Bill Cosby'd Prefer If, Instead of Bill Cosby, We Focused On Democracy (?)
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Bill Cosby, aren’t you tired? Instead of napping, the 84-year-old disgraced actor and comedian has responded to the release of an upcoming Showtime docuseries titled We Need to Talk about Cosby, directed by the stand-up comedian W. Kamau Bell. In a statement provided to People magazine, the actor’s spokesperson called Bell’s series a PR hack job and defended Cosby’s legacy: “Mr. Cosby has spent more than 50 years standing with the excluded; made it possible for some to be included; standing with the disenfranchised; and standing with those women and men who were denied respectful work because of race and gender within the expanses of the entertainment industries.”
In addition to his work of “standing with the excluded,” Mr. Cosby was also the star of the groundbreaking TV series The Cosby Show, a spokesman for Jell-O, an education advocate, and an alleged sexual predator who has been accused of raping, assaulting, and drugging over 60 women dating back to the beginning of his career in the 1950s. In 2018, Cosby was convicted of sexually assaulting one of his victims, Andrea Constand, and sentenced to three to 10 years in prison. Dozens of Cosby’s other victims were barred from filing lawsuits against him because of state laws surrounding sexual assault and statutes of limitations; too much time had passed between when the supposed assaults occurred and when the victims came forward.
Cosby served more than two years in prison before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the conviction based on a “due process violation” which claimed that Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele broke an agreement between Cosby and the previous DA to not use his confession against him. In November, Montgomery County prosecutors appealed the Pennsylvania court’s decision to the Supreme Court. The justices have yet to respond. Mr. Cosby continues to deny all allegations against him.
Wyatt’s statement continues: “Mr. Cosby knows the realities of prosecutorial violations; and that those violations are threats to the integrity of our nation’s criminal justice systems. That is a subject matter for a professional documentary. Let’s talk about Bill Cosby. Mr. Cosby vehemently denies all allegations waged against him. Let’s talk about Bill Cosby. He wants our nation to be what it proclaims itself to be: a democracy.”
Bell’s docuseries delves into all of these details, including the prosecutorial violations, in its exhaustive discussion Bill Cosby. From the impact his success had on young, Black kids growing up in the ‘70s to the dehumanizing trauma his alleged victims have been forced to deal with for decades, We Need to Talk about Cosby leaves no stone unturned. In fact, in its frank conversation about how to reconcile with problematic figures like Cosby, the series provides a more comprehensive portrait of the actor and his impact than viewers might initially expect.
That’s a good thing. Figuring out how to feel about someone who had a meaningful effect on American culture but also stands accused of gross, despicable crimes should require serious consideration, including a full backstory shot from multiple angles, which We Need To Talk about Cosby provides.
The docuseries also illustrates how personal the process of grappling with toxic yet influential public figures like Cosby can be. In the most literal sense, one man’s comedy hero can be another woman’s rapist. To make this point, Bell asks each of the individuals he interviews, including several individuals who claim to be Cosby’s victims, Black cultural critics and comedians, and members of the cast and crew of The Cosby Show, a simple question: Who is Bill Cosby … now?
The answers—which are cut and spliced for effect—range from “pinoeering tv personality and “one of the most successful comics in history” to “a monster,” “a rapist who had a really famous tv show once,” and “one of the biggest predators in Hollywood.” Perhaps former Ebony magazine Editor in Chief sums it best: “an example of the complexity of humanity.”
Even Jerry Seinfeld, representing the aging stand-up comedian community, gets to add his two cents. Bell includes a clip of Jerry Seinfeld and Stephen Colbert discussing Cosby’s legacy in the series final episode. Seinfeld says he can separate the art from the artist, Colbert says he can’t.
As for himself, Bell says it’s complicated; he can, but only if we all admit “there’s just a Bill Cosby we didn’t know.” Of course, when it comes to determining how history will remember him, not everyone’s opinions matter equally, and Bell wisely gives the final word to Cosby’s victims. Now, in responding to the series, Cosby has gotten his word in, too.
We Need to Talk About Cosby begins streaming January 30.
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