While I was watching an episode of Stephen Colbert's show, I was suddenly drawn to what Ashton Kutcher was saying in the interview. I usually tend to stick around for the monologs, but Mr. Kutcher mentions his favorite sitcom, "Roseanne", which also happens to be my favorite sitcom. He mentions how he is basing his new sitcom around his life that was similar to what he saw on Roseanne.
Whenever I hear someone talk about how "Roseanne" was doing things on television then no one had done before, I really didn't have that much of an idea about what they were talking about because my standard for what was normal in sitcoms was really defined by "Roseanne". When I think about my favorite character from "Roseanne", I think about David who was played by Johnny Galecki. Today Johnny is working on "The Big Bang Theory", which is one of the most successful sitcoms of all time. I have thought about watching "The Big Bang Theory" multiple times but I just can't get myself to watch it due to its impact on popular media, and also because I don't want to spend my time comparing and contrasting sitcom-nerd representations to real-nerd representations. I also think there are way too many episodes for me to catch up to at this point and I still haven't even finished "Friends", from the '90's.
A lot of people seem to think that laugh tracks seem forced, and I completely agree. Although whenever I watch "Roseanne" it never feels forced. Maybe I'm just being biased but I think that looking at how I was able to relate to "Roseanne", being able to laugh at Midwestern middle lower class situations was a bit cathartic and in turn helped me deal with similar problems with my own family. Even though I could possibly relate to the different ways that "The Big Bang Theory" expresses their theme. It just doesn't feel as personal due to the popular media that it has become. It feels like the show is for the masses and not me.
All I can say at this point is that "Roseanne" did do things that no one did before, and I would go even further to say that because of "Roseanne" we are able to see ideas and people that we wouldn't have otherwise in modern television. To bring up just a few examples of how "Roseanne" broke the barriers. "Roseanne" introduced gay characters that were more prevalent to the show rather than just token characters. She also introduced situations that would make one 'woke' today, like when DJ, Roseanne's son in the show, get in trouble at school because he says that he won't kiss a girl in a play because she's black, and because of this the parents have to deal with how and why this happened. I mean instead of starting and ending the blame with DJ, the show put the lens on the parents, who needed some "woking" to do, "waking up" to do, I don't know the correct term to use here.
So why even talk about my common interests with Ashton Kutcher? Well, "Roseanne" is coming back! The show is coming back like every nostalgic show out there and I couldn't be more excited! With the cast on board, 2018 couldn't come sooner!
