admittedly has myriad mental health issues, which would be the first thing people would mention if they didn't disagree with her politics.
If this is a picture of some horrible racist who needs to be expunged, then America - we have gone off the deep end:
