Dori: The obvious double-standard with Roseanne and Samantha Bee
Jun 1, 2018, 10:27 AM
Comedian Samantha Bee (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)
(Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)
As everyone heard earlier this week, Roseanne Barr sent out a racist tweet about Obama staffer Valerie Jarrett, in which she implied that Jarrett was the offspring of “Planet of the Apes.” In response, ABC promptly fired Roseanne, canceling the 2018 reboot of her hit 90s sitcom “Roseanne.”
My question is, what will happen to comedian Samantha Bee? Wednesday night on TBS, Samantha Bee used the most vile word in our English language when she called Ivanka Trump the c-word. Samantha was making a comment on the government’s immigration policy, in which parents and children are separated at the border. The comedian criticized Ivanka Trump for tweeting a photo of her with her son, calling it oblivious.
RELATED: Roseanne blames Ambien for racist tweet
You don’t have to be a Trump supporter to find it absolutely repulsive to call a woman the c-word. But we now know that TBS is not going to treat Samantha Bee the same way that ABC treated Roseanne. Like Roseanne, Samantha apologized on Twitter. TBS praised her on Twitter along with an apology of their own.
The double-standard is undeniable here. Calling a woman the c-word is every bit as vile and disgusting as calling an African-American woman the offspring of an ape. They are both inexcusable. But the reaction is about as unpredictable as you can get in America these days. Roseanne was fired. Samantha kept her job.
Roseanne is a wack-job, there’s no doubt about that. I don’t know if Roseanne was drunk or high or bipolar when she sent out that tweet. She claimed Ambien, which I’m not buying, but either way, it was a stupid, inexcusable, career-destroying tweet. However, Samantha Bee not only planned on what she said well in advance, but they put it in the teleprompter, and her producers were aware of what she was going to say. TBS allowed it to air on their network. There is no way to explain this societal double-standard that we have.
Not to mention, Roseanne’s show was a cash show; it was the most successful sitcom in years on network television. And ABC dropped it immediately. Samantha Bee is a marginal show on a marginal network. Yes TBS stood by her. Why? Because calling the president’s daughter the c-word is, somehow, in the bizarre world of showbiz, infinitely more acceptable than calling an African-American the offspring of an ape. They’re both horrible. They’re both disgusting. But the reaction is stark.
Equally disgusting. One cost someone her career. The other got laughs from an entire audience. You can’t say that one is a comedian and one isn’t — Roseanne began her career doing stand-up. They’re both the same.
Also, that is a word that I find so vile. It is a word that has not and will not ever pass over my lips. The c-word to describe a woman is every bit as disgusting as the n-word to describe an African-American. But you can be vile — as long as you’re describing the daughter of a Republican president.
