So Bill Cosby's "Cliff Huxtable" made Wesley Morris "believe in" himself. Really? What about your English teacher, Mr. Morris, who honed you in the ways of using a rich, vibrant vocabulary? Or the librarians who recommended books that were models of good writing and thinking? Or your parents? Or yourself and all the hard work you've done as a writer? Nowhere in this incoherent piece does Mr. Morris actually say what it was about the palpably contrived, feel-good character of Cliff Huxtable that gave him the powers of critical thinking and the self-confidence to do what he does as a professional writer. This doesn't wash.
58
Bill Cosby, I so wish you hadn’t turned out to be a vile man, masquerading as a good one.
30
The recent film “I Am Not Your Negro” demonstrated the gulf that exists between the experience of mainstream (white) culture between black and white people in this country, and the absence of a shared common culture between them. I recall the Cosby Show providing a shining exception to this problem. For a half hour every week a mass mainstream audience tuned in to the humorous travails of an appealing upper class African American family. It felt for a time that the show was bridging the racial animus in this country in some small but important way. The show will now never serve that purpose again. Whatever ability it had to bring people together through its fake innocence and seeming exemplary father figure portrayal is gone. That is sad.
55
Hey guys --
That's the MO of Cheaterpants. They all know how to fool ya. That's what manipulators do. They know all about deceit, shifting blame onto the victim. They know how to stay "married" and "date" and date at the same time.
He's not unusual, just famous.
Next time a woman tells you that her kind, charismatic, popular husband is a serial cheater, don't blow her off. Consider what she's saying just might be true.
34
Dear Mr. Morris,
I needed your editorial very much. It helps me confront and begin to process the heavy feeling in my chest that has been brought on by the verdict in Bill Cosby's case. I grew up on Cosby - not the Huxtable version of Cosby, but the stand-up comic version of Cosby, brought to me on vinyl records that my parents played starting from when I was about five years old. I grew up reciting "Chicken Heart" and the whole getting-his-tonsils-out routine ("ICE cream, we're gonna eat ICE cream!"). I was a little tow-headed white girl flipping through the multiple Cosby LPs we had, imprinting positively on his smiling face and asking for another to be put on the record player so my brother and I could laugh until we nearly peed our pants.
I knew in your editorial I would reach the moment when you evoked the black predator myth. The way I see it, the white sexual predators that have bobbed to the surface recently far outnumber the black ones. Statistically it was inevitable that a black one would turn up in the bunch. Statistically, there ought to be more, but it seems there are not.
I don't know how this will make you feel, but I feel that I am commiserating with you. Our growing-up experiences have been very different, but we both imprinted on a black man who gave us moments of feeling all was right with the world, and we both now feel something like a lead weight we have to deal with.
Peace,
Patty Gray
45
In the 80's Bill Cosby showed me that being a teacher could be cool. I loved that he had his doctorate in education. I loved his love of education. And I loved the Huxtables. I could identify with Theo or Denise when they royally screwed up. Plus, the show was very, very funny.
So of course the rape charges and accusations were painful. That somebody who had been such an inspiration had this gross and despicable side makes those of us who grew up with The Cosby Show question our own values. The show is still a good show, although I have no need to rewatch it. That it enabled a man to have an easy cover for his crimes is harder to rectify. Which of our heroes of today will crush us later on? It may not even matter, in the end. We found our validation through something we believed to be good. Having to cut ties with it does not feel good, but it is all we can do.
29
Didn't all those fans of the Cosby Show notice that when his royal highness came on stage he stood there with a big smirk on his face waiting for the cued applause to end, so he could drop his pearls of wisdom. Didn't anyone notice that his doctoral dissertation was written about his show, Fat Albert? He defended his dissertation at a dinner party in his house where he showed off his vast wardrobe of shirts. He has been a fraud from way back. His fans just failed to see what a phony and scumbag he was because they liked his sense of humor. He knew he was putting people on but his diehard fans failed to notice. Those of us, who were not his fans, didn't find these allegations difficult to believe. Watch this AP interview on youtube. You will see Bill Cosby trapped, jabbering about the integrity of the interviewer and AP when he was asked about the allegations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI6z97Efw3I
14
How do I, at least, cleave this man from the man he seduced me into becoming?
This is such a poignant line, so thank you for the piece, the whole of it.
The overly self-righteous Bill Cosby disturbed me and many others for years, particularly since he seemed to take to publically calling out and shaming black men and black fathers and seemed to feel he was holier than thou. I am white and wasn't raised by him or his shows, so I'm not as harmed by these proceedings. I think it's time we worry when someone presents himself or herself as better than the rest of us.
16
The persona on the big screen or small rarely reflects the real identity of the person. We want to believe and so we do. O.J. driving the Bronco was not the runner in the terminal. Mel Gibson was hardly the funny hero we came to love. Rock Hudson....who knew?
Cosby was not the first to sicken us and he won't be the last. He may not be through in the court room but he won't return to our living room. We may miss Cliff, but Bill was never Cliff and we are all the poorer for it.
15
The trial as was the first was a sham! An over zealous prosecutor once again manipulating the system to get his way. Constanza took over 3 million to drop the case. Proceedings were sealed. That should have been end of story. Three days before statute of limitations expired he was allowed to reopen case. Never should have happened. First trial ended in a mistrial despite the quite ridiculous "testimony" from a woman who had no bearing on the case at hand. That didn't work so the same judge allowed the testimony of 5 women none of who had any bearing on the charges. Hearsay. No evidence. No previous charges (which I thought was inadmissable any way). Judge allowed "witness" to speak directly to defendant in front of jury, (which should have ended trial right then). In the American Judicial System sometimes guilty people do go free when the rules of evidence are not followed. In this sham the rules of evidence were thrown out. No evidence linking to any crime. Think about this; all of these men being released from prison after serving decades of their lives for crimes (most often rape) they did not committ but were no where the scene. Yet the victims swore that they were raped by quite innocent defendants. Think about this; the crux of the Stormy Daniels situation is that if she took money to remain silent then she should not be able to speak about the case.
3
Bravo. The perplexities of this significant event in women's rights and black pop culture are evident in the divergence of the NYT readers' comments. And that your words can evoke such reactions is a true testament to your brilliance as a writer. Reading this piece, I felt equal parts despair and justice. I grew up with the Huxtables. I probably went to college because of the Huxtables. And I just realized I typed "Cosbys" instead of "Huxtables" twice before catching my mistake. Thank you for having the courage to share a much-needed perspective on such a divisive topic.
17
Every little girl knows the sickening feeling of being made to sit on “Daddy’s lap”.
Even the picture of the Huxtable family disgusts me.
8
There are no good answers for this dilemma. Clifford Huxtable was an artistic creation, as was Fat Albert, as was “Noah”. Where do you draw the line between the artist and his or her art? Those characters were fantasies that we chose to believe in, for a given value of belief. Does it make us bad for believing in them now that we know how flawed their creator was? Are they now inherently toxic?
No human is an unmixed blessing - all of us fall short in some measure. Can we accept the good without acknowledging the bad? Do we know how much Cosby was trading on his creations to prey on his victims?
I’m still struggling with the dilemma of Garrison Keillor. We talk about the handful of characters Cosby created; Keillor gave us the whole town of Lake Woebegone, along with many other characters on “ A Prairie Home Companion”. They are now exiled to some limbo of the mind, doomed to fade into obscurity. There is more than a little irony that Guy Noir turned out to have his own dark secrets.
What we are suffering is a loss of innocence. The challenge now is to decide what we can salvage, what we can still celebrate, what we can learn from, what we can do better. It’s a skill we need to cultivate.
We live in a time when a porn star now appears a more honest and intelligent person than the president - reality, not fantasy. Dealing with moral ambiguity, sorting out what we truly value has never been harder. Loss of innocence is one of the gateways to adulthood. Are we there yet?
25
I think most women suffer a loss of innocence quite early in life. Few of us have not experienced inappropriate sexual behavior at the hands of unknown and familiar (often familial) men or boys - many of whom are viewed as quite respectable. Cosby is definitely a hard bite to chew, precisely because he was masterful at the counterfactual.
16
Moral ambiguity, loss of innocence, fantasy-- it is all there in our culture where fetish and fantasy are a menu option. But, the Cosby Show, this was not a porn site. Drugging women and molesting women are violation of our image of our dad, and our doctor. It's like the realization that your father is and has been a miscreant. I think Freud would have a field day.
9
Cosby and the recently apprehended Golden State Killer seem cut from the cloth. Who knows what BC would have done were he not a wealthy, admired man.
8
Okay. Bill Cosby was a warped, strangely pious, conceited sexist predator. As a human, he was a heartbreaking pied piper of morality, demanding rules that he himself avoided. He was a monster.
And he was probably the greatest stand up comedian whoever lived. Richard Pryor and George Carlin noted him as their mentor. He revolutionised the comedic medium. That is no apology, but a raw, and unbiased, fact.
Sadly, comedy is psychological cesspool and many of the greatest proponents of comedy are on a mission of therapy against their own demons. List the greats and there are problems in each story. Charles Chaplin wrote about the greatest comic of the turn of the 20th century, Dan Leno, as a man who had to be cut down from the rope that he would hang himself in his change room, just prior to appearing on stage by minutes. Chaplin himself was a pedophile and rapist. Buster Keaton was an alcoholic. Groucho Marx was a miserable man. Richard Pryor never talked to his film crew. Peter Sellers was psychiatric mess. Jerry Lewis was...well...Jerry Lewis. The list goes on. Sadly, a lot of great comedy is madmen's catharsis. Or in the case of Mr. Cosby, a means of hiding the monster within. This shedding of light may well change the process of comedy. We have to see what degrees of good and bad it shall go. Or, this form of comedy may peter away. And its change will be a result of a perfectly loveable and wonderful comedian who was ill, knew it, and rode the crest of a sordid wave.
16
How?
Replace him with Barack Obama. After 2008, why would any black family need the Huxtables as some ideal role model? You had a loving, affluent, educated, witty DAD in the White House. In real life. And a WAY better one than what sits there now.
50
Without Cliff Huxtable, there likely would have been no President Obama.
5
Wait. It was a role he was playing. It wasn’t he. Hello! Silly article.
12
Then there is this: Bill Cosby was a better actor than everyone, except his many, many victims, ever knew.
6
Cosby playing Cliff Huxtable is like Trump playing president.
15
Heroes give us a view up the mountain, and they’re necessary in most kids’ lives, no matter what variety of family one has. Grieve as long as you need to, then let Cosby burn, and hold on to the good you saw in “Cliff”. What you liked in him says a lot about what you’re really made of. Cosby was reading a script. You’re writing your heart. No comparison.
17
I think Bill Cosby, like Donald Trump, lived in a bubble of entitlement. I am so glad Cosby has to face the consequences of his criminal behavior. Time for Trump to face his.
17
When the Cosby Show started I knew people in academia (with excellent jobs and salaries) who pontificated about how people in the "ghetto" would never relate to it.
I was doing volunteer work with a youth group in a notorious housing project at that time. We had to change the evening we met because the Cosby Show was on that night, and the kids absolutely could not miss the Cosby Show. They didn't care that it didn't show their lives the way they were-- it showed their aspirations. It gave them hope.
When I think about those kids and what that show meant to them-- and what Bill Cosby turned out to be-- I just feel sick.
18
Where do we think Cosby's need to drug and rape women comes from? Was he raped or abused as a child? An angry, self-hating man. Where from?
14
Actors play many roles, and when these roles are noble, they rightfully inspire us. Actors are artists, and brilliant artists should inspire us through their art, even when the artists as persons are challenged by mental, ethical and emotional flaws. A great mistake is to confuse any artists with their artistry.
13
It was about 1965. From the floor of the Baltimore Civic Center, I looked up at Bill Cosby. I was a Jewish girl who had all his albums. He was handsome and slim, strutting around the stage in a silvery pin-striped suit. He was hilarious, inventive and relatable, especially his riffs on childhood. I grew up to eventually learn firsthand about molestation. Yes, me too. So I am sorry for the women he abused. But I am equally sorry for the loss of Cosby's best work. Wesley Morris, I, too, was enriched by this flawed man. There are no winners here.
27
Sadly, I observe that Cosby's behavior was no secret in the 70's and 80's. No viewer of his tv shows, as now and then a Jazz fan, I excused his actions as those of a Hollywood Player, denizen of the Playboy Mansion, but high profile advocate for our shared passion. I feel for those generations deceived and violated.
5
To your final question - by continuing the human being YOU decided to become, by following virtues you respected, not an example that you had no way of knowing was a facade.
17
Do NOT cleave yourself from him Mr. Morris. Please. We are ALL contradiction. We are ALL made of good and bad. What makes the Best Humans are those that see that their shadow self is real, who confront their shadow self, who own their faults and failings and seek to improve.
Cosby helped shape you, but you are so much more. Cosby can't match your eloquence and depth, nor your ability to look inside and examine your heart, your actions. He never did that.
I listen to you and Jenna on Still Processing and you both exude what is Best in Humans.
12
Dear Mr. Morris, I think it’s called mourning. Cosby is not dead, but he IS dead in relation to the way he touched our hearts. Now comes the 7 stages of grief:
SHOCK & DENIAL
PAIN & GUILT- ...
ANGER & BARGAINING- ...
"DEPRESSION", REFLECTION, LONELINESS- ...
THE UPWARD TURN- ...
RECONSTRUCTION & WORKING THROUGH- ...
ACCEPTANCE & HOPE-
As Charles Barkley once said: “I ain’t no role model!” If Cliff gave you inspiration and hope, then Bill can never take it away from you! We don’t know when Cosby turned to the ‘dark side’: in his youth, before fame, or as a consequence of it! He’ll never tell because he’s still in denial. Maybe there has always been this Jeykll and Hyde quality to him. He wasn’t born that way. But, sans conviction, he admitted to being a serial sexual monster long before the jury came back in. The real question will be how the larger black community handles this tragedy: denial, anger, bargaining? When OJ was acquitted, joy did not stem from believing his innocence, rather that he beat the Justice system as a black man. There is nothing to rejoice in this time. Cosby got convicted and his millions didn’t save him. However, if he inspired lives as an actor, then there was some benefit. Now let’s see how many of us can live by the wisdom, grace, class, and humanity that he made us believe was possible.
9
Ever since I heard the Brecht quote, "Unhappy is the land that needs a hero,"
I have thought it a fitting description of the United States of America.
It is our propensity to put individuals on pedestals that causes our hearts to falter and question our faith in one another. But it is this worship of men and women that is our fatal chink in our national character.
Bill Cosby ceased being funny some time around 1965, but isn't it odd how so much of the malarkey we see around us today comes out of NBC?
NBC was the home to GE Theater in the 'fifties, when Ronald Reagan restarted his career to reach TV audiences. In the 'sixties, and later, the 'eighties, Cosby took I-Spy and Huxtable roles. And beginning a decade and a half ago, Donald Trump started The Apprentice, a role which he took to the White House with the graceful assist of Matt Lauer and round the clock coverage of the 2016 campaign.
I suggest the writer abandon childhood appreciation of dumb TV shows.
Bob Hope, who was my parents' and my own generations' NBC comedian used to give me a laugh when I was 7 or 8, but when I see old clips of him now, my adult brain recognizes I have seen car accidents much funnier than he ever was.
7
It is indeed the time for "cleaving terrible people from their great work." How well put. I am staring at that sentence because it has been happening over and over. And I am having a hard time doing it. I wasn't of the generation that found Cosby's TV show formative (though i did love his comedy LPs when I was a teen), but this is how it has been going now with Roman Polanski, whose films are just outstanding; Woody Allen, who I grew up enjoying immensely; Louis CK; Chuck Close--all artists who i have to separate from their work now that their true selves have been exposed. It's like seeing Dorian Grey's portrait. It's hard to view the work anymore as separate. Maybe if any of these men were at all believably repentant. But they're not. The closest one of them came to an apology still said "IF" i've offended...if i've hurt...which is not even close to "I did offensive and terrible things."
13
We're used to cleaving terrible people from their great works.
Woody Allen still makes movies...
We've elected Presidents who had cheated on their wives beforehand...
Way more people in this country compartmentalize than you expect...
8
One of the more troubling outcomes of the last few years of racially perceived misbehaviors, at least for a white reader, is that they have made smart and wise black writers (Morris, Coates, Graham here in Boston) lose their minds and judgment and write overstated imbalanced bunk. And who can blame them?!
3
I wonder how these alleged acts supposedly committed decades ago are getting proven in a court of law. Is it just her word against his ?
Not a squeak or outrage from the feminists when the Bill Clinton scandal erupted. They supported Bill Clinton throughout his presidency as long as they got the laws favoring their social-engineering agendas passed!
5
Like it or not, Cliff Huxtable was a work of art. He was a collaborative effort: the warm, wise, lovable character was the creation of a team of writers, and the embodiment of the character was Bill Cosby, an actor.
When we learned that Archie Bunker was in reality only a character played by Carroll O'Connor, a skilled actor, a man not like Archie at all, we were delighted and impressed that he could fool us into thinking that he was a sweaty, bullying, uneducated bigot when in reality he was a complex, sensitive, cultured man.
Now we are outraged to find that Bill Cosby was in reality a sexual predator who used Cliff Huxtable to convince us, his audience, of his kindness and goodness, and to prey upon women who, like us, naively trusted that he really was just like Cliff Huxtable.
The women he drugged and raped were victims of a delusion we have all experienced. If we question their truthfulness it's because to believe them we would have to admit that we were all his dupes.
57
We need to stop holding up Celebrities as role models. Period. We have become a nation obsessed with them, including now our POTUS. Remember, most are really good at acting. That is their chosen career!
There are so many important role models out there: teachers, scientists, your grandmother, the kid with learning disabilities bagging your groceries (who, by the way, you ignore while you are looking at People Magazine in the check-out aisle reading about celebrities!) And the media needs to stop elevating the celebrity nonsense as well. How about some articles highlighting real everyday heroes and thinkers?
20
Mr Morris, I can see how confusing and disheartening this trial would be to one who grew up with Mr Cosby as a role model. He portrayed someone who was caring, smart, moral. Although the actor turned out to be someone who was none of those things-you chose the role model presented on the screen and your identifying with that positive portrayal of manhood was a deserving one. Perhaps a little too perfect and lacking in human flaws. But for a child and teen-that you were- a model worthy of yours and many young African American (and other ethnicities) males’ aspiration. Our society needs these models for our boys and as process the truth about this man, we
can think about what boys need, what African American young men need, as models in the media and in real life.
7
In the American judicial system a person I innocent until proven guilty. What I witnessed the other day was a railroad job. If a person robs a bank and 3 days later is caught, then the prosecution has to prove to a jury without a shadow of a doubt that the accused is the perp. Yet in the Crosby trial the solid evidence was not produced. I am not saying that he did not do some of these things. What I am saying is that all criminal trials rely on solid evidence in order to convict some one. The prosecution called 3 other ladies that repeated almost word for word what the first lady said. How is that evidence? I really don't get it. There has been too much "me too" exploitation in the media. The jurists have that in the back of their minds and they do not want to be perceived as being influenced by Crosby's money. There was no solid evidence provided at Crosby's trial. This is a sad day for America.
3
first of all -- it is beyond a "reasonable doubt," NOT beyond a "shadow of a doubt."
and the reason the five of the SIXTY women who have accused Cosby had the same story is because his M.O. was always the same -- which to me is further evidence of his guilt.
And there hasn't been too much "me too" in the media; this is only the tip of the iceberg of what really really happens.
22
You don't know what's in the jurors' minds, allen blaine. You argue there was no solid evidence, are you privy to all the evidence presented? I believe Cosby is even sicker than he's been portrayed. He could have had any willing woman in the world, but his need to drug and prey upon unwilling women shows once again it's not about sex, it's about power.
20
It's a mistake to throw "the Cosbys" under the bus. Certainly there are hundreds of thousands (and hopefully millions) of dads like Cliff Huxtable who are the benevolent patriarch. Bill Cosby's sin does not erase those good people, nor does his conviction repudiate the character that Huxtable was. The wholesomeness of that series is unchanged by the knowledge that the actor was nothing like Huxtable. Actors act. Character endures. It is certainly reasonable to reject any professional effort by Cosby, and many will no longer patronize him, even in reruns. But that is a personal choice. The Cosby show is not the problem however. It was a beacon. The problem is the man himself.
16
I was taught that for a person accused of a crime had to have solid evidence produced to put the accused at the scene of the crime. I am not excusing Crosby of his infidelities, but there was no solid evidence provided to the jury. All the prosecution had was 3 other women that repeated what the firs lady said. How is that evidence? Something has gone really wrong when a person is convicted by some ones word. A conviction requires solid evidence. Has there been other convictions for crimes without solid evidence? Yes. and I feel the same way about those also. If a person is accused of robbing a bank and there is no clear evidence placing the accused at the scene of the crime then that accused person is not convicted. If I as prosecutor put bank robbers up as witnesses then the whole trial is tainted. This is what happened in the Crosby case. Again, I am in no way saying that he did not do some of these things, I am questioning the judicial system. If Crosby is innocent then these accusers have to deal with this the rest of their lives. On the other hand, if Crosby is guilty then he will spend the rest of his life in prison.
1
I fondly recall Mr. Crosby's "Fat Albert" stories. He was beyond famous, then. So, how would his graciously popping into our lives with such stories play into a master plan to prey on women?
I have two lives. One is that I wish to be acknowledged for the good things I do for my family, friends, colleagues and society. Somehow, and I mean somehow, I manage to rise in the morning each day to do this. Then, there are my personal needs which may include, at times, family, friends, colleagues and society. How I act is necessarily different for both where the latter is far more difficult to develop and manage in a meaningful way than the former. And, I believe that most everyone lives these separate lives, including Bill Crosby.
I think Bill enjoyed what he had to offer us throughout his career. I've been pleased to have had him around. I do not see him as an actor but as part of the fabric of our culture. From time-to time, we've needed Bill and he always managed to hit our sweet spot when we did.
So, I wish that we not allow Mr. Morris' suggestion that all the rest of us do is serve our deepest, most sinister, thought with every action we take throughout every aspect of our lives. I, simply and personally, have found this not to be what drives me and others I know.
So, Mr. Bill, thank you for your work backed by what I believe to be your heartfelt desire to share your positive, humorous and deeply thoughtful, experiences, in this short life, with us.
In Medieval times, Trial by Ordeal was used to determine guilt or innocence as the accused had to pass some painful physical trial and if the accused survived it was assumed that God saved them and thus they were innocent. Modern jurisprudence, however, dictates that the accused is innocent until proven guilty. Lawyers represent both sides and evidence is decides the outcome. God doesn't decide guilt or innocence but, thankfully, judges and juries do.
Whether or not Cosby is guilty or innocent I have no idea. On the other hand, I DO know that no one can confidently recount events that occurred 10+ years ago nor should they be expected to. Moreover, lacking physical evidence (which degrades with each passing second) criminal conduct should be nearly impossible to affirm. An alleged victim MUST report to the police IMMEDIATELY regardless of how emotionally difficult that might be to do. After all, IF a criminal is on the loose don't we have a DUTY to report them, thus saving others from victimization? Lastly, gag orders should be imposed preventing Trial by Media and a Statute of Limitations adhered to, reaffirming the PRESUMED INNOCENCE of any accused person. Finally, JUSTICE can only be meted out when emotions are removed from the equation, not used as the foundation of the case and charges brought against someone.
2
Sanitizing Bill Cosby's decades & decades of serial raping, drugging & sexual predation is disgusting, and useless. Bill Cosby is GUILTY as charged. He deserves incarceration.
10
SIXTY women have accused him of exactly the same behavior. Proof enough for me.
10
Power corrupts and the man had some power. It's sad to see our heroes fall from grace, but I'm disappointed at how the mainstream news media arr jumping at the opportunity to demonize Bill Cosby. He was a brilliant comic and his body of work has made lasting positive impacts on American popular culture. Yes he used his power and influence to prey on women who looked up to him. But let's not allow this cultural moment of self-righteous outrage erase the many positive aspects of his legacy.
2
I wonder how his family is handling all this? I don't mean the Huxtable's (although I'm sure they are shocked and saddened), I actually mean the Cosby's. I can only imagine the horrible realization that this is their husband/father who committed these horrendous acts on so many women. Did he ever think about how his family would feel? He is the father of four daughters. I wonder if he ever thought how he would feel if someone did something like this to them? I don't feel sorry for him but I do for his wife and children.
10
His wife? You mean Camille "Co-conspirator" Cosby? She has slammed the accusers and has turned a blind eye to his vile actions, accompanying him to court occasionally with a smug grin. I'm sure she'll be just fine with all those millions of dollars.
12
I was really taken aback by all the readers who rushed to criticize Wesley Morris's fine essay by stating that everyone knows actors are not the people they play. It makes me wonder if we are reading the same article.
11
It is important to distinguish between an artist and his or her work. We really should not care about Shakespeare's character in order to appreciate his work. Cosby is a gifted actor. If you got something good out of his Huxtable portrayal, fine, but don't make the mistake of conflating the fictional Huxtable with the very real and humanly flawed Cosby.
6
We can be stunned, but simply Mr. Cosby and other high profile individuals invest millions of dollars to keep the public in the dark about their true persona. The sobering reality is that we do not know any of the public figures who profess to be kind, noble, moral..this can be said of the many public figures who lately have been exposed because of private transgressions.
7
It was called “ The Cosby Show” . A television show with
actors who’s job was to perform, suspend you Into believing it
was areal people in a family. Mr. Morris, Bugs Bunny was just
a cartoon rabbit .
3
The sit-com was utterly wan and saccharine compared to the genius of his stand-up material. Such a shame to have to hear his creative brilliance with that shiv of pain to know what a cruel inhumane person he could be - and to know that he's likely to die in prison. Awful, awful downfall.
Readers will be shocked, shocked to learn that the stand-up comedy world is the biggest outpatient program of deviants and malcontents since the Vikings sacked Europe.
6
He was an actor doing his job. What's the big deal about his being a different person in real life? One thing he didn't do was to portray himself as a victim of white supremacy. He succeeded on his own and in this role encouraged blacks to take responsibility for themselves. If he had been more politically correct, the liberal establishment would probably have rallied behind him as another black victim. He dIdn't want their phony support. He was himself for better or for worse.
2
Who named him “America’s dad”? He was always a creep in my book. Even his character was creepy to me.
10
I never cared for Cosby..too self-righteous...
3
Please don’t get all self righteous with me. But i’ll take this a step further than Mr. Morris. Bill Cosby was a model of wholesomeness. Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. These images simply don’t disappear even though they are actors. That’s why Cosby was honored at the Kennedy Center. And I confess that my first reaction when I learn that Cosby did something terrible is to come to his defense and question my innate ideas of what is terrible. See, not all liberals walk the line. Some of us struggle with basic premises.
4
I don't agree that Cliff Huxtable was a benign, loveable TV dad. Much of the humor in the show was built around Cliff subtly manipulating his kids with lighthearted insults and dramatic mugging, and manipulating his wife by playing dumb with regard to her ideas and projects for the family. There was definitely a strong sense of affection in the family, but I do wonder where they'd all be in their therapy at this point.
3
A lot of real life good guy actors play bad guys and no one complains. So what’s wrong with bad guy actors playing good guys? Cosby is not the first one to do so.
3
Too many Americans have a bizarre inability to separate fact from fiction. Consequently, they fail to understand sociopathy. "Acting" is the main component of the sociopath's methodology. He must be able to deceive, to fool, and to destroy. All the while with a wink & a nod.
Look to our Oval Office for further evidence & definition of sociopathy. Comrade Trump sits there reveling in his destruction of our rule of law. He continues to sneer and snicker. All the while, Americans who voted for him refuse to give it up.
Like Cosby, however, Donald Trump WILL be held accountable.
13
I certainly hope so; the man is despicable.
6
This is a ridiculous premise: Cosby was an actor; Cliff Huxtable was one of his characters. The craft is to create illusion. Many of those celluloid war heroes like Ronald Reagan, Sylvester Stallone, John Wayne, opted out of their opportunity to prove any real-life heroism on the battlefield, but that didn't stop them from beating the drums (and policies) to send other people to war.
If you want to be serious about "sick jokes" and creating the perfect cover, how about a "Critic's Notebook" on sarah huckster and her "christian" life-style, and why lying and contempt for democracy come so naturally to her. Seems to me the greatest trial facing Christians these days are those like snarling sarah and her hateful father who use Christianity as a "cover" for bad behavior and extremist political beliefs.
5
Lisa Bonet, Huxtable's daughter on the show, has been vindicated. She has complained about Bill for decades and no one listened.
47
At first I didn't believe...then there were so many accusers it became impossible to deny. Now I am just disgusted.
4
A lot of people believed in Bill Cosby, believed in Cliff Huxtable. Perhaps Bill will come clean with himself and thus express believable contrition to the rest of us.
3
Most telling to me was that no one from Cosby's family was there for him when the jury came back.
They knew.
18
Yes he was a role model but your over- long emphasis onyourself really undermines the actuality and severity of what he as a real person, did. It is insulting to those he abused
5
It still amazes me that, whenever we learn an uncomfortable truth about someone in the public eye, we reveal by our shock just how little we really understand the complexity and contradictions that are at the core of what makes us all human.
11
Execellent point.
1
It is difficult to underestimate the importance of the Cosby Show. It showed America what a post-racial world could look like - and we all ate it up, black and white alike. Today, no TV show could be that important, but back then TV was still an enormously powerful medium, with the reach and power to actually alter the culture. Bill Cosby used that power in an extraordinarily positive way, and he had a real impact. Without the Cosby Show, it is hard to imagine that Obama would ever have been elected president. That was and still is a big part of Bill Cosby's legacy.
That this same person who did so much good was also an apparently unrepentant serial rapist and sexual predator is hard to reconcile. We all like our heroes (and our villains) simple and one dimensional. The real world is often a lot more complicated. At the end of the day, what Bill Cosby most represents is that a person capable of great good can also be capable of great evil.
89
This was well stated!
3
When you’re a member of a disliked minority about whom the worst is already believed by many, it matters a great deal how the actions of a notable member of your minority are perceived by the majority. It matters whether the way he comports himself confirms or disproves the stereotypes. People will say, “It’s not prejudice if it’s true,” and so for every negative stereotype confirmed by an actor, you need ten more actors to undo it.
Bill Cosby and Co convincingly portrayed the African American dream family, and so African Americans, like this author, have every reason to feel betrayed. We in the LGBT community have already had our own Cosby in the form of Kevin Spacey. They make it harder for everyone else.
14
The best solution:
Keep Cliff Huxtable and his family as the justly venerated symbol of black America and the American family.
Reject Bill Cosby, the disgraced actor who played him.
Remember: Bill Cosby is not Cliff Huxtable. It's the play that endures, not the actor.
14
I worked as a court clerk for 30 years in a major courthouse in Southern CA. Seven and a half of those years I spent in Family Law: divorce petitions were heard in the morning, and four afternoons a week there were Temporary Restraining Order hearings. The parties were often angry, hateful and mean. For 7.5 years I saw MANY men and women at their worst. Only those of you who have done absolutely nothing very wrong in your whole life, to a person of the opposite gender, can tear Bill Cosby apart.
3
You are equating the behavior we are all capable of at our worst, with the normal behavior of the worst of us. I disagree. And especially with your last sentence, I disagree.
8
It's as if the writer has just discovered acting for the first time--or that public images do not have a one-on-one correspondence with a person's whole life.
10
I don't remember if it was Henry Fonda or Jimmy Stewart (Fonda, I think) who said, "The hardest part of acting is to make it look like you are not acting.
I believed the act.
What a lose/lose proposition.
7
For the most part I'm able to separate the artist from the hu/man. Polanski comes to mind. But if I ever hear of Jimmy Stewart or Gregory Peck doing similar things, I know I'd be heart broken.
Cosby was an actor. That he played a role that led people to consider him a lovable father figure may seem like a sick joke. It's not. He was paid to play that part and he did it well. Maybe he did it well because he was sexually abusing women. Or maybe part of him is Cliff Huxtable.
What is more important is that we stop confusing celebrity with virtue. And the same goes for wealth or intelligence. None of that means a person is virtuous. We know that priests, ministers, rabbis, and even nuns can abuse people. Why do we continue to be shocked when we learn that a person has another side we haven't seen? We all know of people who come across as nasty or socially inept who have been far kinder to us and others than we ever expected.
In this reader's opinion, the sickest joke is the pretend concern victims receive just before they learn that nothing will be done, that they are not believed, and that their lives are about to be ruined. That needs to change.
44
Cliff Huxtable wasn't just a character Cosby the actor was playing--the sitcom was based on Cosby's family and his comedy routine--he had 4 daughters and a son, and his routine was very funny, talking about the challenges of parenting, and how different his parents were as grandparents. That's why it feels like a betrayal--he made us love him--the father everyone wishes they had.
16
So here we are blurring the lines between real people and made up characters portrayed by actors. I guess that is modern society, where we idolize actors and media types. Putting them on a pedestal and falsely thinking they are more of the characters they created instead of fallible real people.
14
Character has no relationship to wealth or talent. It's a good mask though.
6
It seems there is a societal lesson we are not attending to in this sordid affair of Cosby and his legacy. We, at least white people, profited from a heroic icon of the "other" to extend our faltering embrace of civil rights universality. Most of us g growing up in the third quarter of the 20th C., had grown up with an image of African Americans that experienced them as social and economic and intellectual inferiors, worthy of respect only as our poor relations. Cosby's (and Rashad's and supporting actors') characterizations allowed us to embrace more comprehensively the equality and equivalence of men and women and children of all races. Interestingly, the after story of the actors includes spectacular successes and failures as well as many more mundane outcomes.
The other story is that of abuse of power, hardly an exclusively American one. We are shamed that we missed it for so long, at least if we did miss it. Surely some of the outrage we feel is displaced from the unsanctioned public abuses playing out in the news. One lesson seen over and over again in the stories about abusers is that they pursue their obsessions because they can.
So, we all need to attend to as much of our worlds as we can and correct to right behavior as much as we can.
9
I teach a class called The American Sitcom at the high school where I teach. When I planned the class, I certainly put The Cosby Show on my list of sitcoms to study. Then the scandal broke loose, and I'm torn about whether or not to keep it in the curriculum. Obviously, if it were a college course, I would teach it and discuss the character vs. man debate. Since it's a high school course, though, it just feels wrong to show it to the students. And I have to say, it is very hard to watch any episodes anymore. When Dr. Huxtable is talking to his daughters, I can't help but see Cosby talking to the young female actresses and wondering about whether or not he was abusive toward them. Luckily, I don't have the class this year, but I'm sure I'll have to make the decision to keep it in the curriculum or not in the future. It had such a profound effect on American society...
13
You will teach your students to understand that actors are portraying characters not themselves. It will help them in more ways than you might think.
In addition to not being taken totally by surprise when someone who plays good people does bad things in their personal lives, they will recognize that people who play bad people are often very good people in their private lives. It will also prepare them for another kind of actor who can mislead them, sociopaths seeking to manipulate them are great actors because they have not consciences. Also, if they happen upon well known performers, they will not expect them to behave like the characters which they portray when they act.
15
I might say for freshmen no, for seniors yes, and face the issue head-on if you do. It might be valuable as an entry point to discussion of fiction vs. reality and sexism, among other issues, as well as a fairly ground-breaking representation of black upper middle class life. The multiplicity of identities and complexity of life goes way beyond sitcoms, and this would certainly convey that fact.
11
I don't understand why you would think that high school students are not equipped to deal its ethical and moral matters and matters of human complexity. When should they start learning these things? My high school friends and I certainly discussed matters or great import. It's the exact time of life to do so.
3
I think this is an important reminder that the work someone does is not necessarily representative of that person in real life. Still, I feel a sense of betrayal. I'm not black, but I loved Bill Cosby's work from his comedy LP's to his role as Dr. Huxtable. I feel like I need to find a way to grieve. I'm in no way supporting his behavior. In fact, I hope he spends the rest of his life in prison, but maybe he was so good at his work because he was incapable of being such a person in real life.
13
You feel betrayed? How about the women he raped. This is not about his audience, it is about justice for victims of sexual assault
8
Agreed. This national orgy of self-righteousness is distracting and detracting from the genuinely happy fact that justice has been served and positive precedents have been reinforced.
5
Absurd. Actors pretend to be different from themselves to tell stories. Audiences who fail to grasp what the art of acting happens to be cannot distinguish people pretending from people being themselves. Ignorance is something that we all share but it is not an excuse for being dumb.
If there was any false representations involved it was by Cosby in his off the stage conduct and the television producers and the networks for concealing what was going on.
18
Are you black? I’m not, but thought Morris wrote a good reaction piece. I appreciate where he’s coming from. Using the first person, he didn’t try to say it was any other than his own response to this sad eventuality. I agree with you, where adults are concerned. Too many confuse what celebrities do for a living with who they are.
But as he stated, he was very young when he watched the show. That makes a difference. And when you live within a community that have few opportunities to see themselves as positive role models in mass media, it makes a big difference.
22
Growing up in the sixties when Cosby first made his mark during the great Civil Rights era, he seemed like a man who could communicate with everyone, and that made him hero to all who wanted positive change which would make racial conflicts history. I already admired him before the sitcom. My disappointment and sadness is of learning that a seemingly good man with remarkably little anger turned out to have seething resentments which he took out on innocent people as bad man.
I can see why a child would be confused about a sitcom character who was admirable was played by a man who proved to be a disappointment. But what the child admired was a character who was admirable, which the actor pretended to be which was his job as an actor. Children understand pretending very well.
6
Crosby was a persona that he built and developed over the years. As TV viewers, we were presented that persona and he had an apparatus to keep his image spotless. Given his status, it is depressing and disheartening to hear of his abuse and that he got away with it for many, many years. I admire and support the women who came forward with his victimization. They finally got justice! Thank you Hannibal Buress for talking about these crimes when no one wanted them examined.
2
Mr. Morris,
There are already hundreds of comments that vilify Bill Cosby. What he has been judged of having done is reprehensible -period. However, if the characters he portrayed on TV gave you or anyone else a sense of right and wrong, or self esteem, that's a huge plus. It was just a show, one of many that got the "do the right thing" idea right.
I am not a person of color, so I can't walk in your shoes. I watched this show on occasion, and saw a family, nothing more, nothing less. It was warm and funny and written with ethical standards, which you grew to embrace. The fact that we now find the main character far less of a man than the one he portrayed isn't as important as the principals you embraced to guide your life. Yes, we are all let down by this, and I hate it.
32
Agreed!
Having grown up with his comedy LP's and "I SPY," I'm not in denial. I'm just sick and saddened this travesty happened in the first place.
President Eisenhower once called out the Quiz Show Scandals as "a terrible thing to do to the American people..." Anyone who knows anything about the Scandals could almost....ALMOST say that Dan Enright has nothing on Bill Cosby.
7
Cliff Huxtable was a fictional character. You can still love him.
21
Cliff Huxtable wasn't a "sick joke." He was a sitcom character. He wasn't Bill Cosby; Cosby just played him on TV. I idealized Cosby when I was a kid, memorizing his comedy LPs and aspiring to imitate his coolness on "I, Spy." So, sure, I feel saddened, angry, and betrayed that the actor, comedian, hack (ever seen "Leonard Part 6"?), civil rights activist, reactionary scold and philanthropist (fill in what I've left out) is also a malicious and pathetic sex criminal. It's hard to live with all the paradoxical complexities of human nature. But it's part of growing up. Nothing Cosby has been or done mitigates, excuses, or obliterates all the other things. Yes, he was an accomplished compartmentalizer, as are we all. Like it or not, we have to take the whole damaged package, as is.
7
Much wisdom.
I'm much older than the writer and probably most of the readers. I remember Cosby from "I Spy"--the television show about the traveling tennis player/spy with Robert Culp. I lived in Kentucky back then and couldn't watch this show because KY stations didn't carry it--that friendship between a white man and a black man was too controversial. I really admired Cosby for taking that role, for being such a cool black guy. I loved the relationship between Culp and Cosby. They were smart and very equal. How sad it is to find out all these years later that Cosby has always been smart and talented but also an evil man who assaulted women for his own pleasure. Bill, I thought you were better than that.
22
Which raises the question: How much did Robert Culp know and hide for higher social goals?
Question 2: This guy Bill Cosby was smart enough to get a doctorate degree in Education from the University of Massachusetts, but didn't know that he was rich, famous, handsome and respected for decades and could have had a large number of women happily sleep with him?
Which brings up Question 3:
Wikipedia says:
- He transferred to Germantown High School, but failed the tenth grade.
- Cosby earned his high school equivalency diploma via correspondence courses[16] and was awarded a track and field scholarship to Temple University in 1961.
- Cosby left Temple to pursue a career in comedy.
- When Cosby was about 35 years old in 1972, he received an MA from the University of Massachusetts ...
- In 1984 Cosby wrote the dissertation: "An Integration of the Visual Media Via 'Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids' into the Elementary School Curriculum as a Teaching Aid and Vehicle to Achieve Increased Learning". This was as partial fulfillment for his 1976 doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts.[1]
- Subsequently, Temple University would grant him his bachelor's degree on the basis of "life experience."
Seems his whole life has been made up in a dream by phony Liberals (note that I am a true Liberal).
1
The doctoral was honorary and controversial among the students who were there at the time really doing the work to get a doctorate. I think he was a Temple dropout
1
Let's separate the artist from the sex offender. Cosby's characters are performances, not to be confused with the real life human being. What Cliff Huxtable represented on a cultural level, and what he represented to African Americans, still stands. And even if you can't watch that series today without feeling queasy, don't discount the contributions and performances of the rest of the cast, just because of Cosby. It still ranks as one of the great American sitcoms.
19
Would you believe that for a woman too?
1
What an incredibly dumb statement for a critic to make. Any critic should know that a performer has a public persona, a performing persona, and a private life that has nothing to do with any of the above. Not to mention how a professional actor behaves on the set, off-camera. All different things you should know about. Yes, he is guilty, and we only know the tip of the iceberg. Well, lots of successful people do heinous things along the way. Should their great accomplishments be canceled out? No. You cannot expect people to be perfect, especially just because they fall into the public eye. That is puritanical. And childish. Every actress who auditioned for a Cosby Show had the choice to pass on the opportunity if it meant submitting to him. My friend passed. Those who didn't have it on their own heads that they didn't. And if we shouldn't judge them for grabbing their opportunity at a price, we shouldn't judge him, either. But drugging them is another matter, and very much a criminal act. And a strange one, as he didn't need to. It must have been a fetish of his.
3
What do you mean he didn't need to drug them?? You mean women want to be raped?. This was in no way healthy consensual sex. He treated women as pieces of meat and thought up was just fine to do so.
5
But . . .but . . .the sweaters!!
The only way television could envision making a black family acceptable was to make them upper class.
8
Actually, Family Matters, Good Times, and Sanford and Son come to mind as well... the novel thing about the Cosby family was the upper-track professions and accoutrements that relatively few people of any race had attained--but far fewer non-white people. So they were aspirational models, unusual in representations of black life styles at the time.
8
No. 'The Cosby Show" premiered in 1984. Other sitcoms with black characters who weren't wealthy predated it by a decade or more: "Good Times" (1974-1979), "What's Happening!!" (1976-1979), "Sanford & Son" (1972-1977)... George and Louise Jefferson ("The Jeffersons," 1975-1985) were well off, but the premise of the show was that they had just happened to luck into a windfall.
2
I never thought Cliff Huxtable was such a wonderful father. His parenting seemed to come from a place of "I'm older & wealthier than you so what I say goes" -- which, it turns out, was apparently Cosby's attitude toward all those women. There's an episode where one of the kids, Theo I believe, says something about having money and Cliff tells him, "You don't have any money. I have money." I think that's obnoxious. To me, good parents are happy to SHARE their lives (and everything in them) with their kids. Cliff & Claire often seemed to be us against them. Don't have five kids if you're going to constantly be rolling your eyes about all the kids in your home and how much time they take up. You should enjoy your kids, whatever they're up to. Another episode I remember that bothered me was when some old family friends visit and their teenage daughter is a drug addict. In a scene at the end, Cliff is consoling the other father, that it's not his fault. He says something like "You and [whatever the wife's name was] did the same thing Claire and I did." He NEVER says, "We are lucky"...which is what you should say if you're sorting out why your kids aren't drug addicts but your friend whose kids were raised the same has an addict child. But heaven forbid Cliff ever gave his kids credit for being good kids. Claire was imperious too. I've never understood why they were considered "best TV parents." They were not democratic or empathetic to their kids.
16
Amen to that. I liked that TCS showed history, heritage, and culture specific to black families--that the Huxtables had a network of relatives, friends, interests and college connections much like prosperous white families. But the show was awfully dismissive of any life path that wasn't bougie-central, college-making big money-getting married-having kids. Denise's artistic inclinations were a running joke with a sour edge, for she was portrayed as mostly flaky and impractical. Heck, Theo thinking he could be a taxi driver in the initial episode was made fun of more because of its' lower pay/status than Theo believing he'd make good money at it. And that attitude became more pronounced--and dis-likeable--with each season. And you are dead on about Cliff and Clair acting like their kids had no sense/were always trying to put something over on them. I wouldn't have traded my understanding, empathetic, and open-minded parents for the Huxtables for all the money in the world.
5
Re: "You don't have any money. I have money."
It's sit-com shorthand to teach children that character and hard work are what count, not the success and affluence of the parents.
Sharing with children is great. Leaving them with an unjustified sense of entitlement is not.
2
I don't know what to make of our garish celebrity cultism, Hollywood groupies and wannabes, and Hollywood wolves who are in it for the money, sex and fame. Some Hollywood stars brag they've slept with thousands of women. Herpes must run rampant in Hollywood.
Cosby is an old man now, his past drug pushing on women, is that any worse than getting a woman drunk before sex? Not that either are acceptable male practices. He's a human being if grossly flawed, let's not forget he lost a son in a horrible way.
4
I wonder what his former cast members think of Bill Cosby now. J R Ewing would be a better role model than Cliff Huxtable.
4
I wonder what they thought of him then.
2
Dr. Huxable was an ob-gyn, and spent his professional life looking at women's genitalia, perhaps that was a sick clue to demean his victims.
28
My goodness, I had forgotten that detail if I ever knew it. Creepy and sickening in retrospect.
What I cannot understand is, with all his fame, success, and ultimate power, Bill Cosby was unable to get women to date him without drugging them first?
It doesn't make any sense.
13
He didn't want to date. He wanted the power of degrading women, period.
5
He didn’t want a “date,” he wanted to push himself on an incapacitated victim. If he just wanted a romantic night out, he could have taken his wife out to dinner.
2
He wanted what he could not have. Maybe he got excited by demeaning those women who denied him. Don't assume that there were not many who he successfully conquered.
The worst part is that Hollywood by and large knew about this long ago. Rumor doesn't stay quiet for very long out here.
It only becomes an issue when the women speak up. More power to the victims!
We can all be better than this creep.
12
This op-ed is so out context, written by an individual who was a child during the height of Cosby's television success. Thank you.
3
Is Cosby a criminal sociopath who happened to be come famous and subsequently was able to stay hidden for so long, or is he a VIP who slid down a very dark hole of entitlement?
What really goes on inside his head?
8
Journalist Ronan Farrow distanced himself from his show business family and won a Pulitzer Prize in the process of exposing predators like Harvey Weinstein, who one day soon may share a jail cell with Bill Cosby. It's time to take Ronan's cue, Mr. Morris, and do your job. To quote Nina Simone (who quoted Langston Hughes) "Make sure you tell them exactly where it's at so they have no place to hide.' Allict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, Mr. Morris. And stop lamenting about your lost youth.
8
There are no winners in these events. 50 women were degraded and will never be the same. Mr. Cosby displayed he was unable to enjoy mutual sex; he could only get off on abusing and controlling women. What joy could there be in having sex with a disabled motionless person. I don't know what punishment awaits him, but could it be any worse than what he did to himself?
Was not that West fellow Ivy League educated at Penn in Philly?
His schtick is just as awful, offensive, and obfuscatory as was Cosby's!
Not good role models for anyone.
3
The virtuous face of evil. A perfect metaphor for the Republican party.
8
Note to Cosby: Like you, I also don't have an airplane; unlike you, I don't have a jail cell awaiting me for the rest of my life.
In your cell, you'll have lots of time to contemplate what you've done. Elsewhere in the prison, other inmates will be contemplating how they'll deal with you....
2
" America's Father " He was NEVER my father .
4
The one thing that seems to connect all these #metoo accusations is: media, specifically tv. The production companies create this garbage environment and don't hold employees accountable. No wonder there is a war against the media. It's criminal.
Nah. These are just the most public ones because they're the most scandalous since they involve famous people. The #metoo accusations encompass women from all walks of life, ethnicity, and religion. Reading the thousands of comments on the NYT articles when the movement first began was quite eye opening in that respect. From diners to factories to tech companies to law offices, the thing I see connecting the accusations is disrespectful, entitled men who see women as objects.
3
There is no Huxtable family, black white green yellow or brown, there are just families. All of them have their warts and heroes. There is the Uncle who drinks way too much and everyone hates to invite to family gatherings, or the drug addled sister or the one who likes little girls. Every family has a collection of duds and stars, but mostly just regulars. It is sad when the one you looked up to turns out to be a monster , it is also very human and tragic.
5
Would be interested to know what the other Cosby show cast members feel about this
1
All I can say is “Wow!”
It’s actually worse than you write, Mr. Morris. It’s like being told that your father—all your life—was a drugger of women. “No, not my father,” comes the indignant, angry denial. Then comes the incontrovertible proof. The final vestige of doubt, vainly pushing back against the wall that will surely collapse under the rushing water’s awful strength: a jury believes the victim(s). You’re in shock. There is no retreating from this. You suddenly know that the lie—the ground on which you stood for most of your life—has collapsed—like lies usually do.
You turn and stare at a face that you thought you knew—but it isn’t there anymore. Then you realize that, all your life, you’ve been looking at a mask. And you know that the accusations are true: that what was done unto so many others was done unto you.
8
Where Cosby said, I’m going to be the black man you want me to be, Kanye says, I’m not going to be the black man you want me to be.
1
Never found Cosby the least bit funny or entertaining.
8
Dear Mr. Morris.
Are you planning to deep dive on the lives of every single artist that has ever touched and influenced you?
Bill Cosby is not Cliff Huxtabkle. I am not black, I am not American, bit I too loved the Huxtables and I wished someday I'd be as happy as they were.
Bill Cosby is a rapist, Cliff Huxtable was not and will never be.
5
"I sent my soul into the invisible
A portion of that afterlife to spell
And bye and bye my soul came back to me and said
I myself am heaven and hell."
Thank you Omar.
4
Omar who? I like this. Who wrote it?
2
Cosby is one of the first African American men brought down in the MeToo movement. Wonder if the black community will be tough on him or will give him a pass because ‘black lives matter’ right?
4
Perhaps they'll give him the same mulligan that evangelicals gave trump.
5
the likeliest response
Arrogant and smug from the get go..... that's the Cosby I always saw. And, the now verified fact that he's a creepy serial rapist.... no big surprise... ugh.
14
It's incredulous to me how I keep hearing this is "sad" or disappointing" news about Bill Cosby. "let him do public service rather than jail" I heard. Look he is a danger to women. A sick perverted sexual predator who drugged and raped them. God knows what else he did while they were unconscious. Imagine if it had been your Wife, Daughter, Sister, Mother?? would that be sad or disappointing? He laced his comedy shows with references to drugging women. He flaunted it in the public face. Just a pity he wasn't convicted years ago and banged up in jail thereby saving several women from his perversions and a life of shame and misery.
17
If #MeToo has taught us anything it's that the title of "America's Dad" is still an apt one for Mr. Cosby.
If you are suggesting that Bill Cosby is a typical American dad, that is a terrible and unfounded slander.
3
Bill Cosby is probably the sickest puppy I have known in my life time. He had every thing. He could almost have any woman he desired, despite being utter ugly, becuse of his fame and money. But the man had a true black heart. If you believe in heaven or hell; he will surely have to pay big time in Hell. But, here and now, he is living in real Hell. What a fall. And, now he can look forward to showering with Mustapha and Jessus in jail.
2
Cliff was an extremely well-written, well acted character. Let’s hope the writers for his appeal aren’t as believable, and justice remains the final act.
4
I was a sophomore in high school when a wonderful English teacher taught our class "Julius Caesar" by William Shakespeare. The arching theme/motif/concept she taught was "Appearance vs. Reality". I remembering thinking: Wow, that's an awfully simple concept. Now, almost 30 years later, I think: Wow, that's an awfully powerful concept.
Until we acknowledge that what we see is not reality, we will never know reality. The duality of Man is ubiquitous and devious. Do not be deceived...you are always being deceived.
16
Two uses of vertiginous in one column is two too many. Feels like trying too hard.
As for the content: Yeah, people on television and in movies aren't usually like that in real life, from Ricky and Lucy Ricardo through Ralph and Alice Kramden and Cliff and Claire Huxtable. That's okay, if they make us more tolerant of a (mildly) mixed race couple in 1952, or more attracted to an African American family in the 1980s, that's mission accomplished. The real people rise and fall on their actions independent of the idealized vision they created for the rest of us.
11
I really don't understand all the praise for this TV show. Yes, it was a positive portrayal of black life. And it made a lot of black people feel good that we were finally being "represented" as normal. And many were inspired. Great. Lovely.
But this was just a by product of a larger mission - to help the white majority feel good about passing legislation AND policies that criminalize the larger and poorer black majority. Remember this show came along when mass incarceration was really gaining steam and welfare as we "know it" was being systematically wiped out. Morris calls Bill Cosby's character a sick joke. I agree. I wonder though about the target.
7
I'm not sure the article benefitted from the Kanye references, and it sort of soils Kanye to be mentioned in the same article. He's never been accused of anything like Cosby. It just seems sort of unfair, and misplaced.
11
Kanye's favorable comments about Trump immediately make him a target of the left.
1
Being heartbroken by Cosby is the right response, and Morris has it down eloquently. The public glee at Cosby's conviction is a little sickening. Cosby clearly had a strange assaultive sexual predilection close to necrophilia--one which he could not control. But why women don't stay away from solo meetings with men they don't know very well, and why they would take pills handed to them, is another question: looking for career advancement? mentoring? This discussion also needs to be had.
12
If Bill Cosby’s behavior was so bad when he starred as Cliff Huxtable why wasn’t it brought up then?
4
It was. You didn't hear about it then, did you?
8
Fear.
1
The same reason equally-celebrated TV personality Jimmy Savile was never brought down for pedophilia over in Britain. Both he and Cosby had seemingly-unassailable virtuous images; could make or break careers; and made insane amounts of money. Add to that fierce lawyers, and you have a perfect storm of complicity and denial.
4
The Cosby show was amazing.
Cliff Huxtable was the ideal Dad. Mine was not Cliff.
No matter the character...Mr Cosby wrote books on how to be a better Dad and Father...I read them...they influenced me. I have two boys...some of my "fathering" comes straight from those books.
I'm not a Black man and cannot know the hurt of living in a society which vilified being black simply because of darker skin...Mr Cosby represented hope in his character for all of the men of a darker pigment than I...and for that I watched his show...and for that I read his books because I too wanted to be better.
My mostly racist blood father said once, "I can now have a black neighbor because of Bill Cosby". He didn't know that my first love was a young African American girl named Michelle Douglas from Westchester High School.
Bill Cosby, shame on you. In the words of a long dead poet, "...you too shall perish and be forgotten, sadly not soon enough."
8
Lot of people made money promoting Bill Cosby and his show; they must have known about his transgressions, but looked the other way. It was a great time to make money promoting a prime time show on an ideal African American family. Most people who watched may have felt that the show was unreal, but liked the show.
2
Rather than “…discarding and condemning and reconsidering” his body of work, it may be worthwhile—but more uncomfortable—to sit with the fact that a person who was a warm and funny presence, and changed so many lives for the better, can also commit horrific acts.
Why is this so hard for us to accept? Maybe because it implies we are epically poor judges of character. Maybe it shakes our sense of safety with those we trust. Maybe it’s also hard to accept because it forces us to consider that we, ourselves, could be capable of terrible things. Instead we demonize the perpetrators, and everything they touched, as tainted, distancing them from ourselves and the good people who surround us.
I’m not saying that we could all be sexual predators, or that the only solution is to trust no one. I’m saying that the people who commit this type of crime aren’t all Harvey Weinstein-style bullies whose creepy behavior is notorious and blatent. They are also often warm, supportive, and close --family members, neighbors, counselors, doctors. In short, Cliff Huxtable types. They may have earned our trust because they made a positive difference in our lives. This can be a deliberate smoke screen, but it doesn’t have to be; the same person can help and harm. And in the end, many sexual predators are sheltered by our inability to deal with the cognitive dissonance that arises when they are accused.
7
Don't worry-Trump will pardon you because he will say that you're a GREAT GUY!
Yuk, you turn my stomach!
2
I go back farther than the Huxtables or I Spy. I started with the comedy albums when in high school (and that was a long, long time ago). TV was acting, playing a role. But the albums were him: written and preformed. His comedy was about his own life. And the comedy was gentle and funny. To know that he is a rapist is shocking. Was he always like that? Did the fame and the money corrupt him? Make him think he was entitled to do what he wanted? I am shocked and sicken. I can never watch or listen to any of his work again.
5
Also: Huxtable was an OBGYN doctor. Please look into the way this character demeaned, if not mocked, women suffering through the serious pain of labor.
6
I rarely caught a glimpse of the show so don't know how the character mocked women, but Cosby's comedy act, which preceded and overlapped with his acting career, was all about ridiculing his friends and neighbors growing up.
1
anybody who knew even a modicum about cosby knew he was a compulsive gambler, an adulterer etc etc for YEARS before cosby show. and it never ceases to amaze me that people will use fiction as fact. or actors whom they know next to nothing about, as role models. real heroes, role models, are around us everywhere every day. open your eyes, open your mind.
4
Being “offensive and rude and self-aggrandizing” “feels like a way to move beyond America’s Dad. Disrespectability politics.” Really? That’s ridiculously adolescent, and it’s certainly not what American political discourse needs right now. It may “feel” like it, but it’s not a way to move beyond anything. Trump, the reactionary Right, and the Illiberal left have given us more than enough of the offensive, rude, and self aggrandizing, thank you very much.
2
I try, and emphasise 'try', to separate the work from the artist when issues like these cast a shadow. There are a number of musicians and comedians that I've struggled with this. I still question if it's the right thing to do.
Right after the initial Cosby accusations hit the media, I remember sitting in a restaurant that had several nostalgic garage sale items lining walls and bookcases. On an old cabinet-style record player was sitting a 12" jacket of a Cosby comedy show. I sighed out loud, "Oh, Bill", in a manner like finding a beloved pet just chewed your shoes. An odd thought entered my mind--I miss Bill Cosby. I instantly became nostalgic for the era before we found out about his deviancy.
Because we didn't know about it, does it make that work also wrong for the time we didn't know about it while these crimes were going on, especially if it shaped us and gave us enjoyment? This isn't a rhetorical question.
2
I don’t think it makes the work wrong or us wrong for appreciating it. Humans are complicated. He is a monster, but obviously capable of great work (for whoever believes it to be so. Others may argue).
We are all grappling with this because it’s natural to need to do it; the cognitive dissonance requires work to get through, as does the shear horror of it all. He’s no different from another “nobody” psycho-rapist. They exist. They are capable of good work. They have families and others who love them who are obviously hurt by their crimes, along with their victims. Because of his fame, that horror and cognitive dissonance is spread wider.
I’m struggling with this too, not from any special affinity’s for this particular monster, but because of that shear horror normals have to live with, that this exists at all. That’s my take.
I loved Cosby. My brother and I laughed uproariously at his comedy albums, and we loved the Cosby show. One thing, though, that may have been chillingly predictive: Cliff Huxtable was a gynecologist.
7
How is that "predictive?" It's preposterous to compare legitimate physicians and surgeons with a sexual predator.
1
Cosby was in our house too. I watched him as a kid. We couldn't see the monster through the TV. The truth is that the blame lies not only with Bill, but also those people who knew what was happening and never said a word. There is a sick and silent institution of enablers around us. Maybe our morals are misplaced when even good people think that it is someone else's responsibility to speak out against a monster.
4
so we can't seperate the man from his tv character? we can't seem to go back and realize that any perceived good is outweighed by the horrible things the did. almost like we refuse to rewrite history. meanwhile, it's perfectly right to take down statues form parks and remove a president's face from currency because of what they did in their past, regardless of any good things they did. can you say, "hypocrisy"?
3
I'm a 61 yr old white woman from a large family where my mom was catholic and my father was not. We use to buy his records for my parents for their anniversary present and listened to them over and over. It felt like he knew us and vice a versa. I felt very sad and angry about his criminal behavior. I felt equally upset when another favorite of mine, Charlie Rose, was outed for similar predatory behavior. I am glad Cosby was finally found guilty and horrified to hear later the same day Charlie Rose is attempting to sanitize his actions and those of other powerful "metoo" men. I hope big media doesn't give these men a platform for false redemption.
9
I seem to recall that in any show where Cosby had a family, he was always right, everybody else was wrong. He routinely belittled his children. This is America's dad?
8
While it's not quite the same situation, this piece articulates how I feel about another comedian (a Jewish one) from the 60s who went on to bigger, more meaningful things. How do we remove these people and their actions from our souls and retain what the work made us feel about ourselves and the world? My deeper worry may be that sometimes, maybe often, the same rare qualities that make a great artist, also can make a horrible monster.
1
On behalf of all misfits, misanthropes, skeptics, cynics, atheists, satirists, absurdists, contrarians, outcasts, and malcontents everywhere, please allow me to say: We never bought "The Brady Bunch", "The Cosby Show" or any other of the drivel served up with baseball, mom and apple pie.
8
Totally shocking that an actor acts differently than they are when they're not acting.
2
Cosby seems to have made extraordinary efforts to convince himself that his victims consented, thus preserving his warped self image. That's no joke.
5
Bill Cosby is America's version of Jimmy Saville. Both cynically exploited insincere altruism, the better to snare their prey and remain hidden in our midst. Send them both to the dustbin of history.
3
It's always the moral crusaders that you have to watch out for - so often those who wag their fingers at the rest of us for not living up to their ideal moral standards always end of having skeletons in their closet.
6
Bill Cosby has at least 3 sides to him:
1. The roles he played as an actor and comedian
2. His political philosophy as expressed in his public utterances
3. His character, as revealed by his actions.
That these three should reveal very three very different personae is a little unusual, but not that much. Actors are not their roles, and it is foolish to think Cliff Huxtable is Bill Cosby or visa versa. Most of us fail to live up to the ideals and political philosophy that we express to others. Cosby fails more than most, but that is just a question of degree. The lesson to be re-learned here once again is to avoid putting celebrities on a pedestal -- they rarely prove to be worthy of the attention.
15
Maybe it’s time to stop emulating famous people based on race alone. That is true freedom, when you make decisions based on what’s right, never minding results or opinions of other people.
6
Bill Cosby's Cliff Huxtable was the moral center personified. His dad-ness can't be separated from that; it gave him authority, credibility, the right to our love. And Cosby's dad-ness can't be separated from his crimes, either. It's not a betrayal so much as an illustration: This is Patriarchy.
9
It is interesting that a rigorous analysis of the immense contradiction of Bill Cosby's public and private persona, what this meant as a role model, and a nod to his fall as possibly just a parable of human suffering doesn't at any point mention the tremendous and very real personal suffering of all his female victims. Bill Cosby was a brilliant actor and also a con who knew how to fool people and prey on our psyches and the psyches of his victims. A wolf in lamb's clothing and a disgraceful human being. In the end, we can't give away our power to a person like that.
1
How do you blame all of "patriarchy" for one man's failures? He did not fail as a role model, he failed as a private person and as a working actor off-screen.
Kevin Spacey is/was an excellent actor, too.
1
Maybe one small step would be for people to stop confusing performers with the characters they play. Like mistaking Bill Cosby for a warm wise father figure, or John Wayne for a tough-talking problem solver, or DJT for a successful businessman.
72
Given that, performers should also be very careful not to confuse their characters with their public persona. The man was asked to make college commencement speeches. Knowing he was drugging and raping young women until the guise of a mentor, he could have said, "No thanks; I just play a Dad on TV" ... but he didn't. He - and his wife - lead everyone to believe he was a worthy mentor when, in fact, they both knew they were scamming the public.
2
His wife?
This article to me points out a deep flaw in the human psyche — the characteristics that the masses attribute to athletes, entertainers and all matter of celebrities.
It’s like if you are on the stage performing in front of millions of people then you must be an amazing human being. It seems to be especially true of actors and their roles — if an actor is portraying a (sometimes fictional) bold action hero or in Bill Cosby’s case the wise and all knowing perfect father Cliff Huxtable then the actor themselves seem to absorb all the positive attributes of their character.
There are many examples where the public persona of a celebrity stands out in stark contrast to who they really are — Lance Armstrong, Matt Lauer, Mickey Mantle, etc., etc. As this article states, the real heroes should be the parents, teachers, police officers who interact with our youth on a daily basis and can have a very positive effect on their lives.
21
Don't forget Ronald Reagan, mediocre actor and no cowboy who rode 20-Mule Team Borax to the governorship and then presidency.
3
Could a parallel be drawn from the writer's experience to the Catholic Church abuse scandals? Insofar as generations of Catholics (those who were not themselves abuse victims or aware of abuse) were taught an ideal of how to live upstanding, moral lives from their priests & later had to put the sex abuse scandal into the context of their moral upbringing. I too am also sad to learn that Dr. Huxtable was merely fictional. That was a fun, wholesome show to grow up with.
4
For those of us who are survivors of sexual violence, the work of moving forward and of never forgetting that those in "authority" have this power to abuse is something we understand from a very young age. The silence of those who were complicit while Cosby committed these acts is also an integral part of the crime. I am Black and I am of this generation that grew up with the Cosbys. Nevertheless, I also understood that he represented a false notion. A celebrity is not a human rights activist unless they are doing the work. A celebrity such as Cosby does not show up for Black Lives Matter marches or stand in the front lines for the children of Flint. Or have themselves arrested to protest the loss of Freddie Gray or Sandra Bland. I am ready for a diversified politics of resitance and liberation for all Black people. Not for another celebrity to make Blackness palatable. Blackness is already brilliant and bold and life giving and will always be ever evolving beyond any politics of respectability.
19
Wish I could give you thousand+ recommends
When it comes to celebrity, most people want to believe what they're shown. We always have to remember that for the most part they are crafting and guiding an image they want to present to the world. Perhaps we all do this to some degree in our own lives at times but we don't have such public forums. It may be a lesson to everyone that while we may admire someone, we never really know they conduct themselves privately.
More importantly, abuse of power is never acceptable. For dozens of victims, this verdict is small compensation for what was taken from them.
9
I enjoyed the piece, I wonder if this is a moment to talk about always holding multiple things and people in conversation, thus allowing us to keep the good and discard the bad. For instance in George Jackson’s prison letters it seems clear some portion of black male leaders knew about Cosby’s MO, yet his views were not a part of the conversation, and though decidedly the opposite of respectability politics. Now, his own views about women are also abhorrent and he must also be talked about in conversation. Perhaps more familiar is the conversation between the approaches of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, King certainly was of the respectability politics camp and yet I think the holding of these two in conversation was key to the progress of that era. Far too often however we choose one leader as a hero and the other to villainize and are both surprised when our hero is human and or villain and we must humanize our villain and or relearn the lessons the villain may have otherwise taught us.
3
The heart of the show were the performances by Rudy and Vanessa. The Simpsons didn't displace the show; he did when he tried to replace them with a younger actress. For the record, both shows did a service against gun violence, Homer in a show on The Simpsons, and Cosby in an elevator scene with Henry Fonda.
1
My father used to love Cosby's comedy record back in the 60s. But there was something about it, some disturbing undercurrent, that made me and my sisters leave the room while he chuckled away. As an adult, I never liked the Cosby Show. It had that same unsettling tone of male superiority and condescension. I didn't find it funny.
49
I agree with this. I remember being made to watch a standup routine of his called "Chocolate Cake" that a new friend insisted was HILARIOUS; the humor rested entirely on the sounds and faces Cosby made to show how crazy his wife went when she found out he gave their children chocolate cake for breakfast.
I didn't see what was so funny either.
7
Yep, know what you mean about the "disturbing undercurrent." I always thought that Bill Cosby was a hugely talented comic, but one with an angry, narcissistic streak a mile wide. That was enough to keep my listening to a minimum. When he was on TV, a similar feeling (about the distance between reality and his character) wouldn't go away, so I was never a fan. When Cosby made the nasty comments about young people, that was a door shutting. The rest that's come out is shocking, but only mildly surprising to me.
6
I'll never forget watching a random rerun, many years after it was made, and myself much older and more aware, in which Cliff did a victory dance upon learning that his daughter (Denise) had been a virgin on her wedding night. It was just so blatant, so gross, that I was never able to look at the show the same way again.
9
As a young, working mother, The Cosby Show was must see TV. It was often the only time in a work week where I could sink into a chair and just go where the TV took me, knowing I would enjoy the short trip engaged with a model family. I was uplifting TV.
Then I picked up a current in the show I had failed to note. Cliff Huxtable’s “jokes”, in scenes with his children, always threatened violence as a means to get the desired behavior in his child. Over and over. Mr Cosby sold this convincingly. I stopped being a Cosby fan right there. That was not my kind of comedy.
11
Funny how you picked up on that, I too watched every Thursday and loved the show. Loved Rudy, but for the life of me I never picked up on the threatening tone.
Thank you for mentioning that, Anika. I recall a specific line of dialogue in an exchange with the son, Theo. Cosby said to him, "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out".
3
Yeah, to be effective with all those threats, "Cliff" would've had to actually strike his kids a few times throughout their childhood. That, of course, was never shown in the show.
2
Cliff Huxtable is alive and well and should continue to be a role model. The actor who read the lines for Cliff is guilty and disgraced due to his overweening egotism. The tragedy of this story is that the actor did not live up to the standards of the doctor whom he played on TV
13
Bill Cosby and his actions are abhorrent, fortunately these unfortunate victims were persistent and a conviction is the result of their actions.
I remember the joke about "Spanish fly", and I was certainly mislead into believing that Bill Cosby was just joking, we now know the difference.
Hopefully we will learn how to differentiate from these lies and truths into helping those suffering silently to come forward. The real victims here are those that have not yet come forward.
4
People are complicated, Mr. Morris. It seems that Bill Cosby, like many other artists and activists (he was both in a way), created great art and did wonderful things, and also had a dark side. People want their heroes to be simple. These days for better or worse we usually get to know our heroes all too well. We don't have to choose one defining narrative, tell ourselves that Bill Cosby's work was in service of some larger evil. We don't have to censor, throw out all the good works because of the bad acts. We shouldn't avert our eyes either, cover up for our heroes - as was done too often in the past. We should acknowledge it all, and live with the contradictions, as it seems Mr. Cosby did.
17
His depraved acts were committed on WOMEN, perhaps that's why you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. His image through the years was highly respected. It became questionable with some when he started criticizing . blacks. His smugness was felt. The public put him on a pedestal and he kept himself there, believing he could get away with just about anything. Until...
4
Dark side? No, this is a depraved human being who had the capability of showing his “light” side and making people believe it as the dominant personality.
3
White folks never had to worry about their reputation hinging on a non threatening sitcom character.
I don’t envy your dilemma, Mr. Morris. Thank you for your fascinating perspective.
11
No Buddy, but as an Italian American I am always astounded that most Italians portrayed on TV were there for the buffoonery or gangster. After a while I just don't watch those shows.
8
"White folks never had to worry about their reputation hinging on a non threatening sitcom character." - The Buddy
Neither did black folks. If the article is trying to make this point, it's wrong.
3
The Cliff Huxtable character was an extension of much of Cosby's standup, which also was based on his family experiences and conveyed, under hilarity, a warmth. Just the other day I mentioned one of his standup bits because it related to some situation that was being talked about, before realizing that I was serving the fruit of a poisoned tree. If I may belabor the metaphor, that tree has established deep roots in our culture and I don't see how it can be totally unplanted.
4
I’d like to add the related (and probably obvious) observation that Cosby’s inextricable entwinement in our culture - to be sure, a 'luxury conundrum,' as Mr. Morris notes - is a byproduct of mass media. It’s relatively easy now for people to insert themselves into the hearts and minds, and onto the lips, of great swaths of humanity. Before the modern age that mind-boggling degree of fame was reserved for the likes of Jesus or Mohammed or Moses. Now any Cosby or Winfrey or Trump can attain it. I think that, long ago, people for the most part explored and discovered things in their own little corners of the forest. Now there’s very little looking around at what’s available locally - most eyes are fixed permanently on screens that are wired to the same few sources.
6
With many actors, you can tell they're acting, and you are not inclined to equate, and mistake, the actor with the character he plays.
Bill Cosby was different. He persuaded you to believe that he must be a good man to enact the Cliff Huxtable character with such congenial ease, grace and humor. His remarkable ability to forge that mask, to be presumed to be a replica of the good man he played, provided him with a perfect lure to attract, befriend, drug and sexually violate countless women, hiding his predatory behaviour behind his benign image.
9
Isn't that exactly what a "con man" does? He takes on his role or persona so well and completely that not only do you buy in and believe, it but he believes it too. That's why it's so convincing.
4
It was a television show. And better be careful how you live your life and what you say because the enforcement police may be coming for you next.
5
It is depressing but nothing new. At all. This is not really about Cosby. Not to state the obvious and all but many artists and leaders have more complicated personas than their public images permit. We prefer to look the other way. Gandhi abused his wife and other women in his life, Picasso was awful toward women and the children he fathered with them. The list goes on. Raise your hand if you can think of 10 examples off the top of your head. We should never forgive these behaviors, though we usually do. I've heard, "well, we need to hold artists to a different moral standard." Baloney! The deeper problem is that we are setting ourselves up to enable bad behavior when we choose to believe in imaginary constructions instead of people: "Gandhi," "Picasso," "Cliff Huxtable/Bill Cosby." After all, it takes a certain type of person to embrace such stardom, to feel deserving, to accept, even promote such adulation. Surely each individual who has attained such stardom has their own motive, some more pro-social than others, but I'm not surprised many of them are also predators.
24
Oh boy. As a 60 year old white guy I was raised on Bill. My first record albums were not Rock and Roll.
They were Bill Cosby all the way. Listening to him talk from the baby in the womb made me and my pals laugh for weeks. Fat Albert !
All the tv shows ....he came to Chicago and did a one man show. It was incredible.
I am so sad to watch this crime spree unfold. So sad. .. to my African American friends and neighbors who feel betrayed, don’t. Bill was special but his behavior does not reflect on African Americans.
It reflects on men with money and power. These are my people.
We should know better. Way better.
32
Nice piece. More "Atlantic" than NYT, in a very good way.
As for the cognitive dissonance, though, 'twas ever thus: "love the Art, hate the Artist." At least from Richard Wagner on down--Picasso, Pollock, Mailer...
10
It's okay to love the art, hate the artist in retrospect. But loving and promoting the art at the time gives the artist the money and fame to camouflage his bad acts and continue to perpetrate them.
My heart goes out to the ET Community, disappointing to see with Bill Cosby and a number of other ongoing issues in this country. Not that I in any way endorse any of the shameful behavior, I think this is how a lot of guys during that era had things set up with the ladies and the night life, but I’m pretty sure that Bill wasn`t the only one doing that, Bill had to get the pills from somewhere, Bill didn’t make them! Bill’s definitely a part of a culture or community that okay’d that stuff years ago.
3
I'll tell you how. Turn off the boob tube. Accept the Cosby Show for what it was, a silly entertainment. I'm skeptical that you've become a good person because of it. You're a good writer so I'd venture to guess you've read a fair amount over the years. Read more, but really, turn it off.
11
What’s intriguing to me is that so much of the show’s humor involved a befuddled dad being constantly outsmarted by a gaggle of sassy & bossy women. I don’t want to read too much into a sitcom, but it’s hard to resist sensing something deeper in his attitude to women there.
4
Cosby became a black ELITIST.
Wealth perversion? Or a SOCIOPATHIC predator all along, one that also had gifts to give?
The ascension to overwhelming fame and wealth separated Cosby from everyday experiences of black people. It had become easier to shame from the glass house he created for himself, empathy and compassion missing, his roots long ago severed from ordinary black America.
His famous pound cake speech was symbolic of the severing of those roots, his moralizing a projection. Bill Cosby, predator, was speaking of himself, for in reality he is no better than those he talked down too. This is so very typical of sociopathic predators.
I grew up watching Fat Albert and then as a young Mom, watching the Huxtables and often wishing Cliff was my own Dad. But how to separate your own 'Dad' and the image he created from the predator he really is? That's hard for me, but in the end, Bill Cosby did offer much. I hope that in the end, what he DID do for black Americans and white families too through his work lives on. Somewhere in TV reruns, Cliff is still there, providing fatherly advice and solace to his clan.
That's what I'm choosing to remember.
4
Bill Cosby did not abuse women because he had become a black elitist. The behavior of sexual predators and abusers is inherent to them. Fame, money and power give them opportunities to carry out their vile deeds and escape opprobrium.
2
I don’t forgive what Crosby did. But it got me thinking. He broke through the white/black divide/barrier. What does that psychologically do to a man.
2
I never watched The Cosby Show but I enjoyed his comedy recordings as a child and an adult. He has contributed much to racial reconciliation, both financially and through his work.
I'm disappointed in Cosby but I'm also disgusted by the feeding frenzy that has accompanied his downfall. I question why he was singled out when so many of his contemporaries are still celebrated for their "sex, drugs and rock 'n roll" legacies.
4
He is not being singled out. Since the Weinstein affair very many powerful men (yes, basically most of them are men) have been outed for their vile behavior. It takes a lot of time and money (most victims don't have much of either) to bring them to justice.
4
This isn’t sex drugs n rock n roll. It’s depravity and criminality.
1
Yes, will be a bit hard to watch re-runs with "Doctor" Huxtable taking his latest victim to his basement OB/GYN office--with stir-ups and sedatives. Makes the Golden State Murderer (who is seven years Cosby's junior) seem normalized compared to him. Two of the sickest members of their generation--maybe they could share a cell?
2
Bill Cosby’s behavior is sad and deplorable. I have known many men in positions of power whom I believe would never prey on others. So, I do not lump all powerful males in one basket simply because some of their gender are evil. Likewise with race. All males of color or all males who are of a particular descriptor...like all males of one nationality or of one profession...like all clergy...I do not lump all people into the same basket as the few evil ones.
As humans we must act rationally.
I am glad Bill Cosby has come to justice. Long overdue.
6
Cosby should be punished for his crimes, but it certainly isn't his fault that America couldn't manage to come up with a positive cultural image of a successful black man until 1980. And when we, in 2018, wring our hands about how Cosby is letting down a whole race, we're just proving we haven't advanced all that far in 30 years. Cosby's crimes are no worse because he once portrayed Cliff Huxtable than Weinstein's are for any film he ever produced.
7
There have been too many women who’ve come forward with the same MO of how Bill Cosby sexually assaulted them for it not to be true. He himself admitted to having given women pills to make them “relaxed.”
He’s been convicted of terrible crimes and should go to prison like everyone else. I initially felt sorry for his wife, but I’m not sure how I feel about a woman who stands by a man who has admitted to having innumerable affairs and has committed such heinous acts.
6
You can't undo anything and there's no need to beat yourself up for having admired him. We were fooled, that's it. The important things are that we know the truth, that he's answering for his crimes (at least one of them), and that he's lived long enough to die in shame. His conviction may have as positive an impact on today's youth as Cliff, or Fat Albert, or Jello dad, did on our generation.
5
Don't forget that Cliff Huxtable was a gynecologist. I always thought that was an odd choice for the dad in a family show. Now I think that it was almost certainly either a sick joke on Cosby's part or at least a revealing look into his psyche.
7
There is nothing odd about a man being a dad and a gynecologist. There are many male gynecologists who are both brilliant and decent human beings. It's not the job that's a problem, it's the man himself.
2
We were all fooled. Even though Bill Cosby turned out to be a major disappointment, Cliff Huxtable remains a role model that we can all still aspire to.
"How do I, at least, cleave this man from the man he seduced me into becoming?"
You don't. I think you simply say, thank you for showing us what a 'truly good man" SHOULD look like. I'll take it from here....
4
Why the drugs? I'll never understand. Someone with Cosby's influence and power could get sex the old-fashioned way with little problem. If that's all he was interested in, there are plenty of women out there willing to give it. I'm not saying using those things as a lure would be ethical but at least it wouldn't be illegal. Cosby put himself in an untenable position the moment he started drugging.
2
He didn't want good old-fashioned sex in which the woman is a willing participant and enjoying the act. He wanted sex with women who were knocked out and with whom he could do whatever he wanted, no permission necessary. That's the kind of sex he wanted.
4
I never, ever, for even a moment, "got" the appeal of Bill Cosby. The Huxtable character was smarmy and phony. The TV series was just dumb.
7
There have always been mentally ill, addicted, and destructive people that have contributed greatly to the arts, sciences, etc. Their stories only reveal that humans are complex and some of the most talented people who added to the richness of life were not very nice humans. The saying “there is a thin line between madness and genius” exists because it has been proven time and again to be true.
1
Mr. Morris, minorities and so-called "non-minorities" tend to view the bad actions of one minority member as a stain on the entire minority cohort. But such actions are the person's alone, and not as representative of a struggling class. We will not graduate to a post-racial society until all of us can see the person without focusing on his race/religion/ethnicity/sexual orientation, etc. I share your feelings of sadness, but let's just see Cos as a guy who made really bad choices in a life of stellar accomplishment.
13
Thanks for your assessment. People of colour (I am one) really need to remember this.
3
The reason is because minorities know it is inescapable to have their skin color represented by just a few bad actors that share that same skin color. This is more a symptom of the original stereotyping than its own separate issue.
3
Wow, thank you for articulating the thoughts of so many. I am older and my connection to Cosby was made through his brilliant comedy albums in the late 60s and 70s. He was funny, smart, brilliant, handsome, nice and not foul-mouthed; really a guy you looked up to and wanted to be. This is heartbreaking in ways you articulate so well - he’s part of our DNA, so what do we do now?
2
Well, Cosby, after all, was an actor. Even in his comedy routines, he was playing a part.
I adored Alexander Scott, and I thought Cliff Huxtable was the neighbor I'd most like to be friends with, and like everyone else I thought Bill Cosby was just like them. I'm as sad and disillusioned as everyone else to find it's not so, but I feel that I have only myself to blame: What made me think an actor would be anything like the roles he played? My disappointment is one thing Cosby isn't responsible for.
10
Bad people play good characters and good people play bad characters. Our culture often dissolves the difference between the two. We can still love (or hate) the character apart from the actor.
9
When did Cosby become a predator? Was it when he was younger and more attractive or was it when he got old? Is it not possible that he justified his criminal behavior because he was no longer able to get what he wanted without resorting to trickery and drugs? Did Ailes, Weinstein, O’Reilly become monsters because they too were fat old men. Or were they always predatory? I’ve never seen this question answered?
15
Most likely they were always inept, flawed and depraved. The money and power magnified what they always were. Kind people accumulate wealth and become more giving. People with scarcity orientations become more Scrooge like. Aggrieved become more so, even paranoid, angry, xenophobic and misogynistic.
Michelle Obama said "I've seen firsthand that being President doesn't change who you are. It reveals who you are.".... so too, power, money and fame grant license to bad actions from bad actors.
7
None of these men became predators due to circumstance. No normal person says "Oh, I'm old now and women won't sleep with me by choice -- let me just MAKE THEM." Come on.
6
Cosby became a predator as soon as he became famous, i.e., powerful -- in the 1960s. The allegations go back that far. I do remember asking my stepsister who had been a successful model in the 1960s-1970s about famous people she met in her career. I presented this question to her about 25 years ago in casual conversation when she was involved in local politics (she is now deceased) and she had really positive comments for the many bold-faced names she met including Ali (a wonderful, intelligent and kind human being), the first Bush (a gracious man), Ash (a talented saint) but when it came to Cosby she dismissed him with the phrase "a real dog". I could not get any specific details from her but apparently his strange behavior was common knowledge amongt the models of the 1960s-1970s and my stepsister was so warned at the time.
9
Thanks for this well-written insightful column. Separating Cosby the man from his meaningful character is tough. In fact, his melding of image and actor has probably kept him out of jail for years.
In a far more trivial way, I remember as a small child in the 60s being confused about why parents and kids on TV lived differently from families in my world. I didn't know any Moms who vacuumed wearing pearls and pretty dresses like June Cleaver. Americans have consumed a steady diet of images and stories for decades. I think we prefer them to reality.
12
I believe Mr. Morris's final sentence is the answer to his own question.
"How do I, at least, cleave this man from the man he seduced me into becoming?"
One of the inherent problems with our culture in America, is our collective worship of celebrity through our media. We place these people on pedestals and provide them all they need in order to achieve their goals. These individuals have been groomed over time by the adoring public, as well as they're sponsors and handlers, to get what they feel they are entitled to. In a parallel sense, we are all complicit in enabling the dysfunctional behavior of these actors, producers, comics, film moguls, and athletes.
9
To me, this article is so brilliant, moving, and truthful that I hardly know where to begin in order to praise it. I imagine that, in the future, if editors were to compile examples of writings from this time, they would be obliged to include this piece because it not only distills central dilemmas of our time, but also transcends them to draw an essential lesson.
20
Women like to think we're smarter than men, yet look at all the women who fell for Cosby's lures to meet him at this place or that place, and believed his false promises to help them break into acting and other careers.
Really, ladies. We know better than to to fall for such con artists. Let's all remind ourselves once and for all not to be dazzled by celebrity status or seduced by promises that sound too good to be true.
18
Seriously? The man presents himself as America's Dad and you blame the women who believed he might actually want to help them? Do not fool yourself into thinking this is anything but victim-blaming, and anything but unacceptable. Do you also blame children who talk to strangers? Women who go on dates? Men in prison?
12
One in 5 women are victims of rape or attempted rape during their lifetimes...are they are just dummies?
Not to mention that in this particular case, a good number of the many many many women who were his victims were his friends or professional equals. Numerous women were on set when drugged, or out in a public place, or told that there was a party and then he was the only one there. But regardless of circumstances, this is the type of harmful attitude that stops women from coming forward.
4
I guess te moral of the story is, never believe anyone is as upstanding as they pretend to be. And similarly, others may not be as bad as they are portrayed. This is a graphic example of the frailty of the human character.
11
Being a serial sexual predator trumps being a celebrity, no matter how beloved the character one plays. And Cosby is now convicted of the former. Finally.
3
I have never seen American society so enthralled with celebrity. I see it with my kids and their worship of actors from The Office and Parks and Rec. As media savvy as I would think we should have become at this point, it's interesting to me to see how much we equate the person behind the role with the actual character. These people are just actors. Who you see on television, even in interviews is not really who they are.
8
My boyfriend and I saw Eddie Murphy at MSG and he did a spot on impression of Cosby lecturing comedian Eddie Murphy about his "foul language." Murphy had us laughing so hard we couldn't breathe. My boyfriend said to me (after the verdict in Cosby's trial was announced) "I wonder what Eddie Murphy is thinking right now."
21
I saw that SAME concert!! over 30 years ago now. I was laughing so hard that my abs hurt for days. Murphy did a perfect Cosby.
2
'... he [Cosby] gave the notorious “Pound Cake” speech ...'
"Maybe this was Cliff unplugged — and unhinged."
Cosby is an actor and Cliff is a character. Morris has conflated the two. Indeed, Morris never even uses the word "actor".
If Morris had argued that Cosby was acting when he gave the "Pound Cake" speech, he might have had a plausible thesis.
2
Sure, back in the 80's no one ever took roofies before sex, and all women (no, girls) are silly innocent lambs who have no independent volition or desire for excitement and fame. I think the women just had buyers' remorse.
7
Still doesn't excuse what this monster did.
2
Buyer’s remorse suggests a choice — unconscious people don’t make choices.
7
Luckily the world is moving on from outdated attitudes such as yours, as is evidenced in his conviction. Better take a look at yourself and change, or the world will pass you by. Actually, it already has.
2
The stupid part of all of this tragedy is conflating a character with the actor portraying that character. Cosby was a comedian and entertainer who found a great role to play. It said nothing about the man. Likewise, Carroll O'Conner found a great role in Archie Bunker, but that role said nothing about the actor (who was completely different IRL). If you allow yourself to like or dislike a person because of an acting personna then you are just being ignorant.
22
Mr. Morris - I probably loved Bill Cosby as much as you did- even though I'm white. Inevitably, what I saw and felt about him as a white teenager would be different from how you saw him; but a huge part of what I saw was simply - a highly admirable human being.
Like all great comedians, he was an acute observer of humanity. As sharp as they come. And in spite of seeing all our human weaknesses, his humor was not based on ridicule but on compassion - "oh, yeah, I've been that dumb- good to know it's not just me!"
I don't think Cliff Huxtable was a joke- I'm pretty sure he was real.
What happened to Bill Cosby was - incredible celebrity, in both the black and the white worlds. Unprecedented. Power.
We know power corrupts, its an ancient observation. And I can think of no one more vulnerable to it than this young black guy, suddenly rubbing shoulders with - a bunch of older powerful white guys. Hm.
The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was so successful because it rings true. We all know it- we all have dark urges which - might get loose one day, and would horrify us.
At the moment- that's how I'm choosing to see Bill. The good doctor is still there, and still good. And struggling with the alter ego, who got loose. The good guy - was one of my great heroes. I'm seriously ticked at him. But I don't want to just give him up.
10
Mr. Morris, you are responsible for the strong man you have become. Mr. Cosby is responsible for his crimes and deceit. I am a white woman, I idolized him for years, loved the show, loved the albums, loved old I Spy shows. So sad. But I feel worst for his family and his victims. I hope he goes to jail and does not "get off" again.
8
I usually don't comment on these posts but you people are rediculous. The Cosby show was about the empowerment of black people..male, female and children alike. It showed us that you can be anything you want to be when there were not a lot of people we could not identify with as lawyers and doctors. Not to mention the countless life lessons. But anyway, no one sees the irony that none of the women he was around for decades every mentioned him being this predator. Mrs. Rashad did the show twice and the show was #1 twice..she would know him as well as anyone, her and sister actually, but they overlooked him preying on women? REALLY...guess yall forgot he was slated to become THE man at NBC before he became this bad person...and after being exonerated now everything all of a sudden is true and he's guilty...if he did the crime he should be punished no doubt but people can't be naive to see its some funny ingredients in this pudding..oh yea..by the way..Hollywood..black actor from the 60s-80s...who was bigger...**mic drop**RIP Dick Gregory
2
What I really don't understand with the woman at the center of this litigation is how she went back to Mr. Cosby's house twice or thrice after the alleged crime has been committed (ok, crime as the verdict was guilty). In the same vein I don't understand the likes of Rose McGowan - who after being allegedly raped by Harvey Weinstein can pose in photos with him - and a wide smile to boot. And my conclusion was that these women are all about career! Didn't Ms. Constand got the job in the University? Women should pick a lane. Career or their integrity. Now it's another story when the victim of these two men did not gain value after the fact.
Allegations are thrown out now left and right. And, God forbid, you don't agree with all the accusers 100%. Oy vey.
7
Women should pick: their career or their integrity.
You’ve neatly summarized the life gutting choice right there.
1
All people must pick a lane, not just women. Seeing a woman as this or that, but not seeing men that way is one the big roadblocks to women’s success.
Further, I think we need to rennet the lane changers. People can be one or the other and go back to their prior lane in a flash. For men it is understood that this is so. For women, picking the wrong lane just once is a label for life.
3
Attitudes like yours are exactly why those women had to pretend like nothing was wrong while smiling in a photo with their abusers, why they had to continue to associate with the predators.
Imagine this, you are a 20 something, just starting out. In any field, doesnt have to be acting. You are living on your own and taking care of youself. No partner, no parents.
A powerful person takes an interest in you, seemingly for your abilities in your field. You hang around that person as they promise to use their connections to assist you. One day, you go for a meeting with them and are assaulted. How would you feel? Shocked, betrayed, confused. Not only that, but the person basically tells you that if you speak up, they will see to it that you never work in your field again. And besides, whos going to be believed? The 20 something just starting out, or the powerful person?
What are you going to do? Go up as one young person against their high paid lawyers, get drug through court where you are asked deeply personal questions trying to make you look bad, not believed, accused of trying to profit (as you, NYT commenter are doing right now), and have your career (which you probably have student loans for and have worked your butt off to get) destroyed? Or pretend like it never happened?
This blame the victim stuff needs to stop.
2
I could never understand the popularity of The Cosby Show; my peers were fans and I did watch a few episodes, but I couldn't stand watching the saccharine-coated (over the top, in fact, in its heaping) sitcom family. But, then again, I was never a fan of sitcoms of that era where all of life's problems would be resolved in a sickly-sweet half-hour. To be fair, though, I think Cosby tried to portray a normal black family - whatever normal is - to show that, hey, we too desire and seek the American dream . . .
7
Bill Cosby may have been TV's first featured black star back in the I Spy days co starring with Robert Culp.
But he was also a devoted ambassador for jazz music. I remember him emceeing the Newport Jazz Festival. Of course he gained the public's trust.
Family events were his specialty.
But when you begin to lose the Obamas, you are losing.
It is sometimes hard to separate the actor from the role. This works both ways. The story of actors "typecast" because they've done such a performance that the two are melded in the public mind is the risk of the job. From Bela Lugosi, (Dracula), to George Reeves (TV Superman), to Adam West, (TV Batman), to name a few. And it persists for years. At a "Dark Shadows" convention in the mid 1980's, years after the show had ended in 1971, actor Jonathan Frid, who had made the daytime soap opera vampire "Barnabas Collins" an item in the later 1960's early '70's was asked by a rather lonely soul if he would "bite her" as his vampire character would have done. He curtly and sternly replied, "I am NOT a vampire, I am an ACTOR!" Couldn't blame him. But he had given the definite performance of that character (Ben Cross and Johnny Depp in later remakes notwithstanding).
And so it is for Mr. Cosby. His character of "Cliff Huxtable" was a mythological ideal, but it was portrayed by someone all too human. As are all all of our mythologies: things to look up, or aspire to. But in the end they are created by imperfect people in an imperfect world. We keep trying, but we're not there yet.
17
If we threw away the art every time we found flaws in the artist, the world would suddenly have no art.
37
Art?
1
A "flaw" is different from "criminal attack."
3
Mr. Morris, Bill Cosby did not give you your ability to bring empathy to the deconstruction of complex artistic work. My guess is that you would have become the critic you are without him. I always learn something from your work and enjoy reading it.
16
Every person does some good and some bad in his or her life. When it’s a lot of good and a little bad, or vice versa, it’s easy to judge that person and move on. A little of both, and we don’t bother judge. Where the judgment becomes difficult is when it’s a lot of good and a lot of bad. There was a lot of good in Bill Cosby beyond his acting as a good person on TV. He was a civil rights leader and philanthropist and balanced his career and family life with better results than many other celebrities, then endured the murder of his son with dignity. This doesn’t excuse his pathological sexual behavior. It only makes Cosby one of the most extreme examples of a person who defied easy judgment by representing extremes of both the best and the worst that one of us can be.
14
Maybe community service for the remainder of his years would serve the public in a better way..he could where an ankle collar and give talks all over the country on how not to behave..maybe with Me-Too happening, this would be perfect timing..Respect for woman , and the Rule of Law, would be a perfect place to start...
2
Well it's incredibly disappointing.
I suppose its possible to imagine this is some ethnic betrayal, but in reality it's a pan-ethnic sickness.
It wasn't much mentioned after Weinstein how secretly horrified many of us of Jewish-American descent were about his being Jewish, all the affirmations of the gross weirdness glommed onto Jewish male sexuality after Portnoy & Woody.
I suppose there must have been some Irish-American discomfort about Bill O'Reilly, & a general German-American disgust with Donald Trump.
It's possible to imagine that the behavior of these men in some way validates the stereotypes we all resent.
But there is really only one validation this all proves, and it's about men, & power, & dominance, sadistic control, disgusting out-of-bounds behavior that no man whom we're supposed to respect should be indulging.
It horrifies not on an ethnic plane, but on a gender plane, as if all men are evil, can't be trusted, will inevitably abuse if given power.
But even that doesn't really work, it's a tiny sliver of men who would do any of this.
But couple it with some of the other abuse that goes on, the violence & injustice, if we're gonna be cynical about it, might as well put cynicism where it belongs: Everywhere.
As it turns out, ambitious people are bad, some worse than others, but give them power of any kind, too many of the will abuse.
Lesson being, never idolize, idealize, overly adulate, assume that a solid-looking citizen isn't somehow secretly sick.
20
The difference is that Cosby took upon himself the role of older male advisor, a kind of grumpy grandpa, lecturing black people everywhere he went about how they weren’t behaving well enough or didn’t have their act together. Bill O’Reilly and Donald Trump never sternly lectured their followers about why they are still poor and uneducated and plagued by crime, or whatever else. Instead those guys tell their followers they are great and do no wrong.
5
Cosby's crime was so much greater than betraying Cliff Huxtable. Before that he was the first Black leading man on TV, in I Spy with Robert Culp. Their interracial buddy routine was a huge influence on everyone, long before The Cosby Show. Before that, in the early 1960s Cosby's record albums were hugely popular with young people, Black humor that was palatable for everyone. Cosby let everyone down.
153
OK, Mr. Integrity.
Dude - "Cosby" was a television show. Try getting your inspiration from books and real art and maybe you won't be so disappointed in your heroes (or maybe you will be). And for the record - now confirmed by a jury of his peers - Bill Cosby, the man, is a serial sexual-predator who, you can be pretty sure, isn't going to enjoy the rest of his life. And Kanye... well, if that's what black kids have to look up to then that's too bad.
4
Better to get one's inspiration from real life and history, rather than from TV, books, or 'real art'. All of these are fictional creations of the artist or artists involved, and the flaws of the creators may or may not reflect in the creations.
1
are we there yet?
can a white American say to a black American, " I don't hate you because you're black. I hate you because you are a louse, and you would still be a louse if you were white, purple, or green."
this, to me, spells the difference between judging someone for the color his skin, as Dr. King said, and not for his own character. being born black or any other shade is no personal accomplishment. being a good person is your own personal doing.
2
Dr. King wasn't living some post-racial colorblind fantasy like the smattering of his quotes taken out of context to make white people feel better make it seem. Dr. King also said "The negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured."
Time to abandon belief-based thinking. Bill Cosby's fictional character was hero. So was OJ Simpson's persona on TV and movies likeable. Tom Cruise: great actor, delusional person. Politicians: just pick the latest Republican "leader" who paid his mistress to have an abortion, or was caught having homosexual sex, or committing fraud. And of course, the greatest idolatry worship of them all, with nothing but negative consequences: Jesus.
5
"And of course, the greatest idolatry worship of them all, with nothing but negative consequences: Jesus." - JCX
No, I think you mean 'prophet' mohammed.
History contains many examples of brilliant artists who were stark raving a-holes in their personal lives. People are complex, and are capable of the best and the worst in all aspects of their lives. If Mr. Cosby was able to inspire high ideals, they should not be discounted, even though he has shown himself incapable of following his own advice.
2
Really sad piece. The writer, an adult, now finds his system of values in question - particularly as a black man (?) - because the star of an old TV sitcom turned out to be a criminal instead of a cartoon character.
Navel-gazers like this will never be relevant in a world falling apart. Don’t tell the writer the Flintstones wasn’t real, either - he won’t be able to handle it.
6
Being so smug as to say "Look at me! I live in a vacuum, culture doesn't affect me, I'm my own person, you people that draw inspiration and thoughts from culture are weak losers!!" is pretty disingenuous. You looked up to some entertainer, writer, artist, athlete in your formative years, you are no better than anyone else here.
5
Then you just don’t understand. The Cosby Show was the only sitcom my family gathered around the TV to watch. Perhaps because we were an immigrant family in a small American town...It was a family to envy. They had lineage, America was home, even though they were a minority. I watched Family Ties, Growing Pains, Hogan’s Family, but didn’t relate as much.
My father always tried to emulate Cliff Huxtable, keeping his family protected in that house with humour, love and respect. Whenever the outside world bled in, the Huxtables pared down, kept each other strong. He hoped his own family would lay their roots and become like theirs.
I don’t know what my father would say about Cosby if he were alive today. But I’m extremely grateful when he was alive he exceeded in being my Cliff Huxtable.
I struggle a little now thinking I will never rewatch it, and wondering if we had known and never had watched, how different it would have been.
Does it matter anymore...Isn’t this what the author is struggling with?
4
There is one thing that several of those who have responded fail to acknowledge- there IS a power in the media that does influence others. And when a certain group of marginalized people yearning for new stories to be told about their people, the power of that "icon" becomes even more impressive. Yes, he was an actor and it was a script. But at a time in America when we were craving for new ways to think about African American life- Cosby served a purpose greater than himself. Fair or not, that is the way it is and there will always be a certain portion of our country who will absorb such figures as role models. Cosby made being black and successful acceptable and even safe. And many of us bought it hook, line and sinker. Now we are left to deal with the truth about him. We have been dealing with a lot of realities in the last several years...This may just be the decade of the "Great Unmasking" of the ugliness in the patriarchy- black or white. Hopefully we will replace such Huxtable icons with realand commendable leaders who already existand do not drug and rape women or "grab them by their pussies."
7
To gawk at attractive women melting down into a drug induced stupor or coma and then molesting them is beyond sick. Beyond repulsive. Beyond any semblance of a civilized human being. And his wife...words cannot come to me.
16
Critical thinking is dead, I guess. You can absorb and 'be' the character Cosby played without thinking that was him.
5
We were fans of Cosby, he was funny and his show was one which we could watch with out children. We even saw him when he came to our city for a live gig.
He acting, underneath was a monster. This is the truth. What upsets me more than his predatory behavior is how his wife stands in support of him! What is wrong with Camille Cosby?! Sick.
11
His wife has nothing to do with this and should not be mentioned.
This infatuation with viewing black entertainers such as Cosby or Kanye as a symbol of blackness needs to be retired. The first being a sadistic sexual predator, the latter being an ignoramus. This says what about the black community at large? Well, I should hope about as much as Roseanne says about the white community.
106
This may be trivial, but something that has always bothered me is whenever the cast of “The Cosby Show” was interviewed, they always referred to him as, “Mr. Cosby” and never “Bill.” Most of them were with him for 8 seasons - you would think with the amount of time they spent together, at some point he would have said, “Call me Bill.” For other long-running series, you often hear casts talk about how they became one big family, how much they love each other, etc., but I don’t recall ever hearing that from the Cosby cast. I enjoyed watching the show at the time, but knowing what we know now, it makes me think he demanded their respect, but never gave it in return.
3
I think Bill Cosby’s sickest joke was lecturing the African-American community on morality and personal responsibility, while committing the immoral crimes for which he is now convicted.
534
I suppose you can filter out the good in whatever else he said. Fatherhood, is a good thing. But I guess we have to get pass the great disconnect of his image and the reality.
1
The lecture was perfect. His behavior was detestable.
5
If a doctor is an alcoholic, that doesn't change the fact that when they tell you smoking is bad for you, they're right.
(Dismissing an opinion as hypocritical is a variation of the ad hominem fallacy. It indicates nothing about the validity of the opinion.)
3
I remember when he fired the actress who played his oldest daughter on the show when she got pregnant in real life. He was such a moral man. Every one of those women who accused him was subject to so much not just from him. Lock him up soon please. Don't let him stay out until he fakes another health issue which will make him "too ill" to go to jail.
4
Thank you for writing. You are the age of my kids it would seem. We watched the Cosby Show (was that its name... was it always about him, his preeminence?) and also Family Ties. Sometimes a character comes out as gay such as the Mom in that latter show. These shows were family friendly, predating the quirky Seinfeld. Some have said the "Me Too" movement is as much about power as about sex. When did Cosby need his victims to be comatose? The article Wesley Morris writes expresses his pain and confusion as a black man re thinking a role model. I feel just as confused wanting there to be those role models for my children and grandchildren as well. I can only guess at how constrained each member of the Obama family was , knowing they did not want to disappoint. Cosby, like Weinstein, became so confident in his partiarchal power, position and wealth that he took extraordinary risks believing he could silence his victims permanently. And now we wait for justice to come to Trump.
5
Thank you for so poignantly addressing this. In addition to your profound address, the responses in this article are helpful in processing this news.
First, a very moving honest essay. Thank you Wesley Morris.
When I'm faced with some moral conflict, I ask myself "What would Paul Scofield as Thomas More in 'Man for All Seasons' do"?
Scofield's More, to me, is wisdom, courage and grace all in one. I know it is a performance, but that doesn't mean I can't use that performance as an ideal to aspire to.
Cherish Cliff Huxtable, Mr. Morris.
5
SoShould the guy who does the voices of "Archer" be arrested and incarcertated because his character is almost continuously in the pants of other men's wives, killing people with a variety of weapons and steling and or using drugs and alcohol almost continuously as well as being a bad son. Or sould he be given a small business loan as the voice of the hamburger shop operater in "Burger" where he cares for several children and is a apparently decent husband. Which one of these characters the voice over actor does is he responsible for?
None?
Why then is Bill Cosby somehow to be considered a criminal con man because his real world sex life does not match that of the "character"(an invented non existent person-much like Hercules or Perseus or Oedipus)?
Why do so many news media writers seem to think that the entire ouvre of Cosby's TV family in Brooklyn is the sole responsibility of Cosby? Does (did) he have no writers? Werer the scripts not gone over by dozens of people in the TV buusiness? Why isd Cosby seen as a sole criminal mastermind who , much like Moriarty in the many SHerlock Holmes stories including him, controls most of the evil in the world?
I think the critics are living in a made up world-Cosby is not a heck of a lot worse then Steve Jobs-just not as rich and not as mean. I do wish fans would stop conflating reality and fantasy.
4
“America’s Dad” is what we called Bill Cosby.
The name Cliff Huxatable was a fake name.
His entire persona was based on a script written by writers of the Cosby Show.
SHOW is the operative word.
Cliff Huxatable is the name of a character played by a real guy named Bill Cosby.
Why do we let our idea of a TV character
translate into the real life character of that person.
Anthony Perkins played the role of a violent killer.
Do we find him to be that way in real life.
These people are paid to play a believable scene or role.
But WE deceive ourselves when we translate the REEL life seen on TV or the movies into the REAL life of that person.
Sometimes some ACTORS are like the character they play.
Most often they are not.
The ones who successfully play those characters are given Tony's, Emmy and Oscars awards for their PERFORMANCE.
7
In the case of the Cosby Show, the conflation of character with actor occurred because Bill Cosby so strongly exploited it. Huxtable became a part of his own off-screen, off-camera persona. That's a large part of what Morris's poignant essay explores.
11
I barely watched The Cosby Show. As a black person, I thought it was nice that it existed, but it was a sitcom with generally idealized characters.
5
Perhaps the problem for Wesley Morris is that he was watching The Cosby Show as an adolescent black boy. I watched it as an older white teen. And, while I loved the Coz and could never have imagined his dark double life, his Show always seemed as absurdly fictional in its storylines and characters as The Waltons.
7
The Cosby Show Showed America that Not all Black people live in the Projects. It showed White America Black Families have Values, and are Professionals.
Everyone I came in Contact with Loved the Huxtables. I'm a White man who grew up in the 50's and 60's. We now know Mr. Cosby was nevrer like Cliff Huxtable. Mr. Cosby was Never America's Dad, Cliff Huxtable Was.
2
Mr. Morris is a compelling writer whose work deserves careful attention. His blending of first-person and larger social issues in this piece is first-rate. Then comes the Kanye West coda and this part of the narrative really needs firming up and should have drawn an editor's suggestion of a rewrite.
TV shows aren't real life. Who knew?
4
I am of similar age of the author and my family idolized Bill Cosby. We would sit around listening to his albums of stand-up comedy & often exchanged them as gifts during the holidays.
I am disturbed that the author writes "That sums up why the guilty verdict Thursday is depressing..." since for me, the depression over the reality of Cosby began the moment women began accounting their experiences with him. It was obvious from the numerous cases and the similarities in their stories that Cosby was a serial sexual-assault perpetrator.
This realization, years ago, literally felt like a death in our family and the cognitive dissonance was hard to bear. Why the author needs the verdict of a jury to begin unpacking his relationship with Bill Cosby, is strong evidence that we still have a long way to go before victims' voices will be taken seriously. Clearly, you have had years to start this work & it shouldn't have taken a guilty verdict for you to begin this difficult task.
2
I do not think that the revelations of Bill Cosby the person undoes the importance of the art Cosby created in Cliff Huxtable the character.
2
I think that in order to reconcile the man from the show, one must clearly delineate the two.
While the writer has conflicts due to how much the show meant to him as an adolescent, this isn't necessary. The fact is that the show DID a lot for shaping American views as they related to the African American experience.
Growing up a sheltered white kid in middle America in the 80s, much of my experience with black culture came through watching sitcoms of the day. The Cosby show was the first thing that came to our screens that showed that African Americans we're not only our equals but in many of our (definitely mine) cases, our superiors from a socio-economic perspective.
I too saw that fictional family as America's family. A family who's ideals we're those we all wanted to strive for, no matter our race.
Cosby has proven a predator and horrible human in general. Because of this I find his previous work unwatchable.
That said for those of is who grew up watching the Huxtables, we can't just throw out the positive influence experienced from having tuned in once a week.
2
I still have tremendous love and respect for Cliff Huxtable. He was a creation of cosby and a bunch of writers, producers, and tv executives.
I will always recognize him as my TV dad. The type of dad I want to be. The dad I try to be. I easily separate the actor from the character, just like I can love a song but be disgusted by the life of the singer.
Ironic that CLiff Huxtable is more desperately needed today more than ever. Fathers and fatherhood is vilified, or made to be joke by the media. The traditional family is splintered and in shambles.
Cosby needs one more conviction: The murder of Dr Cliff Huxtable. RIP Cliff. You will be missed.
4
I can't see the point of this article. Are there really very many people who believe that performances in TV shows are autobiographical? Then perhaps Superman really could leap tall buildings in a single bound.
I suppose that now there will be calls for archives of the Cosby show to be buried in the California desert. But if we still like the character, perhaps his name could be dubbed into something different. And with the quality of CGI these days, he might even undergo a facial transformation.
Then it will be as though Cosby never existed, just like the Confederate statues.
3
Wesley--
Bill was, sadly, always the man that we now see exposed. You might listen to his "childhood fascination with Spanish Fly" comedy piece, the original "date rape drug," from 1969 (see below).
Bill also projected his darkness onto other black men, notably Richard Pryor, a common tactic used by those wishing to hide their own crimes.
And yes, I loved him, too, but individual human beings are often very complicated characters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx6KAd_Su3I
1
try to remember Cliff Huxtable was a fictional character... i have read and been inspired by many fictional characters without any knowledge -- or desire to know -- the character of their creators. accept CH as a character you wanted to emulate. that says everything about *your* admirable character. you don't need to associate your character with that of his creator.
4
My partner pointed out this morning that it's too simplistic to say "Bill Cosby wasn't really Cliff Huxtable," with the underlying assumption that of course Cliff Huxtable would never engage in that sort of behavior. We all assume we knew exactly who Cliff Huxtable was because we saw a snapshot of his life for an hour a week every week. The truth is that the good Dr. Huxtable absolutely could also have been a sexual predator. There are SO MANY examples of guys who seem like wonderful, wholesome, trustworthy family men, guys who can easily put on a good show for most people, guys who are beloved and respected in their communities, but who in fact are committing sexual assault when the camera isn't on them. Doctors included. Larry Nassar comes to mind.
162
This. This this THIS! Yes, thank you Rachel.
4
Two words: Catholic priests.
2
Add "Papa Joe" Paterno to the ever-growing list.
2
I find it a creepily odd coincidence that Cliff Huxtable was an OBGYN on the show.
17
and that he had four daughters and only one son.
2
@Boomer - Because Cosby had four daughters and one son. No coincidence.
1
Thank you, Mr. Morris. This column is the most compelling and insightful commentary on the painful Cosby story I've yet seen.
8
Brilliant work by Mr. Morris as usual, and while I cannot possibly understand how formative-yet-false Mr. Cosby's image was for Black America, I appreciate the attempt to see Mr. Cosby's arc as a long, grim tragedy with hurt to spread around for all parties. Orwell said that any intelligent person should be able to reconcile that Salvador Dali is a talented draughtsman and a horrible human being; maybe reversing that -- and, yes, expecting and asking that artists be good humans at the very least even as they make art that inspires, educates, informs and entertains -- would be a good step.Genius excuses a lot, but not everything, and talent and money shouldn't be a get-out-of-trouble free card, either.
10
Cliff Huxtable was a fictional good person who influenced many people. The writers deserve more credit than they get for this character. There are many fine talented actors who could play the part as well as Cosby did, or better. Cosby was convincing, but he can be replaced.
9
What's frightening is that a character that this person played on television contributed to heavily to his reputation off camera. People viewed Cosby as Cliff and how great was that for him? The universe worshipped this guy's made up version of himself. What chance did anyone who had anything bad to say about him have? It says a lot about the intelligence of the population.
It has nothing to do with race. It has to do with fame and power and the belief that you can do whatever you want, with whomever you want just as Trump said in the Access Hollywood tape. That is the issue here. His true "character" was shown when he threw vulgarity at the prosecutor.
30
I grew up with Bill Cosby from the 70s through the 80s, first seeing him on the early Electric Company, his interactive children's show "Picture Pages" and the Cosby Show. I remember that even as a small child I never liked him. He gave me a bad feeling. Something was missing from his personality. He was imperious and aloof, with more than just an air of superiority. There was a disconnect with others around him as if he moved through his own bubble of rarified air.
None of these accusations about him have surprised me. They squared with the sense I had about him since my childhood. The only thing about it that surprises me is how grotesque and extreme his methods were and how resolute his wife is in her denial.
15
I agree. As a child I thought there was something unsettling and creepy about Bill Cosby. My parents felt the same. My stomach turned when he pushed pudding and Jello with his strange and childish delivery. I couldn't believe a grown man could act so weird. I didn't know the word "pervert" at the time. Cosby as Dr. Huxtable was just as false. It's a shame Hollywood created Cosby as a "role model". The celebrity game is a sham - but played correctly, a clever player can jump out of the TV box or off the big screen and land in the White House. America is a sucker for celebrity and is paying a steep price.
2
One has to wonder why Lisa Bonet left the show. Not too long after when The Cosby Show was still a ratings winner she left unexpectedly, she got a spinoff show that Cosby was credited as an exec. producer. Was this hush money and extortion on Ms. Bonet's part to keep quiet? I've often wondered about that. Did she know about Cosby's peccadillos and offer him a deal to produce her show to keep her from talking to the press or authorities?
At any rate good on the jury for reaching the only conclusion to this sordid mess. I highly doubt he will serve any jail time with the excuse being his age and near blindness. Isn't that always the case? The rich pay fines but spend little to no time in jail.
9
"The rich *MEN pay fines but spend little to no time in Jail."
Martha Stewart served time; Cosby probably will not. Misplaced priorities.
5
Martha paid the ultimate price, she lost her company as a result. Always thought she got a raw deal for a measly $27k profit.
1
Bill Cosby was the funniest person I had ever seen, on TV in the early seventies. But I was entirely turned off by Cliff Huxtable and haven't paid attention to him since.
I couldn't stand him because the pater familias reminded me of my German grandfather. He loved to hold the center stage, and to keep six grandchildren in stitches. He'd throw water balloons at us from his home in the Statler Hotel. He did a good job as a grandparent but when I grew up I realized that he was making himself the center of attention. Cosby showed off, over-powering the kids so they didn't get the chance to shine. Men need children to care for more than to show off to.
I imagine that people who liked the Huxtables will remember the dad being supportive. But in this case I think my instinct was correct, that this family was centered around the father in a totally inappropriate way. Good fathers get plenty of time to show off to the kids but that comes in second to caring for them
44
I believe it was called "The Cosby Show".
"Cliff was affable, patient, wise, and where Mrs. Huxtable (Phylicia Rashad) was concerned, justly deferential. His wit was quick, his sweaters roomy and kaleidoscopic. He could be romantic. Cliff should have been the envy of any father ever to appear on a sitcom. He was vertiginously dadly. Cliff is the reason for the cognitive dissonance we’ve been experiencing for the last three or four years. He seemed inseparable from the man who portrayed him."
I think the author is going way overboard. The TV show was for entertainment. I don't think it was ever put forward as a training aid for fathers. If some fathers learned from the character "Cliff" all well and good.
And on the authors word "vertiginously" which is defined as:
1. "whirling; spinning; rotary:
vertiginous currents of air.
2. affected with vertigo; dizzy.
in the dictionary.com
Doesn't seem even on point about the character "Cliff."
15
This English professor thinks the author's use of 'vertiginously' is spot-on.
2
It may be not so much "spot on" as it is more likely to be a smudge.
3
Aside from the TV show(s), though, Cosby wrote best-sellers about fatherhood, marriage and other family matters. Many parents borrowed from his playbook. 15 years ago, the Tournament of Roses in Pasadena chose him, Art Linkletter and Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers of children's TV) as Rose Parade grand marshals. Onscreen and off - at public, at least - Cosby played the role of "role model" to the hilt.
1
It's time to get a dose of reality. Bill Cosby was an actor. An actor can play anything he or she chooses to be. Spencer Tracy could play both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and he played them both convincingly. What was Spencer Tracy really like? I don't know and his screen personality only reveals what a great actor he was.
82
The same people who think these characters are real are the same ones thinking that Cynthia Nixon will be a great governor because she portrayed a lawyer on TV. Those people should stay home on election day.
13
Spencer Tracy was an alcoholic who would go on long binges with a suitcase full of hard liquor. He also cheated on his wife for years with Katharine Hepburn.
2
Thank you for this, your writing is always moving and provocative. I’ve watched this dramas play out for the last few years with a kind of stunned anger and confusion.
It’s his M.O. that I find so completely sickening and bizarre. Yes, he admitted to being a philanderer and for some inexplicable reason his wife has remained with him. But drugging your victims into some somnambulant state so you can then molest and rape them? What kind of sickness is that? So, I wasn’t so disappointed to find out that Cosby wasn’t (and never was) America’s Dad. I was shocked to discover her was such a deviant.
Another long, sick American tragedy.
42
A colluding wife or loved one makes this possible, the best cover ever, one of many covers. She gets millions of dollars from playing her role (see also Melania Trump, Ivanka Trump and any other of the Trumps). See how a colluding father gave a mentally unbalanced son his guns back and he shot people in a Waffle House.
5
My father, a little older than Cosby, did not like him. This entertainer through out his career chose to flatter whites rather than challenge them, and some of us always despised that sitcom garbage he promoted.
18
I always felt he was mocking his audience - maybe his white audience - in a smug way, as in 'I'm fooling you'. I didn't care for him.
1
Very good point but, from the headline, I thought the sick joke was that he played an obstetrician.
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PLAYED is the operative word.
1
Bingo!
1
Cosby and OJ Simpson always reminded me of each other. They were athletic and good looking guys who happened to be Black, but who seemed perfectly fit into a very White world.
You'd see them on tv and, OJ, in movies. You didn't see them as representing any type of Black culture, or MLK leadership qualities.
They were the guys about whom White folks might say, "Oh, I have a Black friend" because these were well, you know, White like Black guys.
Their acceptance into the world of whiteness, in retrospect, is kind of weird. They were more or less subsumed. Look - here's a couple of Black guys who aren't "scary." You can like them! The marketing machine made them "safe."
Look how that turned out.
15
The only thing similar about those two-OJ and Cosby is they are both dark skinned and both are men.
2
My simple thought is that yes, "Art can elevate life". It elevated the author of this piece, as the Cosby Show, (particularly Cliff Huxtable) made him a better person. Just as we are elevated by great literature, paintings, a wonderfully produced wine even. But the writer, painter and vineyard worker are only the tools....the Art stands on its own, and separate from that which produced it.
26
Well said. So many people think Art History is the stuff of snobby elites looking at old paintings on a wall. But I think it would be very helpful for people to have a better understanding of the relationship between the art and the artist, which you have so elegantly described.
9
Yes.. I am disappointed in the "alter ego" of Cliff Huxtable. However the art that Cosby spawned with his sitcoms, comedies, "I, Spy", have undeniably been building blocks to making African Americans "visible" in America. I for one can separate the art from the reality, gleaming good and purpose from it. But I do and can separate the reality of a person, and his actions and how he lives day to day,whether its Cosby, Weinstein, Lauer or "45"!
2
This is really well written and thoughtful. I was a huge fan of Cosby and he really DID feel like America's Dad. I am still struggling to reconcile that sense of comfort he gave me with his crimes against my gender.
Now, I need to bring up something that has made me uncomfortable in comparing the real man and the father figure. Yes, he was convicted for rape. Yes, he took a self righteous, condescending tone in the Pound Cake speech. Here's my own gray area: He was not entirely wrong in that speech. That we see him as a horrible person now does not negate that. The continued learned helplessness and crutch of victimization that is still being used as a shield from doing what it takes to change-- refusing to look at that is like enabling an addict.
I'm a white woman, so you can tell me I'm whitesplaining if you need to. The thing is, I see this not only when it comes to incarcerated black men. I see this dependence on a coddling "It's not your fault" culture to avoid personal responsibility EVERYWHERE. We need to blend both of these worlds- acknowledge and fix what started it, (including having those that abused their privilege and power be held accountable) while firmly refusing to use it as an excuse. Otherwise we'll just stay in the status quo.
But this needed look into the gray areas and own up to the uncomfortable things will now be associated with a convicted predator. And that will just further push back the willingness to analyze and confront these things.
55
Kels, really good comment. And yes this country has made it easier to blame others for their actions. Less mess that way and easier to write off, I have always stressed that people need to start taking ownership for their actions will never happen though.
5
I'm a black woman, and I agree, he was not entirely wrong in that speech. He merely was saying that people had to do their part and it was not anything different from what I and every other Negro child I knew in the 1960s was taught.
Unfortunately, his criminal behavior has undermined everything he's said and done.
4
Very interesting. Now that you say that, I recall many of these points being a part of some Civil Rights speeches-- from MLK onward. It's sad, I'm already seeing some people misinterpreting (or choosing to misinterpret) Cosby's conviction as a kind of validation to not have to look at these issues now.
If I find out that Gregory Peck in real life wasn't just like Atticus Finch, then I'm just going to have to abandon all hope.
144
From everything I've read, he was a very nice man. I met him once briefly at one of his kids' graduations. He was gracious even when someone asked him for an autograph, which was completely inappropriate.
11
Well I for one hope that Mr. Peck was NOT the tendentious, self-righteous, humorless, too-good character that he played in To Kill a Mockingbird.
But Mr. Peck certainly deserves the acclaim for having created a screen
character whom so many people admire, even if I'm not one of them.
Actors and their characters are not the same! Why should this be so
hard to understand? Cosby's comedy riffs are still funny. Or will be for
a generation who doesn't remember these trials.
5
Tad - sorry, but whatever Peck was like, he was Peck, not Finch. And no slur...to either one.
2
We should have just let Bill be Bill: a good actor, a great comedian. Instead we turned him into an entitled icon. As we have done with so many others: Weinstein, Charlie Rose, the Kennedy's, Trump, and who knows who else will have his/her rock overturned. Newscasters, athletes, actors, CEOs, politicians. We have to stop turning public figures into icons who aren't held accountable for their wrongdoings. Maybe we should start by questioning the outsized salaries we pay certain people. Do football stars or actors or business executives really need to earn tens of millions of dollars a year, so they can wiggle free of every little inconvenience, every peccadillo? Let's get real about what is so sick in our culture.
78
Once these guys get fired or forced to retire-why is it that their jobs are always taken by women?
I smell perfumed hands trying to and now succeeding in eliminating the competition by smear and other dirty pool.
We will regret this kind of kill them before they can have sex again, attitude. America will become a society , like in Japanese anime where men must beg forgiveness if the even accidentally see a girl's shirt unbuttoned.
I guess I am glad I am too old to care about the opposite sex anymore as the behavior of many has become as bestial and nasty as that of the men they accuse, usually after several decades, thus leaving them free to potentially "offend over and over again.
2
Do we really need to pay $100,000 for a piece of jewelry or $1,000,000 for a piece of art work.
People are generally paid what someone else feel they are worth.
Would I pay the positions you mentioned that much money.
Heck no.
But someone did and does.
Yeah, you're right our culture is sick.
Or stupid
2
Perhaps we can level the playing field by not allowing Justice to be a purchasable commodity. He who can afford the best lawyer wins. I would like to see a day when lawyers air to search for the truth, not just get their wealthy clients off the hook.
1
Some apropos phrases:
'All the world is a stage' (with some very good actors)
'You can always fool 'em with a shoeshine and a smile' (well, almost always)
'Truth in opposites' (don't buy a car from 'Honest John's Used Cars' dealership)
5
I'm old enough to remember another Cosby, from the '70s, after "The Bill Cosby Show" and before the "Himself" concert film, released in 1983. I watched him sleepwalk through guest-host gigs on "The Tonight Show." At times he appeared to be on something.
I had no trouble squaring "that" Cosby with the testimony I read.
13
If only we all had scripts, and if they were good ones, made them part of who we are. If only.....
3
I think the real problem is that we do all have scripts, much of which have nothing to do with who we really are. We are a society that demands scripts, because dealing with real people and the damage and weakness, as well as the potential gifts, they carry is not something we’re willing to do.
Cosby, like most people, hid behind the script he perfected, and I don’t mean Huxtable, rather than endure the pain of confronting the things in himself that demanded truth and reflection and expression in non-harmful and hopefully productive ways. Those things, sometimes called the “shadow,” always reach out beyond our scripts and display themselves and harm us and those around us if we don’t claim them as part of ourselves, respect and deal with them.
We now see in Mr. Cosby and his victims what happens when we live from a script rather than from the deepest parts of ourselves.
1
There is a void in this country when it comes to writing stories about minorities and there families. How many black males had a starring role on TV shows when this show was at the height of its ratings? How many black actors or actresses were able to display there craft on white shows without being the help or a friend with a non speaking part. I can only speak for myself watching an intact family enjoying life. Not oppressed by the chains of racism but finding a way to right wrongs. I was a kid and it was see TV as a decade earlier s the Jefferson and Amen were..
We knew it was a TV show that had script writers not real life. I saw joy at a time when I needed a family of color coming every week into my living room on TV. Yesterday the Lynching museum opened up in a country where Blacks are not suppose to have anything not even the right to live. The majority race has demonstrated to keep people down by any means necessary and we have experienced the results. Separate Bill Cosby the actor from the person who was convicted yesterday. I refuse to wipe away the joy this entertainer gave us for many years. Mr. Cosby has suffered and I refuse to pick apart a wonderful show that he was part of. I can separate reality from fiction . Everyone has the right to there own opinions so I am sorry if the writer has a problem making the separation.
6
As someone whose parents are both Italian and Spanish I too am tired of being stereotyped as the gangster, hired help or buffoon (see Seinfeld for that). Don't see many Italian ladies being portrayed with any regularity either.
Just saying.
3
While the "Cosby" show had broad viewership and influence, it's worth noting that there are folks for whom the show was just another pandering sitcom with, in this case, irksomely cutesy characters that provided escape into a milieu that never really existed. It's almost sad to witness your writer's early-life sanctimony about the series. He was a sort of victim long before Cosby's criminal conviction.
Racism and intolerance are bad. Right, we get it. So are (on a small scale) stagey, false, junk TV shows.
15
Thank you.
1
Agreed. I don’t see much difference between the show “Father Knows Best” that I grew up with in the 50’s and “The Cosby Show” beyond the skin color of the central family members and perhaps a slightly updated attitude about female roles. Both touted the ultimate wisdom and goodness of the father figure, who was on a pedestal everyone acknowledged and honored.
4
Roger Ailes and Bill Cosby (and many others) were abusers for DECADES. It should be a source of great shame that they only lost control of their discourse -- their silencing of victims -- once they got so old that they lost power.
We need to shatter the silence that protects those who are abusive TODAY.
139
Thanks for pointing this out. One of my relatives has a cousin who was in the technical part of the TV industry. Going back many, many years and especially at the height of the Cosby Show, this person would say in disgust, "Bill Cosby isn't what he appears to be on screen." So it's obvious that Cosby had a reputation within the industry for quite a long time.
Just as Craig Mason says... we need to stop the silencing now!
12
I am one of those who thinks the human condition is complex and that perfection is impossible. When we judge others we usually are judging ourselves-- that is we see in the other only what we (at the moment) want to see, rather than the complex and nuanced reality that is. At once Bill Cosby apparently is both "America's dad" and a sexual predator. The question then for me becomes one of judging the whole rather than the part: good vs. evil, positive vs. negative, part vs. sum total. It's a very personal calculation I might add.
2
I never could buy Cosby’s slick depiction of Dr. Huxtable. His acting always felt fake, forced. Even worse was that awful show where he interviewed children. Sick.
4
In religious contexts this is called "hiding in the light". Evil people seeking out the cloak of religion in order to hide their bad behaviors. Obviously we're well familiar with problematic priests by now. But with Hollywood and celebrity having taken the place of religion in much of our culture, most people are still thrilled by the "aura" and not really seeing critically yet.
30
I guess that's why they call it acting, because it's not real, shock as this may come to many. But considering the size of his pictured TV family, one thing was apparent that was real as well as the fact that he liked to surround himself with young women and girls.
11
I was 11 years old when the Cosby show premiered. I had never seen a family like that on TV. Cliff Huxtable was different from the hot headed defensive abrasive George Jefferson. He was respected, smart, funny, and a great parent with discipline and humor. Claire Huxtable was also amazing and a positive figure who parented just like my smart funny mom. They reminded me so much of my parents in a wonderful fanstastical way (though we were not at all affluent), and I still see Bill Cosby when I look at my father. I felt seen, like I could be respected and I could become somebody. I'd never seen anything like it on TV and I connected so strongly with that family. Mr. Morris expresses very eloquently the conflict in my heart with my affection for Bill Cosby for creating this character and show and memories that were invaluable to me which unfortunately clearly hid a monster. I mourn for those happy memories but he must be held accountable no matter how much it shatters childhood idols. It is still hard though.
167
I’ll take Sherman Hemsley’s George Jefferson character, thank you. He was playing an oversized buffoon. Cosby was playing a guy who was pretending to be a father, but there wasn’t much in him that was kind and fatherly.
It is hard. Even The Electric Company is tainted.
Just goes to show that you have to separate the person from the character. Cosby was playing a role convincingly. That does not mean he is a fine, upstanding individual. On the contrary, it shows how easily he was able to get his victims to trust him — through his tried-and-true “America’s Dad” facade. Typical predatory behavior.
271
In other words, it shows how gullible the American public can be. Actors are playing a role. They themselves may be absolutely nothing like the character they are playing.
Often, Politicians are playing a role. Their public persona may be nothing like what their personal lives are like.
We can only do the best we can to pay attention, stay informed, and do critical thinking. A better educational system in this country that taught people how to think critically and assess for truth might help.
13
You do need to separate person from character. I agree. But half the country’s heroes seem to be reality TV stars, and that didn’t happen overnight.
Maybe it’s time to face the fact that a large portion of American culture chooses to blur fact from fiction, and to see what it wants to see, and that it has for a long, long time?
5
I don't look at this as a black-or-white issue. For me, Cosby's conviction means that sometimes, justice prevails. Sometimes, the powerful and corrupt, who verbally, physically, socially, and emotionally use and abuse other people, whether they are male or female, black or white, gay or straight, or whatever, are brought low. it means that sometimes, the good guys win. In this day and age, when bullies and other bad people seem to get away with just about everything and bully or buy their way out of trouble, his conviction means that for once, one of them didn't, and I hope it sparks a trend.
22
Amazing article, very thought provoking! Thank you for sharing!
3
I think we need to stop this habit of associating the artist so closely with the art. Yes, Bill Cosby played Cliff. But Cliff was a creation, a myth, a signifier for fatherhood. We seem to desperately need for all of that to be true of the underlying man. We need to be more self-aware than that. No one was Cliff Huxtable, not even the man who played him. He was a figment of the imagination of a bunch of writers. That the underlying actor who played him is--and was--a sleazeball of the worst kind does not change Cliff Huxtable and the ideals he represents. It simply means that Bill Cosby, the actor who played him, is mostly a bad man. We should be able to separate the two.
270
"We should be able to separate the two."....
It was incredibly easy for me to seperate the two because I met Bill Cosby inflight when I was working as a flight attendant for TWA and he was a passenger in first class. My two co-workers that day happened to be black and Cosby made it a pointedly clear that he was not the kind Cliff Huxtable when he was gracious with them and mean to me, the white girl.
I was perceptive enough to realize even back then, even more than today, people of color are often invisible and treated differently. A good lesson to have absorbed but that wasn't Cosby's intent. He revealed a lack of character. I never watched his show because the dissonance between Cliff and Bill was too extreme.
56
The article concludes with the author asking, "How do I, at least, cleave this man from the man he seduced me into becoming?"
There was an old saying,"If by any means..." The fact is, you became a better person by emulating the person Cosby modeled. The fact that this artifact turned out not to be the person Cosby truly was is less important than the effect his impersonation had on you.
We tend to judge people by their best or, more often, their worst actions. I would argue that you should cleave those actions: Cosby has been revealed as a tragically flawed individual, but he created an image which had a positive impact on a generation.
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Agree! He author chose to emulate Cliff, not Bill. That was a good choice.
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"How do I, at least, cleave this man from the man he seduced me into becoming?"
Pretty easy answer: the "man" you respected was a character created by writers. I'm doubt that Morris, as a film critic, would actually have a difficult time discerning the significance of fiction from the impact of actual life. But perhaps that is the great sadness of a story like this one: the desire for the fantasy of the Cosby show to correlate with a hopeful reality, which Cosby potentially represented. There is a line between fact and fiction, but Cosby clearly let down a lot of people by failing to maintain decorum on both sides of the line.
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I was in my early teens when the Cosby show came on the air and I instinctively found something off and needy about Cosby's portrayal of Cliff Huxtable. The other actors were delightful. Cosby's exaggerated facial expressions, his Dad dancing, his sweaters ---I remember thinking why is a grown man trying so hard to be "cute" in the way a four year old is naturally cute.
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Yes, Heather, I felt the same way. I think the writing on the show was good and allowed Cosby's "acting" to seem better than it was, but the way he constantly mugged for the camera, making silly faces and speaking in gibberish seemed so juvenile and strange for a man his age -- especially one portraying a respected, highly successful physician. If my doctor behaved that way I wouldn't laugh and find it cute or amusing, I'd be creeped out -- or I'd wonder if he was having a stroke.
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Heather, me too. I never trusted the character because, for some unknown reason… call it a gut feeling... I never liked Cosby himself. I found him fake and his relationship with Mrs Huxtable over the top fake. But, like you, I liked all the other characters (especially Theo).
Having said that, I do like Fat Albert. Maybe Cosby was a more decent man in his younger days prior to the fame, money, power... perhaps his narcissism hadn't 'blossomed' yet.
Thank you for this thoughtful article. Although white, I also admired and envied the Huxtables and measured my imperfect family against them. How difficult it is for us to accept that artists (whose work we much admire) are, in their personal life, not admirable a whit! As the Internet enables us to glimpse more of any celebrity's true persona, perhaps we (or our children) will become more wary of any admiration other than for the art itself.
7
The lesson in Mr Cosby's downfall is that members of any ethnic group who break out reach positions of power, respect and/or economic success are neither more nor less capable of inappropriate or illegal behavior than members of any other ethnic group. I suspect the proportion of politicians convicted of political corruption does not differ among ethnic groups.
28
Your writing style and content of this story really moved me. I'm a white girl from Florida and Bill Cosby, no, Cliff Huxtable, was my Dad also! My world is upside down with this and I can see now how yours is even more so. Thanks for the insight.
16
A high percentage of perpetrators of sexual assault are known to the victim—often family members or pseudo family members. As the public grows familiar the story of Bill Cosby's conviction, perhaps it will be easier for them to face and call to account the real father figures who hid damaging treachery behind jokes and kidding around.
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I thoroughly enjoyed this article until you brought up Kanye. Let it go and leave the Brother alone. As someone once said, all people of color are not Democrats.
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But when people of color become de facto white supremacists, it's at the very least confusing.
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You don't have to be a Democrat to know there's something badly wrong with Trump. And with Kanye. And that they, like Bill Cosby, are terrible role models for anyone.
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No, all people of color are NOT Democrats, nor have I heard anyone say that they should they be. But comments by Chance the Rapper and others stating that not all minorities are Republicans comes across as a straw man argument to many of us who disapprove of President Trump because we do so because of the content of his character, NOT his party affiliation. The fact that Mr. West embraces TRUMP as The Leader of the Free World despite Trump's many obvious shortcomings, make us doubt Kanye's common sense AND character.
5
First and foremost Bill Cosby is an actor and we would do well to remember that. Every time we put actors, performers, athletes, "celebrities" on a pedestal as role models for our youngest and most vulnerable citizens we are gambling with failure. Let us remind ourselves that the parents, teachers, medical personnel, clergy, police , first responders, etc are the real role models. A mother who gets up a dawn to work in a diner to support her family is a hero - well paid actors on TV or ball players on a field - not so much! It's time to get our priorities straight!
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Clergy and Police? What about the headlines of the Golden State Killer being caught yesterday and that he was an active police officer during his killings? And I think we all know the Catholic clergy has been facing many similar problems as Cosby. This issue is more about a person's power used inappropriately than their particular profession.
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Mary Pat,
Unfortunately, sometimes the clergy,teacher,parent,police,,medical personnel etc..also turn out to be Bill Cosby. We have to be very careful when choosing role models no matter what profession.
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Sad but true!
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