Growing up, my brothers and I were only allowed to watch an hour of television a week. We had to be judicious with that time because there was so much we wanted to see and so little time. In 1984, when The Cosby Show premiered, we quickly decided to allot half an hour to Cosby even though that meant we could only watch another half hour of some other show. We were a middle class black family, living in the suburbs where we were the only family of any kind of color. The only time we saw people who looked like us with any regularity was when we visited family in New York or Port au Prince. On television, there was nothing at all. The Cosby Show was a breath of necessary air. Here was a family like ours—sprawling, loving, complicated, true, black. Each episode offered a satisfying narrative arc and there was always a greater lesson to be learned, hearty laughs to be had.
As Cliff Huxtable, Bill Cosby seemed like the most charming, loving dad in the whole world. When he needed to impart some kind of wisdom or discipline, he did, but there was always warmth and humor in everything he did. Claire Huxtable, played by Phylicia Rashad, was sassy and independent but maternal and loving. She had it all—a satisfying career as a lawyer and a rich home life. Cliff and Claire were still in love after many years of marriage and five children. The kids were funny and charming and they bickered the way my brothers and I bickered but also loved each other in a familiar, fierce way. Here, on our televisions, week after week, for years, was a glorious display of a happy black family, black love, and black success. The importance of The Cosby Show cannot be understated.
The show’s importance no longer matters. It cannot matter.
There are always alarming whispers about certain men. There are stories women share as a means of self-defense. Steer clear of him. Don’t be alone with him. Don’t trust him. In the past month, popular CBC radio personality Jian Ghomeshi lost his job. In the wake, several women came forward with stories of his abuse and then there was an overwhelming tide of people who knew about Jian, how there were stories about Jian. The whispers became something much louder, more fervent.
Bill Cosby has been followed by such whispers for some time now. Bill Cosby. The JELLO pudding man. The brilliant comedian. Cliff Huxtable. The philanthropist and proud supporter of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The devil is cunning. And then Hannibal Buress started talking about Bill Cosby’s history of rape in his act. The whispers became something louder, more fervent.
Over the years, fourteen women have come forward, accusing Cosby of rape. His history of violence has been laid bare and it has not been enough. There are disturbing similarities between these women’s testimonies—often the women were drugged. Often, they were professionally vulnerable to Cosby and subject to coercion and manipulation.
There is a popular and precious fantasy that abounds, that women are largely conspiring to take men down with accusations of rape, as if there is some kind of benefit to publicly outing oneself as a rape victim. This fantasy becomes even more elaborate when a famous and/or wealthy man is involved. These women are out to get that man. They want his money. They want attention. It’s easier to indulge this fantasy than it is to face the truth that sometimes, the people we admire and think we know, are capable of terrible things.
And sometimes, it really is the people we know. Last year, I blurbed the debut novel of Gregory Sherl, because his co-writer asked me to. I had published his writing in a magazine I edited. We chatted online occasionally. I thought he was a talented writer and good guy. After my blurb was turned in, stories began surfacing about Gregory Sherl, the same way stories surfaced about Jian Ghomeshi and Bill Cosby and so many other men. Several young women have come forward with horrifying stories of the abuse they suffered at Sherl’s hands. I was and remain utterly appalled, knowing my words were on his book cover, endorsing his words when his actions were so reprehensible I have struggled with what to do and what to say but I have done my best. After a recent article about Sherl and the accusations he is facing came out, his lawyer e-mailed me, asking me to withhold judgment until both sides are known.
There is only one side that matters. I will err on the side of the victims, whether the abuser is Gregory Sherl or Bill Cosby or any other aggressor.
It’s all so repulsive—what Cosby has done, how many women have come forward, how many women may be out there, silent and afraid, and the extent of the system that allowed a man like Bill Cosby to prey on women in plain sight, the number of people who looked the other way, who helped him cover his crimes, who allowed his trespasses because he is Bill Cosby, wealthy and famous and seemingly above the law.
Rather than acknowledge the accusations, Cosby acts like they are a collective figment of imagination. In an NPR interview on Weekend Edition, Cosby responded to Scott Simon’s questions about the new allegations with silence. He simply shook his head. On November 16, his lawyer posted a mealy-mouthed statement on Cosby’s website mentioning Cosby’s age, as if his being 77 somehow excuses serial rape.
I can’t remember when I first heard these accusations but it has been many years. I’ve always believed these women but I have struggled because The Cosby Show meant so much to me. That episode, the one where Theo tries to prove he is independent and has to learn a life lesson about money? Classic. This is the pernicious trap a man like Bill Cosby has created. He believes his artistic legacy will absolve his criminal behavior. It cannot. We have to say enough. We have to stop implicitly or explicitly supporting Cosby. We cannot justify our fondness for him any longer. We have to demand that his show be taken off the air. We have to stop supporting any of his endeavors. His art does not absolve him. Art is nothing compared to humanity, nothing at all.
Tags: Bill Cosby, Gregory Sherl, sexual violence, the butter, where there is fire there is fire, Where there’s smoke there is fire
I’m so sad about this and so happy your voice is out there as always. It’s so hard to accept what people can be capable of. I’m only now getting better at pointing it out and refusing to be party to their excusers. Ugh.
“Art is nothing compared to humanity, nothing at all.” This is beautiful & crucial.
Perfect, really.
yes, a million thanks to roxane for putting that sentiment into a beautiful, simple 9 words.
Thank you for this. I went through something very similar with Woody Allen– I was raised loving him, watching his movies and my parents even read some of his more age-appropriate short stories to me as bedtime stories when I was a kid. And that meant that he was the one person I had to argue with my otherwise feminist friends about– people who are easily ready to condemn a football player weren’t willing to admit that their beloved Woody Allen could be guilty of evil. It seems trivial to even mention it but I feel a real loss that I can’t watch some of my favorite movies anymore, comedies that I used to associate with comfort and home and laughter.
I never got the Woody Allen love. He has always repulsed me; his movies seemed whiny and manipulative, narcissistic. I’m sorry that you’ve had to revisit your feelings about him.
How terrible that Bill Cosby has now been revealed to have been harboring these crimes. Those poor women. Who else knew, and looked the other way?
Maybe it’s to our advantage in this era, that terrible secrets can’t be covered as they once were.
It looks like they took down the link to the November 16th statement and replaced it with a little bit more legal jargon on the homepage.
Thank you for providing your voice on this, the last sentence says it all.
“There is a popular and precious fantasy that abounds, that women are largely conspiring to take men down with accusations of rape, as if there is some kind of benefit to publicly outing oneself as a rape victim. This fantasy becomes even more elaborate when a famous and/or wealthy man is involved. These women are out to get that man. They want his money. They want attention. It’s easier to indulge this fantasy than it is to face the truth that sometimes, the people we admire and think we know, are capable of terrible things.
And sometimes, it really is the people we know.”
This. So much this. Ever since I first heard about the allegations against Cosby a year ago…I just…I can’t even put into words the feelings, as a survivor. I appreciate this article a lot. Thank you for giving me some words where I haven’t had them before.
Yeah this part is really really true and incredible. I understand that it’s comforting to have a role model who seems unimpeachable – we all want an actual person version of Gandalf (or whatever other fictional hero) in our lives. The need is so strong because the world is a terrible place filled with terrible people. Ironically, it’s because of people like Bill Cosby who we thought were good and are not that we cling so powerfully to others like him.
“If Shakespeare returned to the earth to-morrow, and if it were found that his favourite recreation was raping little girls in railway carriages, we should not tell him to go ahead with it on the ground that he might write another King Lear.”
Orwell on the so-called benefit of clergy. It is not exactly the same, but it does deal with what excuses we are prepared to make for artists/famous people and/or their art. And while in theory I understand that I should be able to distinguish between the artist and their art, I find it very, very hard, if not impossible, when they’re guilty of something so horrible.
I just want to say how glad I was to see this piece appear. I expected a thoughtful and nuanced examination of this issue and I was not disappointed. Thank you, Roxane, as always.
So Good, So Difficult.
As I think this kind of thing is going to surface more and more, the beloved media-character turning out to have done done something awful, we really have to start thinking about some way/pattern/system/framework for all those who loved his/their work to come to terms with that.
This might sound like ‘but what about the menz’ because, shouldn’t our help and our sympathy be with the victims? YES. It should.
But the reaction of a nation/group of admirers to something they loved being so tainted & destroyed has a very high chance of being DENIAL (because au au au I don’t want this to be true is the human-est reaction of them all), which in turn might lead to the Famous Person being able to get away with it much longer, as the admirers of their work will jump on the ‘bitches just trying to undermine me’ bandwagon.
How can/could/should we deal with this all to prevalent phenomenon?
I’m no expert on any of this, but for me I look around and see so much extremism on both sides that fuels these constant dichotomies. Everyone is either all bad or all good and all of this gray area is lost in the need to be definite. Rape is not a gray area. Rape is a crime and raping someone is unquestionably a bad thing to do. But a person who rapes is no more completely evil by necessity as a person who saves another person’s life is completely good by necessity. We all have the capacity for virtue and villainy, for grace and malevolence, for the devil and the angel, and they’re often happening all at the same time.
Bill Cosby should answer these allegations with more than just silence, society should bring them to him with more than just interview questions. Punishment and condemnation are the only possible reactions. That’s the law and the right. But it doesn’t mean he’s never done anything good in his lifetime or nothing that can be enjoyed or empowering or helpful to someone else. And feeling that a current outrage taints a past good, that your memories of feeling joy in a television show that spoke to you, is the biggest hurdle to get over, to me. Once we allow for pieces of a whole, for entire human spectrums, people won’t feel the need to deny the bad so fiercely to hold on to the good.
This is an interesting perspective but man, I dunno. I kinda still feel like raping multiple women makes you a Bad Person. Even if I were to believe this philosophically, I can’t view the art without just feeling ill.
And you know what, this is completely fair and something I didn’t really acknowledge. The emotional ramifications of new information on past experiences is a real thing (I’m just a robot and honestly don’t really understand it) and not a quality that can just be dropped out of your brain, anymore than I could drop it into mine. Maybe it would be better put to say to people, forgive yourself for liking it back then, even if you feel differently now. When you loved the Cosby show, that doesn’t mean you loved rape. Maybe the extension of the extreme view, that Cosby is a bad person, makes people think they are also bad people because of him now too. Moral infection.
It just seems like people defend people like this with such a personal passion that it must come from somewhere inside of themselves, some wellspring of culpability. People felt like he was part of them, so that means they feel like they were part of him too. Maybe cutting that off is the real key; even if you completely condemn him, keeping it off of yourself. Keeping your own pieces all sorted out. Interesting.
And for those of us watching at home, the art was the man. No one thought Bill Cosby was “just playing a role.” I mean, obviously, he’s not a doctor, and the show had writers, but he was responsible for the content and direction of the show and it felt like all him, you know?
It feels different than loving Bing Crosby’s character in White Christmas while also believing he abused his kids.
This is such a tough question. I think really the only way this will change is if as our broader culture changes to believe victims more, people will understand that sometimes it’s just true even when you really, really don’t want it to be. I hope/believe that this is happen– although there is plenty of denial of the claims against Bill Cosby, Jian Ghomeshi, Woody Allen, R Kelly (god this list is long), I think it is meaningful that a lot of them are coming to light and getting a lot of attention now. I know that for me, seeing this happen multiple times reinforces more and more that sometimes there are huge, unpleasant surprises about people.
oh thank you for this. so much. i have just been ignoring the news about it because it’s just so painful.
the devil is so cunning, indeed. thanks for using your words to help me get through this. As a comedy lover, a child of the eighties and most importantly a survivor I needed this.
life is hard.
Roxane, your writing makes me feel grounded more than just about any living writer I can name. I picked up “Bad Feminist” again yesterday and it calmed me down, which I sorely needed at the time.
Somehow even when you are writing about terrible things that happen to people, your work is quietly inspiring, maybe because you speak the truth so plainly and without rancor. Thank you.
“There is a popular and precious fantasy that abounds, that women are largely conspiring to take men down with accusations of rape, as if there is some kind of benefit to publicly outing oneself as a rape victim. This fantasy becomes even more elaborate when a famous and/or wealthy man is involved.”
SO TRUE and the reason I no longer go to one of my favorite festivals.
usually this is followed by “but he’s never been convicted so we can’t know for sure or pass judgement!”. If only about 5 % of reported sexual assaults ever lead to conviction, I’m sure the numbers are even sadder when the accused are famous/wealthy, so that argument doesn’t mean shit.
For anyone interested in that story, btw, it started here:
http://putyourdamnpantson.com/2013/11/05/guest-po…
A woman writes about being assaulted by Jorge from the punk band The Casualties when she was a teen. Several comments and other posts by people around the U.S. bring up similar experiences. But of course, the punk scene as a whole keeps giving this disgusting predator the benefit of the doubt and continue to book him for shows where he has plenty opportunity to prey on other girls.
Thank you for this thoughtful article.
Thank you for this. You are right. We have to shift until we value humanity over art.
Tangentially, I’m pretty much over the people on Twitter who seem to think that your entire internet presence should consist of continuous self-flagellation for ever having blurbed Gregory Sherl.
Sending this to evverrryyyybodyyyyyyyy
That perspective makes a lot more sense to me. I have definitely experienced that feeling of “Oh my god, how did I not see this and what does that mean about me as a person?” I’ve even had a couple bursts of crazy anxiety-logic where, after hearing that someone I never suspected could be a pedophile, wondering ‘if even this person was, MAYBE I COULD TURN INTO ONE??’ The idea that evil is not always recognizable is both terrifying in that we see it’s potential in ourselves, and realize we can’t really protect ourselves from it.
Oh, evil is generally recognizable, and we all have the potential to perpetrate it, just as we all have the potential to do good. We can’t protect ourselves from it, whether we’re the evil-doer or the victim – we can only figure out how to rectify it or recover from it.
Isn’t the problem that we weren’t able to see the evil? This man misled us all. Year after year he has pretended to have pro-social qualities that we’ve learned he does not possess.
Had you been able to view his remorselessness, his entitled, sociopathic and predatory attacks of women, you’d of been able to reassess.
I know a man who was unjustly accused. I know it was unjust because I was there when the alleged thing happened and it didn’t happen. What happened was, dinner with three people.
And this is why I can’t say “Where there’s fire there’s fire.” Because once I saw with my own eyes that there wasn’t. And it is tearing me up inside because I also know what it’s like to be disbelieved about accusations that are true.
I know one man who was unjustly accused as well. However, I know dozens of people who made just accusations that were ignored and ridiculed. I also don’t know any men who have been unjustly accused by multiple people of the same crime. False accusations do happen, but they comprise about .0000000000000001% of rape accusations and our society acts as if they comprise 100%. This is why we choose to believe victims even when there is no ‘proof’. Especially when all we are doing is withdrawing our support and admiration for a famous man, not putting them in jail.
Wow the sentence “[its] importance cannot be understated” really got me like a hit in the head.
Nitpick Alert: the word that should have been used is “overstated.” “Understated” carries an entirely different meaning from the one intended.
Oof, I identify with this reaction so much. Bill Cosby wasn’t a part of my childhood but Woody Allen was- he more or less helped shape my identity as a nerdy neurotic Jewish movie buff. I didn’t realize until Dylan came forward just how much he was a part of my life, because now little jokes from his movies will pop into my head randomly and I’ll feel sick. I envy people who said “I never liked his movies in the first place”, because I did like them- I still do like them- and I wish I didn’t.
Thus, I get why people want to ignore people coming forward and pretend the people who built their childhoods weren’t monsters…but we can’t do that. It isn’t true, it hurts the innocent people they hurt all over again, and it allows other people in the future to think/know they can get away with it.
Thank you so much for your excellent and thoughtful commentary. I find my head in a stew over these things (Woody Allen, Bill Cosby) and your words are always so clarifying and ring so true.
Miles Davis. R. Kelly. Was just having this conversation with my daughter while watching the Aaliyah movie.
Thank you for not burying your head just because you were a huge fan of the Huxtables. Sadly many are. Long before these rape claims (the Seventies) while The Huxtables, Pudding Pops and the rest of the charming, lovable on screen personalities Mr. Cosby used to seduce Americans and make millions I knew what an a-hole this man was. Having been a neighbor of his in Shelburne, MA I witnessed his arrogant/abusive behavior first hand and have heard endless stories from others. I used to suspect it was because he was a racist now I am wondering if it is far deeper than that. Needless to say I was never a fan, far from it. I despised this man when I saw him on tv. Now when I hear these stories of abuse I am not surprised one bit. Karma is a bitch Bill.
I agree with so much of your article especially how some find it easier to disbelieve someone claiming rape than the possible purpetrator of the alleged crime. How many times have I thought “how can that be true?! She must be lying or after something”, which is disturbing. I’d rather have believed that, then as you say, accept a famous person has committed a horrific act.
And others have commented, sometimes this is the case. Sometimes someone does wish to bring someone down for whatever reason.
Here in the UK, we have spent the past couple of years coming to terms with how many of the TV presenters my generation grew up with have been revealed to be monsters. They’ve been found guilty. Their fame should be erased unless speaking about them in a documentary. They have been found guilty though.
We live in a society that has laws in place to supposedly protect us and until we have a revolution and denounce the systems we occupy, I think we should honour them by not erasing or condemning someone until they have been found guilty.
Aye, there is no smoke without fire and these allegations are years in gestation and from an outsider’s perspective there is a strong possibility that Bill Cosby could be guilty. However, the steps required to remove the accolades of that person can’t and shouldn’t be taken until either he vocalises something or is taken to court and found guilty.
Do you not agree?
No, I don’t agree at all. Life is not a court of law, and it should be. Different courts require different levels of proof: in the US that means that conviction of a criminal case requires more certainty than a civil one. I’m sure other countries do something similar. Criminal cases require such a high level of certainty because conviction can result in removing a person’s basic rights. No one is arguing we should lock him in jail without a trial. No one is trying to take away his rights without a guilty verdict. Roxane is saying she no longer thinks well of him and will not support him. Do you require a trial before you no longer think well of a friend who repeatedly treated you badly? Do you insist on going to a store in which the salespeople insult you each time because their insults have not been proven in a court of law and therefore you cannot be 100% sure that they happened? Of course not, because that would be stupid because not thinking well of a person or not supporting a store are not the same as throwing those friends and salespeople in jail. It’s funny how needing a court conviction before you change your opinion of someone only comes up in rape cases.
Thank you for replying. I too also no longer think well of him and nor will I support him. That isn’t my point though. It is the call to arms to have his show being taken off air that I am at odds with as personal opinion is one thing but to subjugate a person who hasn’t been convicted… well that goes against the “innocent until proven guilty” that society tends to honour.
At this point in proceedings, I would be more of the persuasion that he shouldn’t be allowed to have any airtime to promote himself or any new vehicle he wishes to commercially succeed with.
Hmm as I write it down I wonder if that then is hypocritical. No new material but okay for old material. It is such a grey area.
One thing that does have to stop and this isn’t just with celebrities but also anyone of wealth, that they cannot use their position of power to be more powerful than the law.
Savile was never convicted. The dead don’t get their day in court. You gonna honour the presumption of innocence where he’s concerned? How many victims d’you need to hear from?
I’m not of the belief that we should condemn the artist’s work after they do something horrible, because I believe strongly in separating the artist from the art. And Bill Cosby’s place within the culture of the 20th century looms too large to be eradicated. But his accomplishments do not outweigh his severe moral failings as a human being. From now on, when people write about him, it will always be with a giant asterisk next to his name, like Elia Kazan, Roman Polanski, and Joe Paterno.
Whereas I am, because FUCK ART. People are more important than artworks. I cannot stress it strongly enough. No movie, TV show or painting matters more than someone’s suffering. And separating art from artist, insisting that what the artist did has no meaning or makes no difference where it comes to enjoying and revering their works – because we revere artists when we give our love and admiration to their work – is morally wrong, and I would even go so far as to say revolting. A society that celebrates the artistic achievements of, say, Michael Jackson, while completely ignoring his sexual depredation on children, is a sick society that doesn’t give a flying crap about victims.
I agree with you.
While its a struggle, I think we can separate the artist from the art – especially if its already been made.
Art exists separately from the creator. We bring so much to art, that to dismiss it when it means a lot to you seems like taking away your humanity (dramatic, maybe, but you get it). Maybe we can change the way we approach it and celebrate it, but good art is moving, right?
The person committing horrible acts should not be excused, and as jnf663 says their crimes should be mentioned, and they can go to jail. But no person is only one thing, even if that thing is rape. Very few people should be dismissed or erased completely, to view them as only a monster supports the notion that normal people don’t commit crimes, and that criminals never do anything good.
This is a bit muddled. Thoughts?
I am disturbed and conflicted by this whole situation. The one thing that bothers me is the quickness of people to assume. Some assume the accusers are looking for a payday and others assume he’s 100% guilty. We should all know the reality is probably some where in between. The hard reality is that none of us have the facts. The only way for any of this to have legitimacy is through due process. So there is onus on Dr. Cosby to be forthright in addressing the allegations. As an African-American male, I’m also keenly aware of false allegations made against men and boys that look like me. People cite small percent but I assure you just as the Susan Smiths, Charles Stuart, Emmit Till, and Adam Lack cases allude to, there are many more cases (over 300 exonerated by the Innocence Project) that clearly show that all men who are accused are not always guilty. I also know that this is a no win situation. once this kind of allegation is made, you are forever suspect, even if you are totally exonerated. The scarlet letter sticks.
I am not saying I don’t believe the victims. I am saying they deserve to have the full story told and the incidents thoroughly investigated. They don’t deserve snap judgements either way. There is a lot of difficulty because most if not all of the collaborating evidence is now gone. So now it comes down to individual’s account of the events.
I teach psychology and every semester my students research and debate the efficacy of eyewitness accounts. EVERY class comes to the same conclusion,…they agree that due to the nature of human memory, no one can be convicted based on eyewitness accounts alone. This is over my strong protest that in many crimes all you have is the victims word. They hold fast to their researched based decision. Then, I share with them an article from Ask Jolene. The article describes a sexual assault on a college campus. The incident was a groping. So there’s no physical or coroborating evidence. They are left with the quandary we have here. The question I ask is does it make a difference if more people come forward with similar stories? Their research says, no. Their gut says, yes. The tough part is that absence of a confession we will probably never know the whole truth.
So here we sit not knowing what to do next. Some are burning all their old Cosby CD, records, video tapes and DVDs. Still others are blaming the victims for not coming forward sooner or casting aspersions on their character or motives. Neither of these is right until all of the information is in. For now we are left wallowing in cognitive dissonance, left with the question, “how do we know for sure?”
we know for sure because there is basically no way that fourteen women came up with the same story with no chance for a payday.
You believe the victims because our culture believes the rapist.
You know what? Given the rape culture we live within and the sheer enormity of suffering and devastation it creates, and the level of difficulty victims have in bringing their abusers to justice, men need to suck it up. Yeah, I said it. The injustice and torture that women suffer in mass numbers doesn’t simply *justify* erring on the side of the victim, it *requires* it. All this equivocation is bullshit. Eyewitness accounts are unreliable because memory is fickle? Give me a fucking break. You know how a victim can tell it was done to her? Because she was there, on account of how it was done to HER.
Some people will be unfairly accused? Some small percentage? So be it. What we value, as a society, is the security of men from being accused at all, not from being accused *unfairly*. All this whining about unfair accusations is whining about there being *any* accusations. And pitying Cosby because people are “jumping to conclusions”, given the cosmic amount of sheer power he has in this situation, unlike his accusers? Misplaced. He can wipe his tears with his millions, his professional influence and if he gets tired of wiping them himself, his lawyers, servants and former frat boy rapist producers can wipe them for him.
It’s admirable to be concerned that truth and justice be served, but why is it that this concern is for Cosby, instead of for 14 people who accuse him of horrendous abuse and deserve the benefit of the doubt more than he does, due to the balance of power in the situation?
How do we know for sure? Because arrogant, powerful, rich men with a sense of impunity because of being a media star beloved to the point of worship by millions of people makes it very likely that these kinds of abuses will occur. Because any one man having this much power is a breeding ground for abuse, and going after such a figure for redress of a sexual crime is extremely painful and difficult, and exposes any woman who does this of exactly these accusations:
– she is exagerrating
– she wants to hurt this person
– she is outright lying
– she wants his money
– maybe it was sort of mutual and now she changed her mind
Except that it’s not just you saying this, it is, again, millions of people. Some of whom will write violent misogynistic trash about them online. Some of whom will find out the identity of these women and stalk, harrass and attempt to assault them. These women are receiving death threats as we speak. Yeah, all 14 of them are dying to go through the trauma of being disbelieved, dismissed and vilified on a national scale. Pursuing justice for rape and sexual abuse is always so rewarding, dammit.
It seems that social science academics are not as versed in the psychological and social dynamics of abuse as one would generally expect.
DEAD-FUCKING-ON.
thank you SO much for writing this. for writing the Right.
I’m so sad about it. And I’m completely with you on erring on the victim’s side. Why potentially violate them again by not believing their story?
When we went to college I found out my best friend had molested her. It’s a long story but it turned out her grandfather who was a very strict, religious man had molested her and most of her siblings and cousins. He was certainly not the type of guy would expect to be capable of such atrocities but that didn’t matter. He’d done it.
I feel so sad that Bill Cosby was one of those guys. The Cosby show was one of my favorites growing up. Good, wholesome, funny. And now it’s all tarnished. If he did what these women say he did (and with so many women coming forward I am certainly inclined to believe them!) he was and is a monster. So sad.
Art is made by humans. Some humans are more despicable than others. I certainly agree that our love for the Cosby Show should not blind us to the real crimes committed by Bill Cosby. It should not absolve him in the eyes of the public, nor should it be used as a pretext to deny his victims justice. With something like the Cosby Show I can certainly understand feeling disgusted with the wholesomeness of the show versus the unwholesomeness of the man, with the hypocrisy and deception involved. But I guess I sorta think/hope that art sometimes takes on a life of its own and becomes larger than its creator, a component of the public consciousness, of culture-at-large. I’m sure there is art that I find indispensable that was created by people whose crimes were as bad as Cosby’s. I hope that I can roundly and thoroughly condemn those crimes while still finding something of value in the way that sometimes terrible, awful people manage to make things of great beauty and truth. It’s a wretched paradox, to be sure. I’m not by any means settled. And again, because it simply can’t be said enough, Cosby’s crimes are horrible and he should not be excused.
You know, there is always more art where it came from. And culture-at-large has a choice, whether to venerate an abuser or not. Individual art lovers have a choice, to decide that the suffering of the victims makes no difference to them where their cultural consumption is concerned, or that it does.
Seriously, what, the world is short of works of art all of a sudden, to find something else to dig without having to stare revolting deeds in the face and go, “yeah, it’s just such a lovely composition, so fuck ’em.”
Finally, an article and comments on Bill Cosby that I can read without wanting to defenestrate myself.
Thank you for this post. I too grew up with the Huxtables – the show impacted my life greatly. Since these latest allegations have surfaced, I’ve struggled with my original feelings about Bill Cosby and my horror at the realization that he’s not what I thought he was. I hate this version of him, and it hurts that I loved that other one for so long and am losing it now. Of course the show means nothing now and should be pulled off the air. Of course I can’t look up to him as I did, like a father figure. But I still grieve for this necessary loss of the Huxtables.
we know for sure because there is basically no way that fourteen women came up with the same story with no chance for a payday.
You believe the victims because our culture believes the rapist.
As more and more victims come forward, I believe as a nation we will all grieve deeply for the loss of a man who we believed portrayed the good husband and fatherly essence of Dr Huxtable in the Cosby show.
The Stephen Collins, Bill Cosbys and such men as this ( and women as well) will find their secrets becoming unburied and brought forth for all the world to see and judge. In the world today, where there is so much communication with mass media —whether written, broadcast, or spoken—it reaches massive large audiences. This includes television, radio, advertising, movies, the Internet, newspapers, magazines, and so forth. where the media is so upfront with communities like Facebook, Twitter etc. etc. it reflects and creates so much more coverage and depth then ever before. Communities and individuals are bombarded constantly with messages from a multitude of sources. It is getting harder and harder to “hide out” from the evils people have done and all the tangled webs they weave to deceive. We need to be prepared to find out more & more about the lives of celebrities, politicians and those in the so-called “limelight” to be held to accountability. You can’t hide any longer people. Cameras on every street corner and buildings. People with camera phones, The days of seeming invisible are over.
You know, it’s important to process and come to terms with having to re-evaluate a beloved media figure, but you know what, the women who are coming forward… I can’t help feeling that maybe the focus should be on what they are going through instead of the pain of adjusting to a fairly predictable and routine case of a powerful, influential male media star turning out to have feet of clay.
I have a few choice words to describe Bill: Sociopathic, narcissistic, arrogant, hypocritical, pathetic, clueless and un-funny
Excellent writing. And it’s so refreshing to read so many positive comments and not one degrading or insulting you. I’m old enough to have been raised on Bill Cosby’s records. My mother loved him and we listened to his comedy records often. We were poor, and are white, but his comedy was something everyone could relate to. I am also disappointed, disgusted and yet not entirely surprised at these allegations.