In May 2010, Roseanne Barr announced her candidacy for president of the United States, as well as for prime minister of Israel, declaring “patriarchal politics” obsolete and calling forth the “divine matriarchy.” She spoke in her manifesto on behalf of the mothers and grandmothers “without whose sacrifice, there would be no soldiers to fight in rich men’s war for turf,” and she did so “working as the physical manifestation of the goddess Isis” and in keeping with her devotion to “The Church of Common Sense.”
>>Listen to the Podcast of Scott Renshaw's interview with Rosanne Barr <<
That’s the combination of the maternal and the outrageous that has defined Salt Lake City native Roseanne Barr’s comedic sensibility for more than 25 years, from her early stand-up routines proclaiming herself a “domestic goddess” to her nine-year run headlining the hit sitcom Roseanne. And in recent years, she has only grown more brash and vocal, using her RoseanneWorld.com blog and a talk show on Los Angeles radio to rant against political buffoonery.
Her new book Roseannearchy: Dispatches from the Nut Farm marks the latest forum in which she combines her loathing for hypocrisy with her musings on being a woman in America. Only Roseanne would use one volume both to attack class warfare as the institutions that are destroying the world and to address the challenges of grandmotherhood and menopause. Check in with her this week as she reads from the book, before her “Green Tea Party” catches on and she’ll be hidden behind a wall of Secret Service agents.
Roseanne Barr: Roseannarchy @ Sam Weller’s Bookstore, 254 S. Main, 801-328-2586, Jan. 13, 6 p.m., free. SamWellers.com