MB Civic

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Roseanne Barr starred in the popular and groundbreaking show on television titled simply “Roseanne,” the first TV series to openly advocate for gay rights. “Roseanne” featured one of the first lesbian kisses on TV, in an episode when Roseanne kisses Mariel Hemingway. “Roseanne” was also the first sitcom to ever feature a gay marriage. The series tackled other controversial topics, as well: poverty, class, abortion and feminism. From her open support of unions in earlier shows to her tribute to Native Americans toward the end of the series, Roseanne never shied away from contentious issues. The writer Barbara Ehrenreich once praised Roseanne Barr for representing “the hopeless underclass of the female sex: polyester-clad, overweight occupants of the slow track; fast-food waitresses, factory workers, housewives, members of the invisible pink-collar army; the despised, the jilted, the underpaid.” We play excerpts from the groundbreaking sitcom and speak with Barr about her childhood in Utah, where she was raised half-Jewish and half-Mormon, and talk about how she “made it OK for women to talk about their actual lives on television.”

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