The Cos of Bad Behavior

[penpusher]

Bill Cosby has been a fixture on television since the mid 1960s. A Temple University graduate. A Navy man. A stand-up comic with millions of records sold. The first African-American with top billing on a network TV drama ("I Spy"), frequent guest and then guest host on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson." There were all those commercials for those genuine American products: for Jell-O. For Kodak. For Coca-Cola. and, of course all his own shows, His first sitcom: "The Bill Cosby Show." His Saturday morning cartoon: "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids." His Variety series: "Cos." And his later work, "The Cosby Show" and "Cosby."


Throughout his career, both on stage and off, Bill Cosby maintained a high profile and a squeaky-clean image. He was a family man. Yes, he was the long-time host of the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl, but he was there for the Jazz, not the Playboy. He dabbled in movies, though the films he made were mostly flops, like "Leonard, Part Six" and "Ghost Dad." And we all mourned the loss of his son, Ennis, who was murdered by a would-be thief, when he blew out a tire in Bel-Air and was shot in the head as he attempted to change it.

The Huxtables, the family on "The Cosby Show," had become America's Family. And, all the while, Bill Cosby was becoming something of a legend. A spinoff series from his massively successful program, "A Different World," also became a hit, and Cosby was at the pinnacle of the entertainment industry.

Off the set, Bill Cosby was critical of a lot of people. He was critical of the black community, often suggesting that they were completely responsible for the lives they led and that they needed to make changes in order to achieve success. He did speaking engagements to pontificate on these topics and became something of a politician when delivering these messages.

Also, he was critical of other comedians for their subject matter and for their style of delivery. Cosby was known for never using curse words and for telling tales that the entire family could listen to and enjoy during his routines. It seemed he had a problem with people who presented things in a style that didn't fit his method.

Now we know.

Now we know that the Bill Cosby we all thought we knew was Dr. Jeckyll and that his Mr. Hyde was a sexual predator, intent on drugging, sexual assaulting and/or raping as many women as he could. And the women who have come forward run the gamut, from staffers and day players who were hoping for a break, up to names we actually know, like Janice Dickinson (who at the time was also starting her career) and Beverly Johnson, the first African American model on the cover of Vogue. Are there more we haven't heard about? Probably.

But the question about this isn't to do with whether Bill Cosby did this or not. Obviously he did do it, he did it all, did it with the help of others, paid off at least two of the victims and callously appears to care more about his personal image than the women he has harmed to get his jollies. The question is what was this all about?

Hollywood itself is a kind of drug; the people who are successful there often have many opportunities to use other kinds of drugs because of their success, be they narcotics, alcohol or sex. If it were just an opportunity for him to have sex with a bunch of random women, Cosby was already there without the need for anything else.

But Bill Cosby's apparent need to incapacitate his victims, by making them take Rohypnol or one of its derivatives, more colloquially called "roofies," makes this into a statement about who Cosby is and what he wanted. There was no mutual consent. There was no interest in safety. There was no care for the health, well being or even the respect of these women who he drugged, used, then tossed away, like empty Coke cans.

There are so many women who were victimized, you have to wonder, was Bill Cosby a pharmacist on the side? Did he always have drugs at the ready to slip into the drinks of these trusting and unsuspecting models, actresses and staffers? How many was enough to satisfy his sexual and domineering appetite?

Now, there is the aftermath. Bill Cosby's career is over. So are the royalty checks for the episodes of "The Cosby Show" that all of the actors on that program were receiving. The disgrace and disgust he is now being viewed with is something that he has brought upon himself. And he will have to deal with the ramifications of all of this in a personal way with his family.

Even though he won't be charged with a crime, as the statute of limitations has run out on bringing him to court, what looked to be a great Hollywood story will conclude with an ugly and embarrassing ending. As Chris Rock noted in his interview with Frank Rich for New York magazine, on the topic 2014 in comedy: "We lost Robin (Williams), we lost Joan (Rivers) and we kinda lost Cosby."

Really, though, based on the behavior now coming to light, we lost Bill Cosby a long, long time ago.

//

Bonus: this sort of fits the LJ Idol topic - "The future outwits all our certitudes"

Comments

[ragdoll.livejournal.com]

This whole thing breaks my heart. I (like you) grew up with Bill Cosby being part of my family, watching the original Cosby show (the one where he was the PE teacher named Chet), Fat Albert etc. and all the comedy albums. When I worked in a video store in the 80s, "Himself" was always playing on a tv somewhere.

That said, I always knew he wasn't the nice guy he played on tv. A friend's uncle was a big commercial director in the 70s, which was around the time of the Jell-O campaign. I remember her telling me that Cosby was a real blowhard who didn't like working with the kids very much. There've been other stories about him being difficult to work with, so it rings true.

The sexual predator stuff...*sigh* Aside from the fact that it's just plain disgusting and awful, you'd think a star of his stature and power could've gotten plenty of willing tail. I'm sure he had to have plenty of groupies, so why the hell did he have to resort to drugging and raping these women? (Not that I'm advocating being a sleazy screw-around kind of guy, but let's face it, that's Hollywood!)

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

I think one of the things that is much more apparent now than it was back in the day is that people can be, are and sometimes must be different from their public personas. But there is the small matter of understanding right and wrong, especially in the case of someone who seemed to want to judge others.

Clearly Cosby had a fetish or desire to have women who wouldn't remember their encounter and who couldn't do anything about it. Really, he should have just bought himself a couple of "real dolls" and it all would have been fine!

No, but seriously. We have discovered that Bill Cosby has issues, and wanted his women to be comatose and amnesiatic, which says a lot about who he is, all of it, bad.

It is heartbreaking for everyone... all of the people he had worked with, all of the advocates that had previously stood by him, his family (or families?) and of course all of those victims who endured the behavior when it happened and are in a very big way, reliving it again now, with everyone watching and asking questions.

Bill Cosby might have retained his brand had he just stopped being so critical of everyone else. I'm not saying he should have, and really, he should have been brought on charges at the time (however the death of Ennis really happened at the best time for avoiding all of that, which is freakishly sad to me). But Cosby was the ultimate Glass House resident and now, the walls have come crashing.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Sexual violence is the physical expression of the desire to exercise power over another. I'm guessing Cosby wasn't satisfied with the traditional groupie or casting couch scenarios, but wanted to demonstrate his complete authority over their bodies. Hence the use of sedatives.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

The past couple of years have seen a large number of such 'cold cases' coming to light within the British entertainment industry. The death of the DJ and tv personality Jimmy Savile, someone who had sidestepped such rumours for decades, has been followed by high-profile prosecutions of many of his contemporaries, as the public demands no further predators use fame or fortune to evade justice for their victims.

[ravengirl.livejournal.com]

He's absolutely a sociopath and may be a psychopath. He's an arrogant, self-serving monster who needs to control everything and harm others to feel superior. And so he has. I wonder now about his wife; not only what she knew and knows now, but how she has been treated all these years. I'm sure there was household staff who witnessed some of these atrocities and I wonder if they ever called police and how that panned out.

This is not "heartbreaking" to me. An actor, a comedian, is a person. Cosby was paid for his work. And we watched and listened and laughed. But the man is a monster who needs to pay now for these crimes. I cannot wait to see him go down and I LOVED his comedy albums.

[herwonderfulday.livejournal.com]

this was all very shocking to me when I saw it on tmz. my dad and I used to watch and quote Himself all the time.

"daddy's great! gives us the chocolate cake!"
"I don't know!"

I find the whole thing very bizarre.

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

Yes that's absolutely right. It is about power. I guess the adage "absolute power corrupts absolutely" would apply here.

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

The Savile story has been brewing for quite a while, and it appears there were many red flags throughout the years he hosted to suggest that a lot of bad was going on. I mean, people specifically asked him if he was a pedophile! (Not sure what answer they expected him to give...) It's too bad he's not still alive because he should be there to face the music, as it were.

There's another fellow in Canada named Fergie Olver who hosted a game show with his wife where mothers and daughters tried to match each other's answers (similar to how the Newlywed Game worked) and he would constantly try to kiss the little girls, right on camera! there are YouTubes of him doing it! That may not be quite the same, but it is inherently creepy to see.

Olver, I don't believe, was ever charged with anything, if those little girls ever felt abused or molested and I don't know if anything else happened off camera. Still, he is sometimes compared with Savile in that way by the critics who viewed his behavior.

I think the thing that makes this whole Bill Cosby issue so disturbing is that the "family man" image was so strong, his work around kids was so noted and his comments about "right" and "wrong" were so definitive. Here's a guy on the moral high road, dictating what the rest of us should be doing.

Beverly Johnson, in one of her first interviews since describing her experience stated "This is bigger than Bill Cosby. This is about women and violence on women. This is about women finding their voice. I feel that Cosby took my power that evening and that I took my power back."

Ultimately the power that Bill Cosby wanted was beyond all reason. He wasn't a king, he was a tyrant. And as long as he ruled, he had his way. Could Cosby be brought up on charges? I don't know. But in the court of public opinion, the verdict is in.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Can't argue with your observations on Cosby's 'family man' / patriarch angle. Savile sure never claimed that one.

On the other hand, Savile was totally unbiased in his choice of victim: the young, the elderly, the healthy, the sick, the disabled, the dead. A truly unbigotted scumbag.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

To be precise, "tends to..", but it's clear Cosby has major issues. It's possible they're rooted in the way US society has treated its black population (the abused frequently become abusers themselves), but that's no excuse.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

People cover up. From fear, from a desire not to lose their income or place in society, from plain denial. Anyone who ever heard a story about Bill Cosby's sexual predation, then ignored an event they'd witnessed which seemed to play into that scenario -- you are at least partially responsible for his roaming free these many years, and you should consider your own culpability.

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

Definitely a sociopath with his on camera behavior/public image and his off camera criminality. I wonder when he started, what set him off?

Are sociopaths and psychopaths made? Or is that a function of brain chemistry or genetics or something mental that happened, somehow? On one hand, the experiences we live do shape us into who we are... our reactions, our choices, our feelings do inform what we do, what other experiences come our way and how we move on from there. On the other, we are told that sometimes this is who that person is, that this couldn't be helped...

In either event, there is a need to understand. That is the heartbreak of this. If we think that sociopaths are made, there was a point when he wasn't one, when he could have been reached and reasoned with. If we think that sociopaths are born, then we still have to wonder how he managed to convince everyone that he was normal when he clearly was not.

You bring up an important point - that of the enablers, the people who worked for him. When you are the head of a production company, and all your employees rely on you being there or being unemployed, there is going to be a lot of silence about behavior that might get you removed from your job. So, this is an unconscionable circumstance. I'm sure there were moments when people saw something and might have said something, except it would mean they would suddenly stop getting a paycheck, and so would all their co-workers.

The other layer about this is that as one of only a handful of African American television stars, and I mean bona fide stars, not just working actors, there was a certain level of pride in Cosby's career. And he wasn't just the actor. He directed some episodes of his series. And more importantly he was a producer, so there was a lot of potential for him getting people hired and fired. There haven't been many African Americans before or since who have had even a fraction of that kind of television success and fame as Cosby.

Based on what we're seeing, it seems like Bill Cosby is never going to answer any of these charges. Will he actually be brought to court? These accusations date back 25 to almost 30 years. I suspect the only way he will say anything now is by a subpoena.

Though, in a sense, he has been tried and his career is over. He had to cancel his stand up comedy performances. His return to NBC with a new TV series pilot will never happen. Reruns of any of his television series will not air anywhere ever again, and it probably means that YouTube accounts that have clips of those shows might be closed as well, if they haven't already deleted the videos themselves.

It's not a judgment in a series of court cases, but it is punitive, certainly for a person who was at the top of the world and is now viewed with revulsion by the same people that admired him before.

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

Shocking and bizarre are the first adjectives I thought of when I heard this. Well, maybe not shocking, as there was the payoff of Autumn Jackson that was widely known about, and how she gave birth to Cosby's child. But then it all sort of went away and you didn't hear anything else. But obviously, there was a lot else!

Hollywood is a bizarre place and people will overlook a lot of horrific behavior from those that can provide them with work.

As I stated to ravengirl, I don't know if sociopaths are made or born. Maybe it's both? But Cosby either was made into or was born a sociopath.

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

Cosby was king. And we don't know who was fired, who intended to either confront him directly or try to talk with other people within the production company about what they might have witnessed. It's a difficult situation when you are just a resident of the court and the tyrant is aware of what's going on.

Perhaps more of the story is going to come out as more people are coming forward. Maybe then we'll have a better understanding of who was involved and who was working to help cover it up.

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

I guess similar things were stated during the OJ Simpson trial, but I'm not sure how that translates. This seems more personal and rooted in something other than race, not that I'm a psychiatrist! Abuse of women is the issue, it appears, and that comes with its own series of issues...

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Which doesn't get around the fact that Savile's crimes were covered up by many he had no power over: the managers of numerous children's homes and hospital wards, charitable organisations, BBC staff, local and national politicians. It's a stain upon our society.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

That "pride" comment intrigues me, Dean, because it is indeed possible a few turned a blind eye towards both Cosby's 'blowhard' behaviour and his sexual predation because they did not wish to pull one of the first African-American (I dislike that phrase, on several grounds) 'stars' off his pedestal.

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

Ultimately, those charitable groups and the people that ran them were still getting funding through Savile's work, so though it's not identical to this Cosby situation, it is similar. Those people were still making money from this, so they chose not to speak.

I'm sure if you did a survey, some would regret their decisions to stay silent, others would stand by them claiming "the greater good" as a reason...

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the really shocking aspect of the Savile 'revelations' is that very few of us found the news "shocking and bizarre". Most found his tv persona at least slightly creepy (how come the BBC never picked up on this?) A friend of mine told me she was advised by her mother to avoid him when he DJ'd local discos in the 1960s. It never stopped: he was even asked to his face about the allegations in a 2000 documentary, but shrugged them off. Guess the UK police were too busy in the 1970s and 1980s fitting up random Irish folk for terrorist bombings.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Sadly, that element of dependence cannot be ignored. Ditto those hospitals which relied upon the donations Savile attracted.

Personally, I'd have flushed him down the toilet in 30 seconds. And that's not just a vague comment: I've put my job on the line before, when one of the directors of a company I worked for went racist. In the end, he backed down and apologised. Little victories, huh?

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

I'm sure that Bill Cosby knew what he represented as far as being a "ground breaker" for African Americans, and also knew he could use that as part of the protection he was afforded to commit these acts. His public image was so sparkling, he made Mr. Clean seem like Pig Pen. And that element was also important because anyone accusing Cosby of anything during that time would seem like an extortionist or attention seeker.

Clearly there was the sense for the overwhelmingly white media to attack Bill Cosby could be seen as "racist" and it's difficult to know just how much that influenced the decision to report (or more accurately to avoid reporting) these stories when they came across the RADAR of journalists. I would presume there was a lot of "wait and see" from editors and TV producers. Nobody wanted to be the first to break that story.

[fodschwazzle.livejournal.com]

It's been hard coming out from under the shelter of not wanting to destroy my own concept of Cosby. That contradiction of clean language and family man and even sanctimonious attitude that seemed to especially creep out after the death of his son against the absolute vileness of his attacks against women... it's such a stark contrast that, at first glance, is difficult to believe. I give Hollywood less credit for making the monster than I give them for protecting their monster, though, since I am relatively certain that you and I could become ridiculously famous without ever thinking that giving a person Rohypnol in order to have sex with them was a good idea.

A very well stated discussion piece, this is.

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

When it comes to a person who is in the public eye, the thought is that they are the ones in the right. It's similar to police officers in that way. We assume that the people we know and the people who are supposed to be protective are going to be law-abiding, and that anyone opposing them are not.

And that's why these allegations against Bill Cosby are so interestingly timed with the allegations against the police officers that killed unarmed citizens. It has some parallels that are worthy of examination.

People often place the wealthy and famous up on a pedestal. Truth is, they're no more or less human than anyone else. But when you revere someone in that way, it becomes more and more difficult to both accuse them of doing wrong and to believe that they did wrong, even if you know the facts.

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

Really, isn't this the issue when it comes to the cases of white police officers killing unarmed black citizens? Even when you have video evidence, people are still siding with the cops because we fully expect the police to abide the law. So we can look at a video and see what happened and still justify it in our own minds as appropriate because we really want to believe that a police officer would never do something illegal, or there had to have been a reason, or that person was a criminal anyway.

It's that kind of psychology that makes situations like those, and like this one, with Cosby, so slow to change, so difficult to examine and so excruciating to resolve.

[fodschwazzle.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is pretty similar. Not much justice for the victims in either case. Watching those that accuse these figures of wrongdoing get slandered by so many who simply cannot imagine the wrong is harder to take than the fall of Bill Cosby, though.

In that sense, we all protect the monsters, I suppose.