Roseanne's dad wasn't all that bad - Roseanne (1988) Discussion

[–] BiffGG 8 years ago

I would go one better than that. Roseanne demonstrates that she has always had discipline problems so those spankings were justified. We also see that Roseanne has no problem screwing people to get her way so I have no doubt that Roseanne embellished the accounts of her "beatings."

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[–] Brainlock2 8 years ago

yeah, because NO ONE ever pulls a "Jekyll and Hyde" between their public side and private life. or blamed the person who had a shotgun held in their face for two hours by a sibling for "inciting him to do it" when the accusation behind it was FALSE.

Hell, I got the belt so much for no reason, that shortly after a "long reach" that put me on my knees and left me bruised for two weeks (and he nearly dislocated my shoulder trying to pull me back up!), I decided to "not let it affect me anymore", then I got more beatings because I wasn't reacting to the point he made me pull down my underwear in front of my sister to see what the F I was doing to not feel it.

but hey, he was a fkg ANGEL according to his former co-workers at the department and my sister's daughter, who he kicked out the day after she came home from the hospital "because she'll cry and I won't get any sleep!" Turns out, she was the quietest baby I've ever seen. She grew up after he had retired and never saw the man we grew up with, and now accuses me of aggravating him for no reason.
Tell me again why you're still the only grandchild? because none of us can keep a relationship going for any extended period of time?

Then again, she got her mother's share of the estate, leaving me the only one to truly get screwed over one more time from beyond the grave.
(Helpful Hint to EVERYONE: do NOT make the executor a beneficiary!)

yeah, people never fkg do that.
Reality check: THEY DO.

=-=
#HowardWasRight

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[–] BiffGG 8 years ago

I'm sorry about your personal life and understand that quite a few abusers have people outside of the home fooled. Having said that I stick with my assessment of Roseanne the character based on the behavior exhibited on the show. Roseanne the character has manipulative behavior and it is obvious she dislikes anybody else having authority around her but not necessarily over her.

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[–] tambourine_man36 8 years ago

But we, as an audience, never saw his "public" side. We only ever saw his interactions with his family, which is exaclty when he was supposedly such a terrible human being. As a visual medium, it's not enough to be talked about. There has to be visual demonstration to suggest it in order to be convincing - otherwise it's just lazy writing (which is exaclty what it was).

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[–] WhiteManFromTown1986 8 years ago

He wasn't bad at all at first.

Roseanne just made the writers turn him into a monster because she had one of her weird realizations. Many followed let me tell you.

1. You expect me to believe he had a lover? The guy who heaved hairballs at 4AM and needed Citrus Fruit every day?

2. That guy made Roseanne not trust Dan during the first 5 years of their marriage?

3. He hung a belt by the front door to scare his own kids?

Dont buy it for a sec.

And yes him buying rock candy for a post gum surgery relative is awesome lol.

He even came up with the wise saying "You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make him think." :)

"something far for savage even than nature. Oliver Thredson was, to all appearances a kindly figure"

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[–] 8 years ago

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[–] 8 years ago

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[–] novastar_6 8 years ago

Unfortunately that IS real life, people that you think you know, who come off as so nice and normal and regular, are anything but. My mom always played nice when her mom would come to visit, and if you didn't know she beat her every day when she was a kid, you'd never guess it by watching them visit.

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[–] 8 years ago

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[–] Katiedidd 8 years ago

Exactly. While I agree, such a situation can happen in real life, it was not believable on this show after the foundation laid for the character in the first three seasons. Even how Roseanne and Jackie felt about him was different in the beginning. It's clear the show changed his character to fit the turn it took.

Heck, he never even guest-starred again once he became a philandering, abusive father! That's because nobody could buy Randolf's early portrayal as the man they later wrote him to be.

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[–] Samuraibro 8 years ago

THANK YOU.

I'm not buying all this "Well abusers in real life-"

This isn't real life, this show isn't that deep, and it's obvious they did not think that far ahead to "plan" his character to have been abusive the entire time.

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[–] kristen1165 8 years ago

We never got that version of their dad from Roseanne or Jackie in the early seasons. That was the real problem.

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[–] fiatlux-1 8 years ago

He wasn't bad at all at first.

Roseanne just made the writers turn him into a monster because she had one of her weird realizations. Many followed let me tell you.

Exactly.
I remember when I first heard Roseanne was going to do this. I grew up watching the show on network TV, and I was saddened to learn he was going to 'become' a monster.
And just because Roseanne had this supposed "revelation" that her parents abused her physically & sexually.
Then, some time later, she publicly recanted most of the accusations!
I liked her show, but the actress herself was a strange woman, a real drama queen.

I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus.
Didn't he discover America?
Penfold, shush.

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[–] StrandedinLaLaLand 8 years ago

I don't remember but I wonder how her family thought of that mess she created.

Black men and a whole lot of *beep* white men have had plenty fun adoring my ass!

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[–] jname967 8 years ago

^ You mean the real Roseanne Barr? Apparently, her family and her were able to resume relationships afterwards, albeit after an ample dose of time had passed. They appeared in her short-lived reality show around 2012, "Roseanne's Nuts". Her father, however, "died hating my guts"—Roseanne was quoted saying in the early '00s (?) when he passed away. Who'd blame him for that, really?

It's incredible that Roseanne Barr's (FALSE) accusations didn't really taint her image among fans, subsequently. I know—it's not like she's still in the public eye much, but her show is still very popular in syndication and sold well on DVD (some seasons were released less than a year apart—a healthy indication of consumer interest). She also published a book in 2012 with lots of good reviews from her fellow celebrity friends, so she didn't alienate them either.

Roseanne herself only offered a very safely worded statement (i.e. not admitting full responsibility for her heinously false accusations)—saying something to the effect of: "I said things that may have been misguided..." more or less. Technically, that's true: I think her accusations back then were simply a misplaced appropriation brought on by Tom Arnold's own childhood abuse. She was influenced by someone else's history, and adopted them as her own, essentially.

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[–] StrandedinLaLaLand 8 years ago

Thanks for the info. Wow! I'm glad there was some reconciliation. Shame about her dad, though. I think, with her fans, many, like me, didn't pay attention to the aftermath during the show's heyday.

Black men and a whole lot of *beep* white men have had plenty fun adoring my ass!

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[–] Brainlock2 8 years ago

It could have been the therapist, as well, making her think those accusations really happened. about 83-84, my father had a nervous breakdown, admitted some things about their marriage. When he got out and back to work, mom did a stint in psych to process these "revelations". Apparently, the therapist had her convinced her father sexually abused her, but he had passed in 82, so when she finally confronted her mother about it, she denied it. Whether that was grandma's rose colored view of the world or not, we'll never know, and even years later, mom questioned whether it actually happened or she was a victim of the then-"fashionable" false memories that many therapists/psychiatrists were being accused of.

of course, it didn't help dad was still so wound up that he was counting her (anxiety?) pills and had her pinned on the floor early one Saturday morning demanding she confess she took ONE extra than she should have. I half expected him to go get his cuffs and call the county police on her to haul her back to psych.

This is the same person who refused to believe the dept therapist for an incident before AND after these events because he didn't agree with her.
(firstborn held shotgun at me for two hours a year before, and I think just in general why we never listened to him and were always fighting sometime after.)

Then again, he hated this show and claimed he pulled John and friends over one night for "cruising". Considering he couldn't remember a lot of things, it had to happen after the show started, and he claimed this while yelling at us to turn the channel to something else. but not Cosby, because he had already tired of that before Roseanne started.

=-=
#HowardWasRight

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[–] WilliBerg 8 years ago

When Roseanne was on Oprah she did still say that she felt that some of her father's behaviour towards her was inappropriate for a father. Her (real) sister was also on the show and said that she didn't have that reality that Roseanne did but that people can grow up in the same household and have very different experiences. Roseanne and her sister didn't talk for many years but the sister didn't seem to want to dwell on the past and just wanted to move forward.

Roseanne also said that towards the end of his life she did want to speak to her father and barged into her parents house in the middle of the night to confront him and he refused to speak to her.

Roseanne's mother was also on her reality show and said that when Roseanne was a teenager she was hit by a car and she changed a lot after that, personality-wise. And in her book, Roseanne said that she did suffer from mental illness for many years and during her marriage to Tom Arnold she was sent away to be hospitalised at one point.

But what that all means in terms of what really happened with her father is unknown.

In terms of the show, I agree that there was a change in the portrayal of the father as the series went on. He started off more of the typical affable sitcom dad, more carefree, and Roseanne (the character) had no qualms about him that we saw on the show. He was more of the foil, the light relief to their overbearing mother. Then there was the shift when Roseanne (the actress) wanted more topical stuff more personal to her on the show. But it was never set up that way at first and then there was a turnaround in his portrayal that was told to us through Roseanne and Jackie- heavy info that had never been talked about in earlier seasons. And that was coupled with the fact that the father never made an appearance on the show anymore when he became this monster of a dad.

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[–] jname967 8 years ago

^ Right, that episode of Oprah is what I'm referring to. Yeah, Roseanne simply implied that she interpreted things a certain way, regarding her father...

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[–] StrandedinLaLaLand 8 years ago

Thanks, everyone, for the extra info.

Black men and a whole lot of *beep* white men have had plenty fun adoring my ass!

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[–] WilliBerg 8 years ago

Yeah she said she shouldn't have used the word 'incest' but she didn't know what other word to use and still doesn't. And in another interview she said she shouldn't have made that huge accusation/revelation in the middle of her therapy, when she was suffering a lot from mental illness and was taking a lot of medication. It was also during the turbulent Tom Arnold years. Anyway, Roseanne has been (relatively) calm since then, taking up Kabbalah and meditation etc.

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[–] tambourine_man36 8 years ago

That's pretty odd. I know people who have been hit by cars (or hurt their heads in other ways) and they become pathological liars after. My uncle, for example. It's been noted that after he was hit by a car he changed his personality and has lied constantly since about so many ridiculous things! I've looked into it before, but it doesn't seem anyone has done much research into brain damage and lying. At least not that I can find. But it seems convincing to me...

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[–] Katiedidd 8 years ago

If you look up "frontal lobe damage personality changes" or something like that (just keep frontal lobe in the search), you'll find that suc trauma to that part of the brain can have unfavorable to even devastating changes in a person.

I don't know it you want to get really technical with studies done, but searching on pubmed.com can probably yield good results too. Google alone can definitely be a start.

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[–] Katiedidd 8 years ago

Totally agree. Roseanne gave DID a bad name. (If she even has it.)

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[–] StrandedinLaLaLand 8 years ago

I hated how she brought her personal life into the show. I liked him (he even made the mother bearable). But, Roseanne completely jumped the shark by retconning his character the way she did.

Black men and a whole lot of *beep* white men have had plenty fun adoring my ass!

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[–] fiatlux-1 8 years ago

I read that Roseanne Barr claims that the entire show, from start to finish, was modeled after her life.
Including the lottery win, which evidently 'represented' her becoming so wealthy from being so famous.

I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus.
Didn't he discover America?
Penfold, shush.

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[–] 8 years ago

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[–] AdrianLePier 8 years ago

I agree.

In the early seasons, Roseanne and Jackie were shown as being excited to see their father when their parents showed up, and obviously preferring him to their mother. Then all of the suddenly he's a sleazebag philanderer and then they take it a step further and depict him as having been so abusive that they're still emotionally scared over it, and consistently on edge where he's concerned...yet just a few seasons they were seen playfully bantering with him, with no hesitance or tension. I understand the concept of revisionist history, as it pertains to fiction, but this was a borderline continuity error.

If anything, they should have made it so that Bev had been the abusive parent while they were growing up, with Al as the one who kind of kept things calm. That would have been a more seamless transition, if they simply wanted the drama of having them deal with the after effects of an abusive childhood.

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[–] crlnrgbrght5 8 years ago

I think it would have made more sense to have their mother as the abusive parent. Simply because, even though Roseanne was more tolerant of her mother, than Jackie was, they both had problems with Bev. And, besides, it would have fit Bev's character arc.

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[–] freebird1987 8 years ago

He wasn't so bad at first. I actually liked him at first.

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[–] crlnrgbrght5 8 years ago

In the early shows, Roseaanne didn't hate him, but, in the later ones, she made him out to be abusive, because he used the belt on Jackie and her (which was the norm in the old days)and she harbored a resentment against him even after he died. I think the show was on a political soapbox in the last few seasons.

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[–] NightSprings 8 years ago

My dad was abusive and psychotic but EVERYONE outside of the family loved him. My relatives didn't even know about the abuse going on. He had the gift of gab and would talk on and on to strangers. Servers, especially, but anyone in retail or customer service were drawn to him because he was bubbly and just wanted people to talk to and like him because behind closed doors - WE ALL HATED HIM. Don't underestimate what goes on behind closed doors.

With that being said, I also believe Al was oddly portrayed and don't really get behind the abuse storyline. Strangers liked my dad bc they didn't know him and he was nice to them, but anyone who spent any significant amount of time with him quickly saw between the lines. And there's no way DAN would let extremely abusive Al Harris into his home and take his kids away on weekend trips. Nope. No way. That would've never happened.

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[–] jname967 8 years ago

I agree: there are people who fool others into believing a false image of them, but are in fact guilty of truly deplorable behavior towards others. This falls under the broader umbrella term: sociopath. People who are sociopaths are fundamentally unable to function in a world where they must abide by true moral codes to get what they want, so they resort to threatening and intimidating others to receive it. Of course, this would make any perpetrator feel guilty—but they know that guilt would destroy their self worth. So what do they do? They shirk all responsibility for their despicable actions, and pretend it's not really present in their lives.

In the last few years of my life, I saw a mutual friend do this—and as you alluded to: the grimmest fact is that he will get away with it—most likely for the rest of his life! Long story short: this guy was a single gay male who felt threatened by every other single gay male he encountered. He was very simple in his view: if you were a single gay male—he automatically attacked you psychologically and verbally, and if you weren't? He was so relieved that you weren't a threat to him, he'd treat you like ROYALTY! So you guessed it: all the non-single gay males LOVE this guy. While all the single gay males LOATHE him. He tried to bully us to make us feel like we simply had such terrible personalities—but the irony is: all his other friends were boring, conservative people. The truth would come out when he threw one of his terrible parties because: all his friends were BORING! I point this out, because it illustrated the twisted mindset of a sociopath: those he favored weren't any "better" than those he deemed were "beneath" him. The only difference was his own cowardly prejudice.

Anyway, I'm going off on a rant here. I'm sorry to hear that it was your father who displayed these traits, because it would be even more toxic to have to live with someone like this. At least in my situation, it was just a mutual friend I'd no obligations to. I truly believe interpersonal relationships are the bane of human existence. It's not poverty or status, etc... it's how people treat you and the damages we endure from others that make life truly difficult. Sigh.

Lastly, I agree with your point that all this said—the storyline about Al being an abuser still didn't add up on this show. It was obviously shoehorned in, come on.

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[–] Brainlock2 8 years ago

That REALLY sounds like someone I knew. played nice to your face, never had a kind word behind your back. So when he decided I was no longer in his "clique", he savaged me to the point of suicide. I can only guess because he thought I would spill everything he told me. His psychofants just ate it up and his word was GOSPEL.

Meanwhile, everyone else in the hobby was laughing at him behind his back.

This past year watching Drumpf has been total deja vu for me, by comparison.

and yeah, we ALL knew he was gay, and not just because he never STFU about Marilyn, either. If we tried to turn his bellowed/empty legal threats against him, I *KNOW* he would claim hate crime, using the fact he came out against us as the basis for "revenge". B!tch, you are so fg full of yourself, no wonder you're so tall and your eyes are brown!
personally, I admire the ex-wife's restraint with the python.

=-=
#HowardWasRight

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[–] jname967 8 years ago

Now I'm really taking this to another level, lol: it's not just about sociopaths either. Sometimes people just have different dynamics with different people in their lives—and specific "expectations" for them, which can lead to tension and difficulty.

I stopped hanging out with this friend whom I'll name Tad. I'm literally the only person who DOESN'T like Tad. Tad is not a bad person or a sociopath at all. He's a simple, nice guy whom everyone thinks is a sweetheart! BUT: WE don't get along anymore. Why? Because he expected something from me—and it clouded, hindered, then destroyed our once happy friendship.

Tad thought the world of me—but ironically, this would cause the downfall. He thought TOO much of me—specifically, he wanted me to be the "FUN ONE"—ALL the time!!!! This took me years to realize, but hindsight is 20/20. Tad was right and fair in thinking I was fun, but the thing was—he blew it out of proportion—where he ONLY wanted me to be fun. The last few times we hung out, I can only recall how much he treated me like DIRT—because I wasn't being "fun" at his convenience, see? He HATED it when I WASN'T fulfilling this role I never asked for.

I'll just cut it short at that. It's enough said. It's not a real relationship when you can't be your full, complete self without being hounded. Interpersonal dynamics can be hell.

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[–] tambourine_man36 8 years ago

I agree about behind closed doors. But the POV was through Roseanne from the first episode, who was always behind the door. So we would have seen her hated him from the get-go. We never even got any of it until season 4. Like you said, it wasn't consistent, especially with how he was with the grandchildren and Dan. They'd have known how he was if he was anything like Roseanne made him out to be in the later seasons. Not sure why they went the broken home route. It made the show much less fun to watch.

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[–] lpt0127 8 years ago

wow this thread went to a dark place.. I was just focused on the rock candy.

Welcome to the El Flamingo, Jeffrey!
Don't piss in the pool, Jeffrey.

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