As NewsBusters has chronicled over the years, Roseanne Barr has a history of doing and saying some truly disgraceful things, but this one really takes the cake...or the cookie in this case. Her most-recent tailspin into the gutter involved a photo shoot with Heeb magazine wherein she is seen wearing an Adolf Hitler moustache and swastika as she takes burnt gingerbread "Jew Cookies" out of an oven....
I can understand the idea of comedians wanting to push the edge of the envelope. After all, the best comedy (in my mind, at least) is often that which makes us squirm and cuts to the core of that which makes us uncomfortable. While I've never been a huge fan of Roseanne Barr, she can be edgy, and I've always admired that about her. Having said that, however, even I have to admit that there's a fine line between edgy and...well, just plain thoughtless, tasteless, and offensive.
I'm normally loathe to buy into ANYTHING peddled by NewsBusters, which is to web-based journalism what Fox Noise Channel is to television journalism. To refer to either source as "objective journalism" would be absurd. Still, this story was just too strange to pass on. I don't know the back story behind Barr's photo shoot, and I don't really care to. The imagery alone should be sufficient to turn the stomach of any reasonable observer. While Noel Sheppard makes no effort to hide his prejudices (done ANYONE at NewsBusters?), how anyone could defend this sort of thing defies imagination. Whether spoof, parody, or something altogether different, this is just about the most offensive things I've seen since...well, I'm not quite sure when. Roseanne Barr is one seriously messed up woman...and the people who put the photo shoot together aren't much better.
Part of me hopes that this is one VERY bad joke and that I just got punked....
