Feminism and Pop Culture: Seal Studies by Andi Zeisler

Author:Andi Zeisler [Zeisler, Andi]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, pdf
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2008-10-14T04:00:00+00:00

The Flawed TV Heroine

Working women on both the big and small screens spent the 1980s being scorned, humiliated, and punished for the dual sins of being ambitious and female. “Working women” at this time denoted not just the women who were infiltrating traditionally male realms of business, law, and other environs requiring a power suit, but also women who worked pink-collar factory, waitress, and secretarial jobs. And in 1988, one of them stood up and out in a big way. Her name was Roseanne Barr, and she managed not only to unseat TV’s First Family—The Cosby Show’s Huxtables—but helped change how we all viewed the TV housewife/working mother.

Roseanne had been preceded by both put-upon matriarchs (such as Florida Evans on Good Times) and sassy working-class heroines (such as Alice’s title character, herself based on the character in the 1974 film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore). But she was the first to fuse both into a confrontational icon. Caustic, unsentimental, and overweight, with an oft-unemployed husband and three ingrate children, Roseanne and her family were the molecular opposites of the Huxtables. The Cosby clan was black, upwardly mobile, well groomed, and loving; the Connors were white, working class, slovenly, and antagonistic. Roseanne Connor was overworked and underappreciated: She had a factory job with a sexist boss, and when she got home she was responsible for the care and feeding of her kids and husband. She seemed physically incapable of emulating the TV housewife who makes it all seem sleek, effortless, and joyful; for Rosanne, both paid work and wifework were indistinguishable in their drudgery, and she had no interest in sugarcoating that for anyone. Roseanne embodied the frustration of what Arlie Hochschild called “the second shift”: the situation faced by working women who, after a day at the factory or office, come home to continue working on the domestic front. In a 1987 Ms. article, sociologist Susan Dworkin called her a “symbol of the disgruntled American housewife, hanging in but perpetually pissed.” And that was exactly how the real-life Roseanne Barr liked it: As she would later say of her character, “I never want her to be perfect. I want her to be flawed.” But perhaps more important, she wanted her to not hide the reality of women everywhere in the very same boat.

Not everyone wanted to hear from such a proudly flawed character, though, and despite Roseanne’s unqualified success (the show was consistently high ranked throughout its nine seasons and won various Emmys and Golden Globes), Roseanne Barr herself had vocal, vicious, and, it will surprise no one to hear, largely male critics, who piled on with epithets such as “dog” and “bitch.” Roseanne was loud, obnoxious, demanding, bawdy, and, of course, fat—in other words, she had all the unflattering characteristics ascribed to feminism itself. And furthermore, she wasn’t playing a character: Roseanne Connor was Roseanne Barr, minus a few mitigating details, and Barr fought continually with the producers of the TV show to keep the character true to life.

Through

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