Roseanne Conner

Roseanne Harris Conner was the title character of the TV series Roseanne, created and portrayed by comedian and namesake Roseanne Barr. Roseanne, in a takeoff of her stand-up comedic and presumed real-life persona, is bossy, loud, caustic, overweight, and dominant. She constantly tries to control the lives of her sister, husband, children, co-workers, and friends. Despite her dominating nature, Roseanne is a loving wife and mother and loyal friend who works hard and makes as much time for her family as possible. Creation and conception In 1987, coming up with ideas for new shows, Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner of Carsey-Werner Productions decided to look into the concept of the working mother as a central voice. Up until that point, there had been shows with working mothers, but only as an adjunct to the father in the family. Werner had suggested that they take a chance on Barr whom they had seen on The Tonight Show. This was because he saw the unique "in your face" voice that they were looking for, and he contacted her agent and offered her the role. Barr's act at the time was the persona of the "domestic goddess", but as Carsey and Werner explains, she had the distinctive voice and attitude for the character and she was able to transform her into the working class heroine they envisioned. Barr immediately took the role. Barr has stated she had crafted the "fierce working-class domestic goddess" persona in the eight years preceding the sitcom and wanted to do a realistic show about a strong mother who was not a victim of patriarchal consumerism. Barr, born into a white working-class Jewish family in Salt Lake City, played a "nominally half-Jewish, working-class wife and mother" in the series. Although some commentators have mistakenly claimed that Jewishness is not mentioned on the show, Roseanne Conner is depicted as having a Jewish father. The Jewishness of Barr and her character on the show has sometimes been overlooked, a fact that some commentators have claimed is because of public perceptions that Jewishness is at odds with being part of the white working class, in part because of antisemitic stereotypes that depict Jews as wealthy as well as Jewish self-representations of Jews as being middle class. Barr has referred to Roseanne Conner as a "Jewish mother".