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These shows normalise images of middle-class comfort, making them appear to be reflective of wider America. The most popular domestic comedies over the last couple of decades, such as Everybody Loves Raymond (1996-2005) and Modern Family (2009-), illustrate an ongoing lack of reflection within the genre upon wider economic realities. Partisan politics aside, Roseanne has filled a void. Others, such as writer Roxane Gay, have decried the actor Roseanne Barr’s public support for Trump. Some have praised it for giving a voice to working-class families. Many have theorised about the return of Roseanne in the age of US President Donald Trump. This self-awareness and sense of fatalism about their ability to get ahead gave the show its heart. They were acutely aware of the gap between their daily grind and the promise of the American dream. Roseanne and Dan Conner (John Goodman) were working-class parents, precariously employed and always struggling to make ends meet. They served up moral tales, and an idealised version of the middle-class family that became a template for the genre well into the 1980s. Early exemplars including Father Knows Best (1954-1960), Leave it to Beaver (1957-1963) and The Donna Reed Show (1958-1963) were explicitly targeted towards the rapidly expanding American middle class. It emerged in the 1950s as television became a dominant medium. Originally, domestic comedy was a middle-class genre. What has always been most interesting about Roseanne, and the source of its enduring appeal, is how its portrait of working-class America both taps into contemporary cultural anxieties and subverts the traditional moral and aesthetic standards of domestic comedy.