I think we’ve mentioned Bill Cosby’s alleged rapeyness in the Jared/Subway thread, but I don’t think we’ve dedicated a thread to him yet.
He was arrested today (Wednesday 12/30/15) and immediately posted a $1M bail.
Bill Cosby was charged Wednesday with sexually assaulting a woman who told authorities the actor drugged and abused her at his Pennsylvania home 12 years ago.
The comedian and actor was charged in Montgomery County, Pa., with aggravated indecent assault involving an encounter in early 2004. An arrest warrant has been issued in the case.
Dist. Atty. Kevin Steele told reporters the charge stems from “new evidence” uncovered this year.
It’s still massively icky, and depressing. I grew up listening to Cosby on 12" vinyl LPs. Really loved his comedy. Always felt he was a stand up guy. Felt terrible when his son was murdered (well, I still feel terrible about that). To see all of this come down now is pretty much a massive downer. If he’s guilty, of course, he needs to pay, but that doesn’t make the situation any happier for anyone.
I also grew up listening to his albums and loved them, along with Picture Pages, Fat Albert and The Cosby Show at various points of my youth.
That said, his whole holier than thou schtick had already soured me on him long before any of this came out. And, on some levels I feel like there is a connection. “What gives him the right to judge other people?” was my feeling every time he went into another harangue about the way kids wore their pants or the vernacular they used. It’s one thing to be a role model but that’s not what he was doing. There was, on the one hand, a level of presumptuousness and, other the other, a lack of empathy and I found both off putting.
I remember listening to and loving his standup comedy as recorded on LPs when I was young. I liked that a lot more than I liked his Cosby show in the '80’s. While at times I thought his social criticism was a bit cringe-inducing, the idea of trying to fit in and be part of the mainstream isn’t a bad strategy for success. What a hypocrite though! He’s a shitty human being.
And it’s confusing to think of the enjoyment I got from his standup and how I agreed with some of things he said to reconcile that with his apparent serial raping. What a jerk.
Ugh. For reasons I maybe can’t justify, this whole story gives me a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. I so much admired Bill Cosby when I was a kid and then as an adult. He was one of the timelessly great things from my childhood, like Star Wars and Looney Tunes (okay, those were passed on from a generation before). The Himself album was just perfect. And then I can’t help but read with morbid curiosity some of the victims’ stories, his absolutely atrocious treatment of them, the presumption of privilege, compounded by his lying and lying and lying about it in public statements, and the filth-by-association that it puts on his wife and family. It makes me feel sick in a way that probably a million other things more rightly should, but for whatever reason it’s Bill Cosby that gets me. Ugh.
Yeah, I agree completely. I watched the Cosby show for quite a few years during my childhood, and he was always a figure of strength, compassion and wisdom to me. This really, really sucks. It unfortunately only shows, that even the giants of yesterday are only human beings, and some of them despicable ones as well.
I was going for “better safe than sorry”. It’s either the story of a horrific sexual predator who used his position of power and privilege to have his way with innocent girls OR it’s the story of a man who has had his career destroyed in the media over unsubstantiated claims by women who are looking to make a buck off his fame. Toss in the whole thing with Cosby and the black community, and I saw the potential for this thread to go to some very P&R places pretty quickly.
I think Tin was right to put the story in P&R. It’s a very charged topic. There’s no real way to discuss the allegations against Cosby without dipping into P&R.
My feelings are not mixed. Growing up, I loved his comedy. I watched the shows, bought tapes of his comedy routines and I even got one of those sweaters for Christmas. Now, though? He’s an unrepentant serial rapist. I hope he dies in prison.
When asked about the slew of women who have alleged sexual misconduct, including drugging and assault, at the hands of the now 78-year-old comedian, Griffin said, “There is a systematic effort to destroy every black male entertainer’s image. They want us all to have an asterisk by our name.” He went on to reference the 2003 rape allegations against Kobe Bryant, child molestation accusations against the late pop star Michael Jackson and reports of excessive gambling regarding retired NBA star Michael Jordan as examples.
“Nobody leaves this business clean,” he added.
“Did he rape these bitches?” Griffin asks rhetorically in his VladTV interview. “Why would you go to the room of a known married man?”
