A "Roseanne" joke about two ABC series starring African-American and Asian families sparked a back-and-forth with a New Yorker critic and others this week.
During this week's episode of the hit "Roseanne" revival series, Roseanne Conner, played by Roseanne Barr, and her husband Dan, portrayed by John Goodman, wake up after falling asleep in front of the television, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Roseanne comments that they slept from "'Wheel' to 'Kimmel,'" a nod to ABC's lineup of evening television shows.
That's when Dan says, "We missed all the shows with black and Asian families," an apparent reference to ABC series "Black-ish" and "Fresh Off the Boat."
Roseanne then quips: "They're just like us. There, now you're caught up."
The joke brought a rebuke from Emily Nussbaum of The New Yorker.
"The line establishes a few things. One is that the Conners don't live in the same America as the Johnsons, from 'Black-ish,' or the Huangs, from 'Fresh Off the Boat,'" Nussbaum wrote. "There will never be a crossover episode — no fun clash, say, between an aging Jessica Huang and Roseanne, on a Conner trip to Florida. Instead, the Conners are themselves bored, alienated ABC viewers, unable even to remember titles, just that these are the 'black and Asian' shows."
Taiwanese-American actor and writer Kelvin Yu said in a lengthy Twitter storm that he also found the joke problematic.
Barr used humor to push back on the controversy in two Twitter posts.
Barr found plenty of support for her position on social media.
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