"Roseanne" (1988-1997)

Television executives seem to think women only want to see the airbrushed version of themselves, the petite, pretty, inoffensive, wry-but-sweet ladies with "the Rachel" or "the That Girl" do being the only thing that sets them apart. Even Mary Tyler Moore starved herself to be our ideal girl-woman.

"Roseanne" blew that theory out of the water, thank goodness, and proved that men, too, will watch a sitcom that is more funny than pretty. No matter how many behind-the-scenes hurricanes Rosanne blew into existence, she had the sense to get an extremely strong cast of actors around her from the very beginning, and she allowed the show to be an ensemble instead of showing a world that resolved only around her. Everyone Loved Roseanne, but they had lives of their own, too.

The star and guiding force also had the balls to hire interesting, unconventional kid actors. They didn't play precocious or cutesy or perfect or Duff; they played young people struggling to grow up. They made mistakes, and parental talks at the twenty-second minute didn't fix those mistakes, but did let the kids know they were loved. Just like real life.

This show was gutsy and realistic and had a long memory for the lives and loves and grudges of its characters. It also brought Shelley Winters back into the limelight in all her not-giving-a-damn glory, and for that, I am eternally grateful.

Of course, Miss Roseanne herself underwent your typical Hollywood/New Money metamorphosis, but the essential Roseanne remained. Despite her plastic surgery, she still looks like a human being and not like a grotesque doll factory experiment. And despite her many tabloid-worthy adventures in marriage and therapy, she's still smart and funny and cool, just like when she started.

She's also an artist; a difficult one, to be sure, but a vital one. In the last couple of years of her show, she accepted the fact that she could no longer pretend to be the Domestic Goddess of the beginning. She'd become an obscenely wealthy celebrity as well known for her tragedies as for her comedy, and she insisted that the show deal, however obliquely, with that new Roseanne. Her formerly brilliant sitcom became unwatchable, of course, but I admire her for knowing that she could no longer pretend to be a blue-collar working stiff and trying to apply her reality to her show. Artists need to fail to succeed again.

Here's hoping Roseanne someday finds the right venue for who she is now. She's bold and challenging and unapologetic, and we need women like that to be heard in these cloyingly girlish times.