Morals must take precedence over profitability

The cast of the show “Roseanne

The cast of the show “Roseanne”

Low ratings have historically led to the cancellation of many television shows, but more recently, networks are rightfully taking a stand and canceling hit shows whilst revamping them without their featured stars for moral reasons. The recent return this season of “Lethal Weapon” without star Clayne Crawford and “The Conners” sans Roseanne Barr demonstrates that some networks, and especially ABC, impressively value morals over profit.

Social media plays a huge role in society today, and many people are affected by it. Whether it be from watching television or scrolling through tweets and posts, young adults are replicating actions or messages shown in entertainment. For example, more than 1,000 studies have shown correlations between children who watch television and developing more aggressive behaviors and attitudes.

Since children are so impressionable, our society must take stands to remove and punish celebrities who hold racist and violent opinions from television screens.

“Roseanne,” for example, was a popular show that first aired from 1988 to 1997 and returned on Mar. 27, 2018 with very strong ratings. The show’s pilot episode earlier this year had 18.1 million people tuning in to watch. However, the show was canceled a short two months later because Barr’s Twitter history contained conspiracy theories and racist remarks. In one tweet, she called Valerie Jarrett a mix of “Muslim Brotherhood” and “‘Planet of the Apes.’” Channing Dungey, the president of ABC contended that Barr’s tweet did not coincide with their values, and so Barr was fired.

ABC also fired actor Clayne Crawford from “Lethal Weapon” for repeated “emotional attacks” on fellow cast members. Crawford, who played the fearless main character, was loved by fans, but the network still fired him and relaunched season three with new actor Seann William Scott. Viewers down 21 percent, Ratings suffered, but ABC should be commended for standing by their decision to remove Crawford.

These decisions to drop any show are not financially easy to make for ABC. According to Entertainment news, Roseanne’s first episode hosted a staggering 18.2 million viewers, while its spinoff show,“The Connors,” debuted with only 10.5 million.

Other television networks have also taken a moral stand at the expense of profits. For instance, Amazon Prime canceled “Transparent” because lead actor Jeffrey Tambor was accused of sexual harassment on the set, and TLC canceled “19 Kids and Counting” because of molestation charges against the eldest son, Josh Duggar.

I applaud the networks who hold celebrities accountable for their actions as it is particularly harmful to our society when hateful views are made public by those who have a strong following.

I hope that television companies will continue to value morals over money in order to silence the racist, homophobic celebrities spreading hate through their platforms.