W. Kamau Bell’s We Need To Talk About Cosby is a devastating but necessary conversation
Emmy winner Bell’s Showtime documentary offers an insightful exploration of a predator
TV Reviews Cosby
The title of W. Kamau Bell’s Showtime docuseries, We Need To Talk About Cosby, is both provocative and self-aware. Unlike the bore at a party who’s pinned you into a corner and drones on incessantly about an uncomfortable topic, Bell understands that the last thing most of us want to do is discuss Bill Cosby, whom 60 women have credibly accused of sexual assault. However, Bell insists that we have the conversation, and over the course of four powerful installments, he justifies the presumption. He doesn’t subject us to a hagiography of the disgraced comedian or a simple condemnation of one horrible man. We Need To Talk About Cosby is instead an insightful yet sobering examination of how a monster fully infiltrated our cultural DNA.
Bell admits up front that he’s hardly an objective commentator. Like myself, he’s a Black man born in the 1970s who was raised on Fat Albert, Picture Pages, and The Cosby Show. Bell’s documentary seeks to “wrestle with who we all thought Cosby was and who we now understand him to be.” This is a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story where Jekyll existed only to serve Hyde’s desires. Separating the art from the man is difficult when Bell makes a compelling case that Cosby’s fame and wealth provided him with the power and opportunity to prey on dozens of women throughout his career. The documentary and this review believe those women’s accounts.
We Need to Talk About Cosby charts the comedian’s groundbreaking career from early stand-up appearances to TV stardom, while also detailing a sinister act conducted behind the curtain. The documentary depicts a malice spiked with tremendous arrogance, as if Cosby seemed almost compelled to commit his alleged crimes despite his growing fame. Bell observes how the number of Cosby’s alleged victims skyrocketed during 1980s when he was a household name. He acted as if his fame and wealth insulated him fully. Cosby had become the master on the Hollywood plantation.
Kierna Mayo, the editorial director at Ebony magazine, suggests Cosby left a “trail of bread crumbs to his guilty conscience over the years.” This includes the shocking-in-retrospect “Spanish Fly” from his 1969 album, It’s True, It’s True (yes, that’s really the title). In the routine, the noted “clean” comic nonchalantly jokes about drugging women and having sex with them, which is rape both now and then. We Need To Talk About Cosby shows it wasn’t a one-time thing, either. He brought it up again during a 1991 interview with Larry King and he was creepily specific about the dosage. Bell shares a clip from a 1990 Cosby Show episode where Cliff Huxtable boasts that once his homemade barbecue sauce “kicks in,” people start to get “huggy buggy.” It’s truly disturbing to watch.
However, it’s not clear from the documentary that Cosby wanted his misdeeds exposed, even unconsciously. His accusers describe him as a malignant narcissist and a straight-up psychopath. Bell draws a clear link between the real-life predator and the pudding pop pitchman from TV. It’s chilling to consider how Cosby’s worst traits could have enabled his success. Psychopaths are often superficially charming, funny, and charismatic. They’re good conversationalists who share stories that put themselves in a flattering light. Does that sound familiar?
The Cosby Show was must-see TV for a generation that resonated with families from all races, but it’s hard not to feel complicit when you learn how Cosby used the show to exploit countless women. Accuser Lili Bernard’s experience on the series is more suited for a horror film than a sitcom: She describes how he tortured her professionally, under the guise of perfectionism, before assaulting her physically. All the while, he convinced her to trust him. It was a common pattern, where he’d feign an interest in mentoring young women, playing on their hopes and dreams.
Bell doesn’t focus much on Cosby’s “downfall,” such as it was. Cosby had a full productive career. He was well into his 70s and far past his creative peak when Hollywood finally started to distance itself from him. A theme Bell explores well is how Cosby skirted the line between “race-less” and “race-conscious” work. With the notable exception of 1968’s Black History: Lost, Stolen & Strayed, Cosby studiously avoided overtly political commentary. That changed in 2004 when he attacked poor Black families like a white conservative talk show host with his so-called “pound cake” speech.
Cosby had become the old rich Black guy yelling at Black kids to “pull their pants up.” This perhaps led to a generational split between those of us who fondly recalled Saturday morning Fat Albert reruns and younger Black people who considered Cosby a smug moral scold who wasn’t very funny. Comedian Hannibal Buress had no problem puncturing the Cosby myth during his 2014 stand-up tour—it’s probably not a coincidence that he’s younger than Keshia Knight Pulliam, who played the youngest Huxtable daughter, Rudy. Once Buress started discussing the multiple rape allegations, it seemed as if a spell had lifted. Justice, many believed, finally arrived in 2018 when a Philadelphia jury convicted Cosby for the 2004 assault of Andrea Constand.
Cosby’s defenders have miscast him as a victim of racial persecution, focusing specifically on his white accusers while ignoring the many Black women, such as Lili Bernard, who’ve also accused him of sexual assault. Cosby’s publicist, Ebonee Benson, gallingly compared him to Emmett Till, who was murdered in 1955 because he allegedly whistled at a white woman. Cosby was born four years before Till and was accused of far more than whistling. It’s both absurd and insulting to imagine that 60 different women, all with similar stories, would conspire together to take down “America’s Dad.” We Need To Talk About Cosby shows his accusers as both the young women he preyed on and the older women who live through the aftermath of his assault. Their stories are compelling and their humanity undeniable. They’ve fortunately moved past blaming themselves or accepting Cosby’s gaslighting.
Bell addresses last year’s unwelcome surprise when Cosby’s conviction was overturned after he’d served just three years in prison, a paltry penalty given the magnitude of his alleged (and admitted) offenses. However, while Cosby might die in relative comfort, he no longer has control over his legacy, which We Need To Talk About Cosby dismantles with precision plus receipts. The monster isn’t just Bill Cosby, the man, but also Bill Cosby, the legend. If we’re now unable to watch Cliff Huxtable or Alexander Scott without also seeing Lili Bernard, Carla Ferrigno, Louisa Moritz, Linda Brown, Cindra Ladd, and so many others, that’s not a tragedy. It’s an enduring justice that Cosby thought he could avoid.
148 Comments
Always surprised that Cosby’s name was never associated with any drug overdoses or deaths. Quaalude and alcohol can be lethal. Most of the drugs on the market today didn’t exist in 1965 when Cosby played a tennis pro on the show I Spy so Quaalude was the drug of choice and it was very available. Many young ladies thought he was potentially a great catch. It was not at all difficult for him to meet attractive girls hoping for a break in show business.
Give it time, sadly. 1960s-70s treatment of women seen as ‘party girls’ probably has boxes of Jane Does or tidied up deaths
In related news, A&E is doing a special called “Inside the Playboy Mansion” dealing with Hef and the notorious “Mansion Nights”(parties) of the ‘60s-90s.” 🐔 s ➡️🏡
Imagine a black light shone on that place. It would just be fluorescent light in solid blocks.
I always wished they had looked in his yard or under his house. He must have had a bad slip-up over the years with the sheer volume of victims. Play the odds. I’m betting he killed one or two people along the way.
The article mentions a Larry King interview where Cosby “was creepily specific about the dosage” of his drugs. I’m guessing he did some thorough research about how much to give someone without risking them dying, which is a horrifying thought all by itself.
“how much to give someone without risking them dying”
Zero. The answer is zero. There is no amount of drugs that causes unconsciousness but no chance of dying. People die from drugs administered by trained anesthesiologists all the time. And asking someone whether there are any sedatives they are allergic to tends to make conversations awkward.
Did he drug them until they passed out? I always read it as his victims were hazy, not unconscious, but I could be fully wrong on that.
Yeah, he wanted them pliable but presumably not out cold (or dead). So gross.
It’d be cool if these season/series pre-air reviews would like… mention WHEN the thing being reviewed airs. But they never seem to. Certainly not prominently.
Anyways …
Airdate: Part 1, 10 p.m. Saturday, January 30 (Showtime)
Which, obviously you want to review something before it airs, but I think it’s kind of useless to run this this far in advance. Next Friday I think would maximize interest, and minimize the chance of forgetting.
They’ve explained that the review embargo dates kind of tie their hands on this. Reviews are going to start running as soon as they’re allowed to run, and then they’ll get kicked back to the front page once the thing being reviewed is actually coming out. Holding the review until it’s relevant means losing out on the first spike in traffic when all the reviews are coming out.
Remember the days when you didn’t have to be a nanosecond earlier than everyone else to publish a review or else you were too late to get anyone’s attention? I don’t, but I assumer Pepperidge Farm does.
mmm that too!
So far as I can recall AVC’s never done this. Often when they would review something that sounded interesting I’d want to know what channel it would be on, but they didn’t mention it.
Its right under the box with the graphic of the doc and letter grade.PREMIERESSunday, January 30 at 10 p.m. ET on Showtime, with weekly installments running through February 20
Thta must have been added since, as it wasn’t there before.
Boy, yeah, they really need to do a better job ofoh never mind you just need to wake the fuck up
Is this really ‘necessary’, though? I think we get it and are tired to death of hearing about it or thinking about him.
Exhibit A regarding the necessity right here.
When someone asks if its necessary. 8 outta 10 times it is.
Agree to disagree, I guess? I think people who want to know about this case already know everything there is to know about it including why he is now out. It’s SOP for testimony to be sealed and it can’t be used later in another case. I thought it was absolutely mind-boggling when it was used for another case and he was found guilty. I don’t need to hear more about any of this. It’s horrifying and I hope Cosby burns in hell.
I think what part of this is, how was this allowed to happen. Because there were apparently rumors and signs of this for so long. There may be some aspects of it worth exploring.
Yeah but strictly speaking how much of that is anything we, the little people, have control over? I can see this being insightful and informative but I’m not sure what makes this “necessary” for the average person.
Little people are perfectly capable of turning a blind eye towards popular well-liked predators in their midst (e.g. coaches, pastors, family members, friends). That alone should make it a valuable lesson.
Hmm. If women are going to be raped, and that’s just the way things are and there’s nothing any “average” person can do about it, isn’t *that* something we should talk about? And if the only people that can do anything about it are “non average” people, how exactly does one tailor the conversation so only those people have to hear about it? Should schools try to figure out what students are going to become non average, and teach only them about how power structures can aid rape?
Talking about it and teaching it does not necessarily mean watching this particular special, that’s what’s being discussed. There’s a lot of material to choose from on this subject. This may reach some people other material did not but that doesn’t necessarily mean all of us have to watch it.
Understanding how predators work is necessary for everyone. It can help you spot danger signs earlier for you and those you care about so you don’t get entangled with a psychopath.And sadly, Cosby is not some wild exception. Rich, powerful men and women (and some not so rich and powerful) sexually abuse people all the time.
He’s out of prison, and his PR people are treating it as a Victory for Racial Justice(!!!) rather than “Sprung on a technicality”.Yes, it’s necessary — unpleasant, but necessary.
That’s what “need” means.
I think it’s necessary because Cosby got let out. The real reason is some legal issue with how evidence was obtained, but that’s complicated enough that some people might not understand it, and could think that Cosby was released because he was found to be not guilty. This will stand as a document to his actual, admitted guilt, and all the other offences that are almost certainly true even if he wasn’t convicted of them.
I get that it’s an important question to have, but I don’t know if it’s as complicated as people make it sound. People liked Cosby because he was charismatic and seemed trustworthy, and he took advantage of that–that’s a tale as old as time. That Spanish Fly routine/talk show appearance were galling, but it’s not like everyone watched them or listened to them. It’s only complicity when you know they’re doing something awful.
Reminds me of Louis CK making masterbation a constant running gag. Turns out it he wasn’t joking.
Well, they say to write what you know.
Louis CK did in fact masturbate?
A lot of people did know about Cosby (and CK, for that matter) though, for years before it became “public” and he suffered any consequences. 30 Rock was making jokes about it back in 2010 or so, and that was because Hannibal Buress was a writer on the show. But he certainly couldn’t have been the first person to know, and as a relative unknown quantity a decade ago, it’s unlikely he was anywhere near the top of that pyramid.
There were a lot of allegations against Cosby in the early 2000s and they were big news at the time. The public did know, but the story just kind of faded because social media wasn’t as entrenched or influential as in the 2010s on and if something fell from regular news coverage it was out of sight, out of mind.Hannibal Buress didn’t bring Cosby to light as much as remind everyone “hey, what the fuck happened with that?”
It was a clever bit of plausible deniability to have Tracey, the show’s “crazy” character, accuse Cosby of wrongdoing. Most of what he says makes no sense, so you couldn’t realistically say that Cosby was being slandered, but it got the idea out there.
In some ways it immunized Cosby, since it put “Cosby is a rapist” in the “things crazy people say” category.
I remember the “Spanish Fly” bit, which seemed hilariously “transgressive” coming out of Cosby’s family-friendly mouth in 1969. That was the year the original Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) book by Dr. David Reuben came out, so suddenly my Mom and Aunt are talking openly about topics I didn’t even know they knew about.
Rubin’s section on aphrodisiacs got eagerly read and repeated by readers of his book, so “Spanish Fly” was on everybody’s lips in the late Sixties/early Seventies. Reuben cautioned against it — not because it takes the choice to have sex away from a woman, but because it was potentially lethal if you used too much! He also discussed less sure but safer alternatives…and nobody questioned it back then, at all.
Yes, there was opposition to his book, but that came almost exclusively from people who didn’t want you having sex unless it for procreation ever, so they largely got dismissed. It wasn’t until the Eighties, I think, that people started to interrogate his heterocentrist, male-takes-charge view of human sexuality, originally from gay men and later from people who’d enjoys the things he said weren’t “fun” or “safe”. Even then, though, I don’t remember anybody, at all, saying, “You know this section on aphrodisiacs? Doesn’t that seem kind of like, you know, rape…?”
I don’t think I could sit through a 4-part series on this revolting topic.
As someone who hated the Cosby show (mainly because I was in a latch key upper lower middle class household) I have to say I was still surprised. I think it is being born in the 70’s and just not thinking of him in those terms.
Have I missed something…or were you just middle class?I am from a low-income family and I loved the cosby show. Very surprised when it happened. Wouldn’t even blink today.
Read again: I was upper lower middle class darn itI hated the Cosby’s. Same way I hated the Seavers.
Well, I was upper-upper-middle-lower-perpendicular-back-back-class twice removed and I forgot what I was talking about.
So in the 27 class levels implied by your nomenclature, you were in level 16. You were just above Middle Lower Middle class, but just below Lower Middle Middle class (and notably, just 2 levels below Middle Middle Middle class).
The Cosby Show was hugely popular in its time. I doubt it was only people with doctor dads and lawyer moms who were watching it.
I’m stating why I hated it, not that it applies to everyone.
I’m stating why I hated it, not that it applies to everyone.You actually haven’t stated why, unless you think there’s something inherent in a person’s economic class that determines their tastes in television shows.
I stated why: I didn’t clarify my statement and I’ll leave it to you to determine the reason. The true answer though…………..Frank Stallone.
So you hated it because it involved a family with more money than you? Or because your dad didn’t work in an office below your house?If you were limited to only shows that portrayed characters at your socio-economic level or lower, you watched what? The Waltons, Roseanne, Good Times? No Flintstones, since Wilma had pearls and they could afford to bring the family to the drive-in?
Nah, I hated it because I was a seer and could foresee pedantic asshole on the Internet not getting why someone in an unhappy home might not like an overly forced and happy family that had standards no one was living up to, and worse it was the 80’s and everyone was supposed to conform to this horseshit.
Once again we have convenient narratives with absolutely no critical thought — a theme for both the far-left and far-right.“Spanish Fly” is a mythical aphrodisiac which for some reason seems to have deep penetration in teen culture. It is not a euphemism for “alcohol” or other drugs. If you grab a beer you are not having, “Spanish Fly.” Cosby’s routine was just remarking on the oddity that everyone seems to have heard of this “Spanish Fly” thing when it’s not actually available anywhere.
But he’s also saying it would be totally awesome if you could give something to a woman that either makes her horny (the more charitable interpretation) or makes her unable to say no to sex. Clearly it’s a comedic bit, and not intended in a completely serious way and by itself it wouldn’t be damaging, but coming from a guy who drugged and raped women for decades it seems to say something pretty damning about how Cosby views sex and consent and women’s agency.
I’m not sure how much critical thought anyone needs to have about a man who makes multiple references to drugging people in order to get them in the mood for sex throughout his career, and then gets busted for doing exactly that to unsuspecting women for decades. Seems pretty open and shut to me, and it has absolutely nothing to do with left or right.
The first time I read the term “Spanish Fly” was in the book “Literary Rogues”, in the chapter about Marquis De Sade. Allegedly there was an incident of him and a friend getting a couple of prostitutes to overindulge in anise-flavored pastilles laced with Cantharindin, which is a fatty substance secreted by blister beetles known by the name “Spanish Fly” that historically has been used as an aphrodisiac. Sade ended up receiving a death sentence for poisining and nearly killing them with the substance.
And generally jokes about Spanish Fly (and the mythical aphrodisiac qualities of many other things) were comic staples in the 60s and 70s. That’s not to defend Cosby, but to say that you really can’t look at a couple of comic bits and say ‘clearly this man was acknowledging himself as a rapist!’
Once again we have convenient narratives with absolutely no critical thought — a theme for both the far-left and far-right.The right: Vaccines are bullshit, the election was stolen, Jews are replacing whites with brown people.The left: Maybe this is a bit of a stretch, but Cosby’s early fascination with drugging women using Spanish Fly seems to be telling on himself with respect to his later crimes.The center: these two groups are incapable of critical thought, unlike me
Thank you. Centrists are suffering from brain worms.
are you high? Spanish Fly was still easily bought and sold over the counter into the 80’s, maybe mid-90’s. It was next to the RUSH bottles at any decent head shop or adult store.Not a bit. A REAL thing. You’re wrong. You can add Spanish Fly to alcohol. Bill Cosby himself often did so.
My view on it is that it’s important and necessary to deal with these things honestly rather than the knee-jerk response that nothing the fallen person did was ever any good and can/should be forgotten.While they may be unpalatable and unwatchable now as a result of that person’s actions, its dishonest to pretend these shows/films/albums etc didn’t exist or weren’t hugely influential.
I’m not sure if anyone’s pretending that. I think they’re bemoaning it.
He was hugely influential in the Sixties and Seventies even before his sitcom, Uselessbeauty! I think the first record albums my family had with Black man on the cover were Cosby’s comedy albums. He was an icon to Black and White people alike, and when he got his Doctorate in Education in the late Seventies we all felt good about him, and ourselves.For people of my age, finding he was a lifelong sexual predator is heartbreaking — how could we be so wrong about him?
Time for some obligatory Norm
That’s a great clip. But so sad – we lost Norm and Cosby’s still with us.
Or so the Germans would have us believe.
It really seems like Seinfeld would rather not have this conversation – he sounds quite uncomfortable – but he can’t help cracking up when Norm gets to the punchline.
He was busy driving – which he takes seriously and is difficult in a car with such poor visibility
Is it wrong that Norm’s impression of a hypothetical self-aware rapist makes me smile?
One of the tragic byproducts of this asshole finally being taken to task for his behavior is that a whole cast and crew have been robbed of potential royalties from one of the most successful and syndicated sitcoms from the 80s. He should have to compensate them.
It continues to air on TV One to this day.
I think you vastly overestimate how much actors get in royalties, they decline with each run. So by now it is probably not much. The people really making any real money are people who have points in the show (Cosby, Carsey-Werner, etc). Also, fwiw the show wasn’t really doing particularly great in syndication to begin with when this all happened.
As groundbreaking as he might have been, he was ALWAYS part of the Mad Men era, pre cultural revolution, early 1960s era. That perspective hasn’t aged well past the 1980s.
As Marvelous Mrs. Maisel wrapped season 1 I wondered if they might drop in a Cosby appearance or two (whether as an actual character or even just an unremarked on lead-in comic, or something), as a way of diversifying the NY scene, since he started in the actual Gaslight Cafe around the same time.
Obviously that quickly became beyond improbable, though I’d kinda still like to see it happen.
The guy who played Elvin and was working at Trader Joe’s probably was happy from whatever he got in royalties, but I can certainly understand why channels wouldn’t want the bad publicity that comes with showing it.
I’d like to see a show where Elvin visits Cliff in jail after he gets convicted of rape (a fantasy world, I know) and berates HIM for his life choices. Cliff Huxtable was a pompous, classist asshole.
It was definitely a relic of its time, being somewhat groundbreaking in showing a successful black professional and his family while also not alienating white audiences. That novelty is long gone, and the humor itself was so tame that there’s no thrill to watching it again.
I liked Rudy’s friend, the fat white kid who ran out scared all the time.
Cable channels dropped the show for a year or so, but it’s been back on for a couple of years. Same with 7th Heaven. It was dropped for a year or two, but picked right back up on the xtian and family channels.
There was always a certain subtle sexism in Cosby’s comedy. The way he used to talk about his wife as if she was some ruthless harridan; his calling his daughters “losers” because he had wanted sons; that one weird Adam and Eve bit at the end of Side One of To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With. I wouldn’t have guessed he was as monstrous as he turned out to be, but it wasn’t a surprise that he had a dim view of women.
No one cares what you think
He gave $20 million to Spellman and talked about how women were leaders and wrote powerful, educated, female characters. You can’t tell by looking. That should be the lesson here. You can’t watch his old standups or pore through his life to find proof he’s a rapist. You can be a feminist to some women and rape others. Rapists don’t wear a sign.
I mean I literally said I wouldn’t have guessed he was a rapist. But some token gestures doesn’t undermine the sexism in his work.
“Rapists don’t wear a sign.” Sometimes the person standing next to them does.
The old Louis CK method, yes. That said, Cosby’s work always had an undercurrent of sexism and especially classism to me. Maybe you can’t prove he’s a rapist through his work, but I wasn’t really surprised.
This is the problem with retrospective analysis; Cosby was fairly progressive for his time. Cosby was paternalistic and could be dismissive towards women? Dude was born in 1937, he is well within the norms of how mainstream culture treated women. Then, in the 80s, Claire Huxtable became an iconic female cultural role model.As many others have said, Spanish Fly/aphrodisiacs were an unremarkable topic for a long time. Funky Cold Medina went platinum in 1989! So yeah, his Spanish Fly bit looks really bad in retrospect. But, in the context of its time, it was completely unremarkable.(Aside: you want a fun exercise in retrospective analysis? Try Eddie Murphy’s jokes about gays from Delirious)
I mean, mainstream culture is one thing, but I do think we often underestimate how much people objected to the sexism and bigotry of the past at the time. Delirious got so much blowback that Eddie whined about mean gay people calling him names in Raw a few years later.
Admittedly a thorny issue to bring up…but does the “we” in the title include the black community? Specifically black celebrities. Even years later, try getting a famous African-American man to denigrate Cosby publicly. It’s like pulling teeth. Because I think that’s, at least, a crucial dynamic in his public fallout, both now and before, when there was a clear reluctance to engage in what would be perceived as a circular firing squad involving possibly the most respected black man in America.
possibly the most respected black man in America.Jesus Christ, come on man.Regardless, the fact that the series was directed by a black man and is aimed at black audiences should be enough to answer your transparently racist bad-faith question.
Anytime Cosby shows up in social media, I see endless amounts of black people (assuming their profile pictures are accurate) defending him as if he didn’t do anything wrong.
Oh hey, another idiot racist! Nothing quite like the internet to prove how racist and stupid white Americans are still capable of being.To address your (racist and idiotic) point: you see the same thing with literally any celebrity credibly accused / convicted of sexual assault. Look at what happened to Amber Heard – a million people signed a petition demanding that she be fired from her latest movies specifically because she proved in a court of law that Johnny Depp was abusive. There’s very little overlap with the black folks defending Bill Cosby – these million misogynists are the overwhelmingly white superfans of Johnny Depp.It’s extremely frustrating when worthless idiot racists like yourself try to make this about the imagined pathologies of black people. Black people are not magically immune to human nature, an unpleasant aspect of which is shared with the white misogynists harassing Amber Heard.
I would suggest emphasising “assuming their profile pictures are accurate”. Pretending to be black on social media to bolster the credibility of terrible opinions is something white people have a rich tradition of. (For context, I am white.)
Wow only took two comments for someone to say the r-word. haha never change.
Hannibal Buress is arguably the person who publicized the allegations more than anyone else. Dave Chappelle talks about Cosby all the time. Tracy Morgan makes a joke about Cosby being a rapist on 3o Rock… back when he still had a pristine reputation.
I not only disagree; I would argue black comedians greatly helped uncover the truth.
I’m commenting to tell you I gave you a star, because Kinja no longer notifies you of that, and you deserve stars.
I think Cosby’s part in the Black community, and in the way everyone else looked at the Black community for decades is the why there’s a need for it, and probably a chunk of the show. The trailer I watched is certainly a lot of Black celebrities talking about it.
Are you serious? It’s been talked about a lot in the Black community. It was the Black community that called him out.
I certainly didn’t mean to imply that the entire community was silent, but there’s a clear reluctance on the part of many.This piece gets at it more cogently: https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/01/entertainment/phylicia-rashad-bill-cosby-black-community/index.html
LOL I almost mentioned Rashad in my first comment as in “except for Phylicia Rashad, he’s been pretty roundly condemned” which obviously isn’t 100% true, I just wouldn’t say she’s typical. But no community is monolithic, and there’s plenty of misogyny to go around within and without the Black community. Plenty of folks from Wilmore to Bell to Burress to Hubert to Union have spoken out. Even Goldberg has turned on him.
She finally came around? I guess once it got to 50, it was worth reconsidering.Glib, but let’s see what people like Goldberg said about some of the powerful white men that had dozens of accusations against them. Not trying to single her out, but she’s a good example. It took prominent black celebrities much, much longer to come around, because of what Bill Cosby meant.
I think that’s true for a lot of folks.
SPEAR! SPEAR!
Not to excuse her but…I think we the public should also extend grace to people who might’ve been the ones most bamboozled by an abuser and not require them to enthusiastically join the tear down crowd. I can imagine it would be very hard to accept that your friendship or partnership with a person was just a smokescreen of decency so they could do monstrous things otherwise. Its a real reality shaker, and the closer you are the harder in relation to that person the harder it is to rectify especially if you never personally witnessed it. Being outside of it is not an advantage they have, nor is the self-satisfaction that most of us get to feel about it. It’s super weird that we expect everybody who is an associate or an acquaintance of an abuser to instantly join the outcry crowd as if they don’t need time or space to process a hard truth about a person they actually have been around and know. Knowing a person does not mean you approved or knew about everything they’ve done to others. Its bizarre we feel entitled to bully people into feeling the way we want them to feel
“Cosby’s very close longtime personal friends” are not the same thing as “the black community,” bruh.
That’s not a divide. The article highlights countless Black celebrities who were/are very loud and vocal about their displeasure and they wholeheartedly reject Cosby VS Phylicia Rashad and a few parents whose kids attend Howard where Rashad is the new head of the fine arts dept. There’s no divide. Black folks called him out on it and kept that fire lit.
No one denigrates him, because that means to criticise unfairly, and clearly he deserves all the shit he gets and more.
Fuck’s sake. Watch the trailer. ‘We’ is entirely aimed at and from the perspective of the Black community. Is there a non-Black, non-celebrity featured?
Do you know who Bell is?
Ummmm……Obama….. Most respected Black Man in America
Ehh, a ton of white people who loved the Cosby show hated and openly disrespected Obama.
I mean, is demanding that every black man apologize for Bill Cosby something you think we should be doing? Like, Don Cheadle wins an Oscar, and he goes on some film critic’s show to talk about it, and the dude is all “Now Don, before we get started, would you agree as a black man that it’s pretty gross how Bill Cosby raped those ladies?” Like, you get how fucked that would be, right? That’s like if you went to interview just a random white dude – say Chris Hemsworth – and kicked it off with “so Chris, the KKK. Pretty bad dudes, am I right?”
No, I don’t think we should be doing that. That’s why I didn’t suggest that. Also, I don’t know what insight an Australian would have into the KKK.
I mean, that is literally what you said: “Even years later, try getting a famous African-American man to denigrate Cosby publicly. It’s like pulling teeth.” Like, this is objectively a lament that we should be trying to get black dudes to admit Cosby is bad, and it’s not going as well as it should be. That you don’t seem to understand why this is a fundamentally weird goal says a lot of stuff about you, almost all of which is bad.
I never said that we should demand “every” black man do anything. I was commenting on a trend I notice which is a noticeable reticence among a number of black celebrities to weigh in on Cosby. You’re out of the grays, so some critical thinking would be appreciated.
It seems understandable to me why celebrities in general wouldn’t want to weigh in on controversies that don’t affect them directly.
I don’t owe you anything. Learn to write clearly, you loon.
Dude is sensitive that people are clowning him for his ignorant, racist take.
You’re going to fit in well at the new AV Club. You might even get a job writing here.
It seems like you are attempting to find a way to collectively ridicule the sorts of people who would find your ignorant, easily disproved racialized take laughable. I’ve actually been coming here since the AV Club went online, but it does seem like you’d be happier somewhere where people reflexively believe false statements about black people. Lots of safe spaces for that kind of thing, where you could pass as something on an intellectual.
Bad news though. They’re going to need to relocate to Mumbai. No pay increase and moving costs are their own responsibility. Welcome to the team bro!
Right, because the AV Club skewing toward the left and being anti-racist is “new.” Seems super legit, kid.
Larry Wilmore called out Cosby regularly back when he had a show.
Hey, did Henry Kissinger ever come out and condemn Harvey Weinstein?
No?Well, then, what the fuck are you talking about?
Larry Wilmore called out Cosby repeatedly prior to his arrest from his opening monologue on The Nightly Show, saying “I’m watching you motherfucker…”
There was a similar phenomenon with OJ, Michael Jackson and R Kelly. The American justice system has been so horrendous to black people throughout the entirety of our history that I don’t blame black Americans for approaching the accusations against anybody in their community with a healthy amount of skepticism. Remember, for every Cosby/R Kelly that evaded justice for decades there legitimately are countless examples of black people that were falsely accused and railroaded by our justice system.
I don’t think anyone would deny that, but to me there’s a little bit of “the soft bigotry of low expectations” to give anybody, including African-Americans a free pass (not that this was necessarily what you were doing) in instances where evidence toward one side is overwhelming. White liberal guilt shouldn’t supersede critical thinking.For the record, I’m sure we all know plenty of people of any race who have no problem condemning all of these guys. My initial comment was on a phenomenon I noticed with celebrities. Although there are exceptions, including some I didn’t know about that were pointed out in response.
You’ve got some personal work to do.
Gave you the like. It seems like you could use it.
As someone noted below, Black comedians really didn’t shy away from dragging Cosby. I just came here to add Eddie Murphy to that list.
W. Kamau Bell is so thoughtful. He should have been named host of The Daily Show.
I’m sure the title was chosen purposely, but giving them credit for the phrasing when it’s clearly nodding to We Need To Talk About Kevin feels kind of odd. I think not pointing out the (presumably) thematic link between that film and this doc actually does any analysis of the title a disservice; there’s no way it isn’t an intentional reference.
It’s a common phrase though. I remember a lot of “We Need To Talk About Apu” thinkpieces and so on, it’s used as a headline or caption in a lot of articles and opinion pieces about subjects who emerge as problematic.
that movie did not invent the phrase “we need to talk about _____”
Coming out right at a time when the #2 song in the country is a Disney song called “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” is funny, though.
This sounds like a very worthy programme that I would have a great deal of difficulty actually watching.
“The documentary and this review believe those women’s accounts.” It’s weird how this review careens between taking his guilt as given and awkwardly shoe-horning “alleged” into sentences. And it makes for confusing sentences, the most egregious being “Bell observes how the number of Cosby’s alleged victims skyrocketed during 1980s when he was a household name.” The literal meaning of that sentence is that the number of allegations skyrocketed during the 1980s. That is, not the number of rapes, but the number of *allegations* of rapes skyrocketed. Maybe that actually is what Robinson means? If there were already a massive number of allegations in the 1980s, though, that would be a rather important fact that deserves more explanation. If Robison instead means that the 1980s were the time of the alleged rapes, rather than the time of the allegations of rape, he should be word his sentences more carefully.
Does the AV Club really want to be sued for defamation by Bill Cosby? That’s why “alleged” is in there. You can have an opinion as to whether he is guilty, but you can’t say he had rape victims unless he was convicted of raping more than one person.
Martin Luther King Jr was a womanizer who watched and encouraged the rape of a woman. Darwin was a profound racist.The Dalai Lama slept naked with underage girls.Thomas Edison stole most of his inventions.People are flawed. Every one of us. If we were only allowed to acknowledge contributions made by perfect people, we’d still be in the caves banging rocks together… and even then, I’m sure Grok the discoverer of caves probably had some unsavory elements in his past too. We need to reevaluate not just our idols, but how we idolize. Our entire history is made up of flawed people, and if we have to abolish all mention of the flawed people from it, what will we have left? Its such a demeaning trivialization to think of people as good or bad, we’re all a mixed bag. Perhaps we should get more comfortable living in the grey areas of reality rather than the black and white of willfully ignorant fantasies.
“Cosby had become the master on the Hollywood plantation.” maybe not a great line. Wouldn’t hurt to edit that one out.
Damn it – guess I’ll see this a year later when it’s no longer on ShowtimeWill it be available for rent day of release (for each installment)?
Whoa, who did you have to blow to get your comment posted? Asking for a friend. 😉
I will say this:Black History: Lost, Stolen, & Strayed was a film we watched in my Junior year American History class, and it shook and shamed me to my core. I was a big Cosby fan since Jr. High, and seeing him present this information really got my attention that I don’t think would have been as powerful otherwise. (I discovered on rewatch years later that Andy Rooney wrote the script, and I can definitely “hear” his voice in it.).
What was even more telling to me was the reaction of many of the White students in my class that just didn’t get the point of it at all. 45 years later, I still see it in my community today. Sigh.
I will say this:Black History: Lost, Stolen, & Strayed was a film we watched in my Junior year American History class, and it shook and shamed me to my core. I was a big Cosby fan since Jr. High, and seeing him present this information really got my attention that I don’t think would have been as powerful otherwise. (I discovered on rewatch years later that Andy Rooney wrote the script, and I can definitely “hear” his voice in it.).
What was even more telling to me was the reaction of many of the White students in my class that just didn’t get the point of it at all. 45 years later, I still see it in my community today. Sigh.
People aren’t monolithic. It wasn’t the monster that ‘invaded our cultural DNA’, that part wasn’t foisted upon us whatsoever. It was a good part of Bill Cosby. I think we can recognize that and still, yes, even appreciate that AND Cosby’s work while also condemning the part you seem to think defines cosby’s entire being. Sorry, that’s just not how people work. That’s your emotions running your intelligence, Steve.
“He acted as if his fame and wealth insulated him fully.”He got away with his crimes for decades and then had his conviction overturned on a technicality, so maybe he was right.
He’s a big part of that sceevy playboy crowd, hanging in tha cesspool, surely many more were doing what he was, but they werent so prolific. The stories coming out now that Hefner is dead and the blackmail stuff was supposedly destroyed by Crystal will increase.
The documentary shows a clip of Jerry Seinfeld telling Stephen Colbert that Cosby was a huge influence of his. Colbert asks Seinfeld if he can still listen to Cosby’s stand up and Seinfeld says he can. Colbert says ‘I can’t listen to it now’. And Seinfeld looks perplexed.The answer to the question ‘can you seperate the art from the artist?’, really depends on how much (or how little) value the person being asked places on the lives of the victims of these predators. Or how disgusted they are (or aren’t) by that kind of predatory behaviour.I loved every movie that Woody Allen ever made. There was a time when I couldn’t get enough of Louis CK. But now, I no longer have the ability to appreciate anything either of them does. I am unable to admire them or their work in any shape or form.For some of us, the inability to seperate the art from the artist is not a conscious decision.