The decision of America's ABC network to can the popular high-rating revival of Roseanne in the wake of the star's Twitter comments feels like a satisfying line in the sand in shifting times.
It means racism is CANCELLED. For real. Not a half-hearted accommodation to placate our sponsors and the commentariat. Not an apology and business as usual.
The axe has moved swiftly and the person wielding it - ABC's head of entertainment Channing Dungey - is black, female and powerful.
It comes after Barr on Tuesday morning referred in a tweet to a former Obama aide, the Iranian-born Valerie Jarrett, as looking like the offspring of the “Muslim Brotherhood & Planet of the Apes”.
Dungey issued a statement following the tweet, which said: "Roseanne's Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show."
The re-booted Roseanne sitcom, featuring the working class Conner family as Trump supporters, aired earlier this year to controversy. In a New York Times , writer Roxane Gay expressed admiration for the show but also disquiet at the blurring between Roseanne's TV persona and her real-life one, offering a potential endorsement of Barr's social media ballasts in recent years supporting conspiracy theories and railing against Muslims and feminism.
"My first reaction was that the show was excellent. But I could not set aside what I know of Roseanne Barr and how toxic and dangerous her current public persona is...This fictional family, and the show’s very real creator, are further normalising Trump and his warped, harmful political ideologies. There are times when we can consume problematic pop culture, but this is not one of those times," Gay wrote.
It seems like these rumblings have also been stirring at ABC HQ for some time. Dungey’s swift move feels like a well-timed capturing of an opportunity to move against Barr, anchored in personal conviction.
It shows leadership and change within organisations is possible and how important it is for people of colour to engage with institutions. It's symptomatic of the cultural struggles within organisations as the power within them shifts and diverse leaders and executives take up positions in the highest ranks, making decisions that shape our culture and society.
True diversity will mean a power shift. It will mean discomfort and loss.
It reflects why diversity, a catchy theoretical buzz cry for many people, is actually terrifying and so widely resisted in real-world measures. True diversity will mean a power shift. It will mean discomfort and loss. It will mean people of colour have a say, not just as subjects but your bosses. People who will set the tone for the culture, greenlight shows and content and cancel racist nonsense.
The move was applauded by art and entertainment powerhouses Viola Davis, Ava DuVernay and ABC supremo Shonda Rhimes, who has been with the network for the past 15 years and is the creator of several hit shows on the network including How to Get Away with Murder, Scandal and Grey's Anatomy.
Roseanne was a show that was bit like the rollercoaster you enjoyed as a kid but returning back seems dated and kind of strange.
Like other television reboots (Will and Grace, The X files) Roseanne was dragged kicking and screaming from the 90s into 2018 in jarring fashion. It was like a weird broadcast television nostalgia fight back against the encroaching world of Netflix and a tide of smart, funny modern drama and comedy elbowing its way through television's whitewashed landscape to tell stories about today's world - shows like The Mindy Project, The Chi, Master of None and The Good Fight.
And there's plenty more shows just waiting in the wings to be created for the future, not dragged from the past.
Yes to women of colour in power - as creators, executives and storytellers - now and into the future. Bye racist white women. Your #timesup.
