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8/ 1
2003
50
Domestic Goddess
Jewish Style
GEAR
call us to advertise
248.354.6060
Move over Martha. New reality show
"The Real Roseanne" follows the comedian
as she struggles to get back on TV by developing
a cooking/lifestyle show — and reveals her
spiritual transformation in the process.
NAOMI PFEFFERMAN
Special to the Jewish News
I
n her new reality series, The
Real Roseanne show, a svelter,
calmer Roseanne Barr struts
onstage to perform her comedy
act. "I want to talk about this spiritu-
al change I went through," the
provocative comic-actress says.
She describes how it began, one day,
when she looked at one of her three
ex-husbands and became incensed by
the sight of his hair transplants. "So I
just, like, pulled a whole handful of
`ern out," she says, demonstrating with
a plump fist.
After accosting him further, an
alarmed Barr telephoned her rabbi. "I
was like, 'Man, I almost killed a
human being, I'd better give some
money to, like f
crippled chil-
dren or something.
And my rabbi goes, 'Well,
Roseanne, those are real nice ideas,
but I think probably the best thing for
you to do is just try to be nice.' Of
course, I thought, 'How hard can that
be?' I didn't know it was going to be
like a walk through hell."
During a telephone interview from
her Los Angeles home, the nasal-
voiced Barr, 50, said she didn't really
tear her ex's hair out by the roots. "It's
kind of an allegory of what hap-
pened," she says.
But she did undergo a transforma-
tion after her friend, actress Sandra
Bernhard, introduced her to the
Kabbalah Centre, the controver-
sial Los Angeles program fre-
quented by celebrities such as
Madonna, around 1995. One
of its leaders really did suggest
she try to be nice — no easy
task for a person who admits
she once tried to stab an exec-
utive producer.
Her battle is the sometimes
hilarious subtext of The Real Roseanne,
which follows Barr as she struggles to
get back on TV by developing a cook-
ing/lifestyle show, The Domestic
Goddess Hour. The 13 half-hour
episodes of The Real Roseanne will air
in pairs 9-10 p.m. Wednesdays on
ABC, beginning Aug. 6. Upon their
completion, Domestic Goddess will
begin its run on the ABC Family cable
channel.
On the reality
show, reminis-
cent of MTV's The Osbournes, the
"cast" includes Roseanne's five children
and her on-call rabbi, Eitan Yardeni,
who helps her with decisions such as
choosing a producer she will not want
to stab.
Along the way, viewers learn that
Barr's white trash "domestic goddess"
persona, perfected on her hit sitcom,
Roseanne, is "actually a Jewish moth-
er," she says.
In the pilot, an apron-clad Barr bus-
tles about her vast kitchen, preparing
Friday night dinner for her extended
family. "My spiritual teachings have
really helped me to ... not strike out,
lash out or lose it," she says while
preparing to light Shabbat candles.
The show's Emmy Award-winning
executive producer, R.J. Cutler
(American High), noticed her use of
Judaism as anger management.
"Roseanne is larger than life, almost
like a mythic figure, and when she's
upset, it's mythic in a way that makes
one think of Zeus," he says. "Like
many people, she's on a spiritual path
to try to become the best person possi-
ble, although she'd be the first person
to tell you she's better at it some days
than others."
Indeed, Barr is as famous for her
volatile behavior as she is for the
haughty-hausfrau character she created
in comedy clubs in the 1980s.
In her early act, she dissed lazy hus-
bands with cracks such as, "Is Lemon
Joy kryptonite to your species?" On
Roseanne, her loud-mouthed, work-
ing-class character helped change the
outmoded way women were depict-
ed on television.
But recently, the actress expressed
doubts about her old domestic god-
dess image. "One reason I wanted
to go back on TV is because I
look at the messages I put out
on my other shows, and some
of them I don't believe anymore,
so I feel like I should take them
back or replace them," she says.
"I just had a lot of anger
and hatred in my old comedy,
and I've been wanting to
show that my life got better
when I tried to let go of
that."
Barr traces her fury to
Roseanne Barr: "I truly
believed that if people
found out we were Jewish,
they were going to kill us.
First I learned to be fearful,
and second, to cover that
up with rage."