By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

“ABC’s decision to cancel ‘Roseanne’ feels like a gutsy move. It looks like a stand against racism, a line drawn in the sand to delineate what is reasonable and what is not. It even looks like a data point in the ‘How do we separate the art from the artist?’ debate, and it offers a heartening answer: We don’t have to, because, in this case, ABC will not finance that artist. It’s somehow even more heartening because it comes from a massive corporate conglomerate that might lose money by making this decision. It feels remarkably just. It feels decent. I’m thrilled that Roseanne has been canceled. It was the right thing to do. But it doesn’t feel correct to hold up ABC as a new bastion of decency, either. ‘Roseanne’ felt like the Titanic, a ship that seemed too big to turn around — but in the aftermath of Barr’s tweet, it also seemed like a ship that was doomed. ABC’s decision to cancel Roseanne is a good thing, but it also seems like a decision to shut down something that was about to implode anyhow. With a little more context, it looks like a network taking a strong stance against racism… in a way that also rids them of a show that was about to fall apart anyhow.”

“ABC’s decision to cancel ‘Roseanne’ feels like a gutsy move. It looks like a stand against racism, a line drawn in the sand to delineate what is reasonable and what is not. It even looks like a data point in the ‘How do we separate the art from the artist?’ debate, and it offers a heartening answer: We don’t have to, because, in this case, ABC will not finance that artist. It’s somehow even more heartening because it comes from a massive corporate conglomerate that might lose money by making this decision. It feels remarkably just. It feels decent. I’m thrilled that Roseanne has been canceled. It was the right thing to do. But it doesn’t feel correct to hold up ABC as a new bastion of decency, either. ‘Roseanne’ felt like the Titanic, a ship that seemed too big to turn around — but in the aftermath of Barr’s tweet, it also seemed like a ship that was doomed. ABC’s decision to cancel Roseanne is a good thing, but it also seems like a decision to shut down something that was about to implode anyhow. With a little more context, it looks like a network taking a strong stance against racism… in a way that also rids them of a show that was about to fall apart anyhow.”

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One Response to ““ABC’s decision to cancel ‘Roseanne’ feels like a gutsy move. It looks like a stand against racism, a line drawn in the sand to delineate what is reasonable and what is not. It even looks like a data point in the ‘How do we separate the art from the artist?’ debate, and it offers a heartening answer: We don’t have to, because, in this case, ABC will not finance that artist. It’s somehow even more heartening because it comes from a massive corporate conglomerate that might lose money by making this decision. It feels remarkably just. It feels decent. I’m thrilled that Roseanne has been canceled. It was the right thing to do. But it doesn’t feel correct to hold up ABC as a new bastion of decency, either. ‘Roseanne’ felt like the Titanic, a ship that seemed too big to turn around — but in the aftermath of Barr’s tweet, it also seemed like a ship that was doomed. ABC’s decision to cancel Roseanne is a good thing, but it also seems like a decision to shut down something that was about to implode anyhow. With a little more context, it looks like a network taking a strong stance against racism… in a way that also rids them of a show that was about to fall apart anyhow.””

  1. The Pope says:

    Dear Mr. Pride,
    But you can’t be sure that the show “was about to fall apart anyhow.” It might just as easily have gone on, pulling in large viewers, however narrow that viewership may be. And ABC would likely have gone on airing it because the ratings would be generating such revenue.
    No. I see ABC’s decision as a wonderful gesture to the future.
    It eradicates the “what might have been” and declares “THIS IS THE WAY IT WILL BE FROM NOW ON.”

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon