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"At the very least, it's reductive and belittling"

The latest episode of Roseanne has been slammed for mocking TV shows about “black and Asian families”.

Roseanne‘s latest episode titled’Roseanne Gets the Chair’ has been criticised for joke that mocks “black and Asian families”.

In the episode, Roseanne and her husband Dan Conner (John Goodman) wake up from a nap in front of the TV before engaging in the following dialogue:

Dan: “What time is it? Did I miss dinner?”
Roseanne: “It’s 11, we slept from Wheel to Kimmel.”
Dan: “We missed all the shows about black and Asian families.”
Roseanne: “They’re just like us – there, now you’re all caught up.”

Many believe that the shows the characters are referring to are ABC’s only two minority-led family sitcoms: Black-ish and Fresh Off the Boat.

Taiwanese-American actor, writer and producer Kelvin Yu wrote a nine-tweet thread in response.

“Here’s why the Roseanne joke about ‘missing all the shows about Black and Asian families’ matter. At the very least, it’s reductive and belittling, as if to say those shows are nothing more than ‘Black’ and ‘Asian’ in their existence.”

“But the real kicker is when Roseanne says: ‘They’re just like us. There, now you’re all caught up.’ Which implies that the point of any show about a minority family is simply to normalise them. That’s it. The stories, the humour, the characters… not important.” 

“Then you take ALLLLLL of that and put it in the mouth of an avowed Trump supporter (not the actress – the CHARACTER of Roseanne) and you have one stinky little shit sandwich of a joke that ABC allowed to be served in their own restaurant. It’s a big deal.”

Others on Twitter seemed to agree. “@therealroseanne is a bad racist joke of a caricature/person,” one person wrote. “So sad.”

“Wow, so this revival is just openly racist,” said another. ““They’re just like us” ?”