Through an Introvert's Lens: Roseanne
For about its first five seasons, Roseanne (1988-1997) was a revelation. Those put off by Roseanne Barr's abrasive personality missed one of the few television shows (let alone sitcoms) to portray family and the working class in a realistic manner. You just didn't see shows like this on the air. Its fellow sitcoms included The Cosby Show and Growing Pains , both shows involving well-to-do families with large, impossibly neat houses. Whereas Roseanne and Dan Conner's house looked like the house you might have : an old, faded afghan covering a worn-out couch; magazines strewn over the coffee table; odds and ends crowding a desk in the background. And their family seemed like one you (or *cough* at least I) might have as well. Not one where the kids were endlessly subservient to, and stupider than, the parents, like on The Cosby Show . Becky and Darlene fought with their parents, sometimes viciously. They fought with each other the same way. They frequently deri