Roseanne Barr has been in-your-face and brutally honest this year, yet somehow, it looks to be working in her favor. After she spoke out about what it was like to be a woman the the television industry, she was given a reality series. When Roseanne’s Nuts was canceled after one season, Barr was vocal about it on her twitter account (where she also suggested she was running for president) and now NBC has given her a pilot. Her squeaky wheel is truly getting the proverbial grease, it seems.
The new sitcom, titled Downward Mobile, will feature Barr as the matriarch of a blue collar family who lives in a mobile home community. But will viewers watch? Barr obviously shines in sitcoms, like her titular role in Roseanne, but one could argue that she may have alienated her audience this year between her public ranting and getting stoned and behaving in a bizarre-yet-highly entertaining way in the middle of nowhere on a Macadamia nut farm. Those types of behaviors might not translate into Nielsen ratings, but we’ve gotta give it to her for keeping it real — and having continued success in doing so.
[THR]