Fallout From The Quincy Jones Vulture Interview

[penpusher]

The most controversial part of the Q interview, that I pointed out yesterday, is the element surrounding his good friend, Bill Cosby.

Marchese: We’ve obviously been learning more lately about just how corrosive the entertainment industry can be for women. As someone who’s worked in that business at the highest levels for so many years, do all the recent revelations come as a surprise?

Jones: No, man. Women had to put up with fucked-up shit. Women and brothers — we’re both dealing with the glass ceiling.

Marchese: But what about the alleged behavior of a friend of yours like Bill Cosby? Is it hard to square what he’s been accused of with the person you know?

Jones: It was all of them. Brett Ratner. [Harvey] Weinstein. Weinstein — he’s a jive motherfucker. Wouldn’t return my five calls. A bully.

Marchese: What about Cosby, though?

Jones: What about it?

Marchese: Were the allegations a surprise to you?

Jones: We can’t talk about this in public, man.

In other words, Q knew.

Let's think about that for a minute, then put that in context.

Joe Paterno was the long time football coach for Penn State University. Jerry Sandusky, his assistant, was a serial rapist, continually molesting little boys and teenagers throughout the duration of his tenure at the school.

Paterno was held partially responsible for his assistant's actions, was stripped of the accolades the university had previously bestowed upon him and was sent packing in disgrace, all because he did nothing.

While Quincy Jones is not in the same position with Bill Cosby, in that he didn't hire Cosby for jobs or didn't bring Cosby into circumstances specifically, the way Paterno did with Sandusky, the parallels make one pause. Why wouldn't you blow the whistle on someone, even for their own sake, to get THEM some help, let alone stop them from harming more people? Why would you ignore those actions knowing that these actions are illegal at least, immoral at best?

I'm not certain that anyone is going to come after Q for this, but it definitely made me sad.

Comments

[staxxy]

It is sad to say, but I suspect that the reason Q didnt out Cosby back in the day boils down to two things:

1) Other than calling him on it to the press (and thus creating a feud that would put Q in very bad stead with a lot of folks he needed to be on the good side of); and

2) by the time Q is likely to have known Bill, Bill was literally too big to out in that era. This would have been around or shortly after Bill was doing I Spy, which was a ground breaking show in that the black guy in the show was both a main character and not considered a side-kick, but was seen to be capable and smart. It was a big deal that this show happened with a white guy and a black guy on equal footing, outsmarting bad guys and holding their own.

Ultimately, I suspect that Q did not feel like his own position was strong enough to say anything about it. Unfortunately, from the I Spy days Bill's star only got bigger and harder to address anything like this. He went from Big Star, to Big Deal in the Family Entertainment field with Fat Albert and the Electric Company, and then on to The Cosby Show. He also had a series for a while where he was a teacher to a variety of students.

It really hasn't been socially acceptable (read: not career suicide) to call a lot of the people that are being nailed to the wall now. Between how that sort of thing coming out would negatively affect that company or whistle blower, and the loss of revenue that person was generating, it was too much for most people to face.

But really, all of this boils down to people being too chickenshit to stand up to this sort of nightmare behavior. I think that, more than anything else, the internet's popularity combined with smartphones putting all of that in your pocket is to thank for the massive progress that the Me Too movement has become.

[penpusher]

While I agree that Cosby likely was doing some of this drink drugging and woman molesting even back in his "I Spy" days, it seems that more of the action was occurring during "The Cosby Show" era. At that point, Q was an extremely respected and world renowned producer of Michael Jackson's 3 biggest albums, "Off The Wall," "Bad" and the still biggest single album of all time, "Thriller." I have to say that in many ways Q was even more respected in show business than Cosby at that point, or at the very least, equally respected (Cosby's Golden Raspberry winning film "Leonard Part 6" also was from this era).

I really think by the 80s and 90s, and that's the era where most of Cosby's accusers have stepped forward from, Q would have been in a position to talk about this on equal footing with Cosby. The problem is that addicts, and I think this behavior is appropriately described as an addiction, typically do not listen to reason, especially if they are in a position of power and are not in a place where they must examine their actions and motives. So, I know and understand that it would have been difficult to address this.

But I still relate this back to the Paterno/Sandusky situation. Why didn't Paterno say or do anything? That's complicit behavior. You know it's wrong, and you allow it to continue. To do NOTHING? I don't know that I could live with myself knowing the consequences of what happened to those that were molested and knowing I could have helped to prevent it.

Cosby was a landmark performer. A Black stand up who didn't work blue, family friendly and camera ready, intelligent, well-spoken, had some good ideas. With so few opportunities for persons of color to have succeeded in our society, especially during that difficult era, doing anything to take down one of the longest standing pillars of the community, especially as a friend of the person in question, would have made this extremely difficult in several ways. I totally get that.

Hannibal Buress, the comic that finally called out Cosby in 2014 only did it because Cosby continued to moralize and preach to black boys and young men that they were the cause of their own demise by dressing badly, speaking incorrectly and not fitting in to society. But by that time, it was a very badly kept secret that this was going on... Or perhaps this would still be some still not discussed topic had Cosby not bothered to moralize to a generation too young to have viewed his iconic family sitcom in prime time.

Maybe this all happened the way it should have, but maybe this could have happened without so many getting hurt because of it.

[xaotica.livejournal.com]

it's been incredibly rare in my life to see any man called out on sexual assault, rape, etc.

every acquaintance in my social circles with that reputation has been whispered about vs confronted.

[penpusher]

It's true. The elements of what is "appropriate action" when it comes to this has always been to leave it alone. But I wonder if Q ever had any hint of a discussion with Cosby about this and how it was bad professionally and personally for him, not even broaching the issue of the harm it was doing to the women he drugged, molested and/or raped?