Re: Roseanne
look, reading all as promised! (There must be something on my RL </i>do this today!!</i> list that I'm avoiding, lol)
This reply of yours is a good summary/ lead-in to the big question of why U.S. primetime TV tends to avoid treating lower-class/working-class life with a drama format - important people, significant questions, worthy of answer - and instead moves it off into fantasy, historical [fantasy], comedy, and cop/law/medical shows (where it can become a "moral lesson" on how not to live, rather than examined for what may be right about it, or why it is so prevalent).
Sure, laughter is one way to be serious. But it always also allows the audience to do some denial by simply taking it on the "joke" level and avoiding the "serious" side.
Which is why so many comedians and politicians use humor so often, and so well; they'd rather keep their audience than rile them up, or will try to keep them long enough and make them happy enough that the uncomfortable points have a chance of sinking in. TV shows also use the approach of a "spoonful of humor" to help the medicine go down - at the risk of simply becoming a lovely big helping of humor with no pointed realistic commentary at all. One of the frequent comments that blows off the serious points made by Roseanne, Married With Children, and earlier shows built around working-class characters like All in the Family, is that they're "over-drawn" -- i.e., exaggerating or even making up the working-class "reality" for the sake of humor. Thus, have no point that really needs to be addressed, simply laughed at, and laughed off, and forgotten when the TV is turned off.
One way to compare: There have public campaigns, policy changes, or simply greater awareness as a result (at least in part) of a TV show calling attention to some issue that has been widespread, but ignored. I believe West Wing was credited with directing attention to certain veterans' issues (can't get more specific; it was 2 yrs ago that I was at a talk that brought it up). Certainly, lesbian PDA's became more public, child abuse and several women's issues have been highlighted, through inclusion in scripts on both comedies and dramas. That may happen mainly, or at least partly, not on the show itself but in the "paratexts" - for example, People Magazine or TV Guide interviews with Roseanne.
The classic example is the mini-series Roots, which is commonly acknowledged as having sparked not just better discussion of race, but also a huge boom in genealogy that continues today. I'd say the former was a clear contribution to social change. The latter?
I don't recall offhand where to look for the literature that studies which issues are brought to public attention by which show. .... it's out there, and would be one measure of the extent to which comedies vs. dramas raise "real" issues, and what kinds, and whether they lead to social change.