In working with Roseanne, ABC played with fire, got burned

May 30--In getting into business with Roseanne Barr for the reboot this spring of her classic sitcom, ABC had to know it was running alongside an electrified fence.

Yet while the show aired over the last two months, things mostly went well. The 2018 "Roseanne" defied the odds for sitcom remakes and was a smash hit, earning an almost immediate renewal for next season.

It was able to tackle contemporary issues from income inequality to overt racism and earn mostly praise from critics. And until Tuesday Barr, the volatile star whose blue-collar comedy gave the series its tone, managed to keep her presence somewhat in check on Twitter, where her recent history had shown a fondness for incendiary right-, intolerant- and conspiracy-leaning politics.

But then Barr published a racist tweet about former Obama White House aide Valerie Jarrett, and the network -- and Barr's coworkers on the show -- felt the jolt.

"Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby = vj," wrote Barr overnight Tuesday, in response to a Twitter mention of Jarrett, the fixture in the Chicago power structure who is African-American and was born in Iran to American parents.

Midday Tuesday, the network canceled the second season of the series, despite it ending 2017-18 with the second-largest audience among scripted shows. The swift reaction, which came despite Barr deleting and apologizing for the tweet, suggested the entertainment world continues down a path of diminished tolerance for the misdeeds of even its biggest moneymakers.

"Roseanne's Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show," said Channing Dungey, ABC's entertainment president, in a statement.

The decision was backed by her boss, Walt Disney Company CEO Robert Iger, despite the cancellation leaving a big hole in ABC's schedule for next year. He tweeted, "There was only one thing to do here, and that was the right thing."

Even Barr's talent agency had enough. ICM, asserting that it has "core values," announced in a letter to employees that it had fired its client, Barr, over her "disgraceful and unacceptable tweet."

As for Jarrett, the 62-year-old Chicago lawyer, who had been an aide to Mayors Harold Washington and Richard M. Daley before becoming a mainstay among Obama's advisers, was silent during much of Tuesday.

But perhaps she was waiting to talk because she knew she would be a panelist at an MSNBC town hall forum taping in the afternoon titled, of all things, "Everyday Racism in America."

There, Jarrett said ABC had done the right thing by ending the show. "First of all, I think we have to turn it into a teaching moment," she said. "I'm fine. I'm worried about all the people out there who don't have a circle of friends and followers coming to their defense."

Jarrett reported that Iger called her ahead of time to tell her he would not tolerate such remarks.

"He wanted me to know before he made it public that he was canceling the show," she said.

In this era of #MeToo repercussions, even runaway success is proving no insulation. NBC and CBS fired star anchors Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose respectively after sexual misconduct allegations. The same thing happened to Jeffrey Tambor, a multiple Emmy winner, star of Amazon's "Transparent" series.

The pressure on ABC didn't just come in the form of an outcry on Twitter, which shared screenshots of Barr's deleted tweet widely. It came from inside the house.

Even before the network's announcement, African-American comedian Wanda Sykes, a writer on "Roseanne" this year, announced to her Twitter followers that she quit. Emma Kenney, who played Roseanne's granddaughter, said she was about to quit when she learned of the cancellation. She called Barr's tweet "racist" and "inexcusable."

Sara Gilbert, who plays Barr's daughter Darlene and was an executive producer, said, "This is incredibly sad and difficult for all of us, as we've created a show that we believe in, are proud of, and that audiences love -- one that is separate and apart from the opinions and words of one cast member."

Gilbert also suggested Barr had more than one tweet to answer for: "Roseanne's recent comments about Valerie Jarrett, and so much more, are abhorrent."

It's the "so much more" that suggests everybody who participated in this enterprise knew it might end badly. The argument for doing it anyway is that maybe it's a positive influence on Barr and that the show is able to get across messages of tolerance and of understanding a segment of American society that TV rarely treats with empathy.

Indeed, one of the things that made the tale of Roseanne Conner's working-class family in a fictional Chicago suburb potent was its willingness to grapple with contemporary politics, especially in addressing the Conners' tenuous grasp on the middle class. Roseanne drove an Uber, while husband Dan (John Goodman) saw a union drywalling job lost to a contractor using undocumented workers.

"Our cast, crew, writers and production staff strived for inclusiveness, with numerous storylines designed to reflect inclusiveness," said "Roseanne" actor Michael Fishman in his tweet lamenting the show's sudden demise.

The show was also canny enough to tackle head-on some of the controversy surrounding its star. Barr's support of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election was a populist turn from the more left-seeming Roseanne during the show's first run, two decades ago. The new "Roseanne" made the lead character's support of Trump into a plot point in the sitcom's first episode back on the air two months ago.

Later in the year, an episode had Barr's character voice racist fears about new Muslim neighbors before getting a "comeuppance" that ABC was careful to make known that Barr herself had insisted upon.

But knowing what you ought to do to keep your business going and being able to restrain yourself in the middle of the night are two separate challenges. Barr has a history of pushing far-fetched conspiracy theories on Twitter, including the laughable and repeatedly debunked notion that top Democrats were running a child sex ring out of a D.C.-area pizza parlor.

The tweet that finally forced the hand of those who would apologize for Barr as merely iconoclastic or controversial followed a thread saying Wikileaks had released alleged evidence of the Obama administration spying on French presidential candidates.

"Jarrett helped hide a lot," said one Twitter user.

And that was all it took to inspire Barr to bring up "Planet of the Apes."

In apologizing in the light of morning, Barr dug herself an even deeper hole: She said she was "truly sorry for the bad joke about (Jarrett's) politics and her looks" -- which implies that she still saw validity in the physical comparison. She also said, as she has in the past during Twitter controversy, that she was leaving the digital publishing platform.

Not long after, she learned she'll be leaving other things, too: a hit TV show, a network, an improbable comeback and, in all likelihood, any hope of a mainstream career. Roseanne Barr asked for a comeuppance, and she got one.

sajohnson@chicagotribune.com

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