Or it's an honest philosophical discussion about how people engage with art.

Because I live in the United States in 2021 and a lack of critical thinking skills and a tendency towards herd mentality is a greater threat to our democracy than Islamic terrorism ever was, a million people have been killed because of that.

I do find it interesting that the assumption is that avoiding Cosby stuff is probably because of virtue signaling and woke or cancel culture and NOT because he raped dozens of women.

Like at this point I think it’s weird to watch The Cosby Show and laugh.

Pfft, if you truly were critically thinking you'd easily understand why some simply FREELY CHOOSE to not watch Cosby anymore.

I guess "herd mentality" is only ok when it's...what's the OPPOSITE of WOKE?... Asleep? Unaware of of things outside of one's personal bubble/echo chamber?

Well, I think about it this way. Cosby's crimes are extreme examples of a celebrity doing something terrible, but they are not the only examples of actors doing something terrible.

What are the boundaries of everybody's moral sensibilities that what this guy did was bad enough that you can't look at him anymore, but what someone else did is "acceptable?"

At least I'm consistent that none of it affects me.

For example, Matthew Broderick was responsible for an auto collision that killed two people. Where's everybody's sense of moral outrage over that?

Tom Selleck was the face of the NRA. Why don't people hate his guts for his complicity in all the school shootings, and reject his acting on that basis?

Movies and TV shows are littered with actors that we know or suspect are scumbags and adulterers, we accept that.

And again, going back to my ultimate, original point, I didn't ask everybody why they can't enjoy Bill Cosby anymore, I asked this:
So, set aside all the stuff about whether you personally can watch/enjoy Cosby's work anymore. Can people just admit that his work was great and important? Can people make lists of the greatest sitcoms of all time and put The Cosby Show on there without twisting themselves into knots about it?

OJ Simpson is both a murderer and one of the greatest players in NFL history. Those two ideas can exist simultaneously and both be true.

And I'm going to say again, why would the fact that the conviction was overturned but to all reasonable standards, he's still guilty as hell, change anyone's mind either way?

If you weren't watching the Cosby show before, it wasn't just because he was in jail and now that he's free you're all cool with what he did now. So why would the people who pretended like it never existed (which is nobody that I've seen post in this thread... some of us won't watch it but we don't deny it's existence or boycott the airings) change their minds?

You mean like Draven admitting that he thinks BC: Himself is the greatest comedy special of all time, but he won't allow himself to enjoy it.

It's like people smashing the Dixie Chicks albums they already bought and saying, "I'll show them!"

Who are you hurting? Who are you helping? What battle are you fighting?

The overturning of his conviction put his name back in the news and generated posts in this thread, and that presented an opportunity to ask that question.

Like I posted before:

But here's the deal. I have been doing this while I have been sitting at my computer (supposedly) working. Here in Austin, it's 5 pm on Friday and now begins a long holiday weekend. I'll stop looking at the thread, but I have enjoyed the debate.

If the Dixie Chicks raped a bunch of people, I wouldn’t bop to their music while driving to work. Even if I loved them as a kid.

It’s not about making a statement to anyone but myself - I cannot physically laugh at Bill Cosby Himself anymore - which is an hour and a half of just Bill Cosby and nothing else.

Is it really so hard to understand how raping dozens of women taints the legacy of everything he accomplished?

Side note: The Dixie Chicks did nothing to justify the backlash they received. It’s not only not the same ballpark as Cosby, it’s not the same universe where the ballpark is located.

I'm still wrapping my head around 'woke' = 'bad'.

Count Dooku

You keep using the phrase "woke police" as if it were more than an attack phrase used to describe activists who fight against something that the right wing likes.

Campaigning to prevent gay marriage? Not woke police.
Campaigning to allow transwomen to use the women's bathroom? Woke police.

Recruiting a boycott of Starbucks because of their Christmas cups? Not woke police.
Recruiting a boycott of Bill Cosby because he's a serial rapist? Woke police.

"Cancel culture" and "virtue signalling" have the same provenance. You're smart and articulate -- come up with some of your own arguments.

Why are you comparing a (actually, many) pre-planned criminal act(s) with an accident (Broderick was probably negligent, but it's pretty unlikely that he set out to have a collision and kill two people), or with someone that held a position in a legal organization, as much as you may hate it (I hate it too, FWIW) ?

The scumbags and adulterers you refer to may not be moral people, but they're not necessarily criminals.

I think you've chosen poor analogies, here.

In theory, you could watch Chinatown and enjoy it without even knowing Polanski was the director. OJ has a relatively small part in The Naked Gun series (but it’s weird/shitty to see him in there now). Bill Cosby’s stand-up specials and The Cosby Show are literally all about Cosby.

For the record, I also think Polanski is a piece of shit and I don’t have to struggle with watching his stuff because I don’t really care about his movies. And I can’t remember the last time I watched a Naked Gun movie. But the only reason to watch The Cosby Show is for Cosby. I don’t know how anyone can wrap their head around enjoying him as the main reason to watch the show while also knowing he’s a serial rapist.

Having a higher threshold for suspension of disbelief is something I do understand. That's subjective and their own threshold. What I can't get behind is the notion there is no limit to the suspension of disbelief. I'm pretty sure if a Count Dooku doppelganger would appear in a movie, Count Dooku would just watch the movie til the end, never wandering while there is someone exactly looking like him in it.

Suspension of disbelief is a contract with a piece of art and the viewer and for most of us, this contract is broken, when the artist is a serial rapist.

Comparing Bill Cosby to Tom Selleck. Did that really just happen!?!?

That’s like saying Ted Bundy and a law abiding member of the NRA are the same thing.

Yeesh.

When your argument relies purely on pejoratives and presuppositions of others' motivations for avoiding the consumption of a serial rapist's past work... (Work that, ultimately, gave him the power to commit those rapes, something that may not have happened if he wasn't a supposed "comedic genius") I dunno man... Maybe you need to take a step back to figure out what your own point actually is, because it sounds to me like the only 'virtue signaling' is people who seem to performatively proclaim that they're able to compartmentalize a rapist's actions (that is, raping a bunch of people) from being able to laugh at the funny rapist's old jokes. Sounds more like borderline sociopathy than something to be proud of, but I ultimately don't care if someone wants to keep watching his entertainment, even if it makes a few thousand too online Twitter nerds upset for a week or two.

I remember a few years back that Tom Selleck got caught stealing water from a hydrant for his ranch during a drought.

So, if that's true, he's an entitled asshole of the highest degree.

I'd call Cosby a "comedic genius." He had a long string of successes. Recording bestselling comedy albums. Co-staring on an action TV show. Creating a children's cartoon. A giant hit sitcom. He was absolutely a household name.

If it is true, he is, but he still won't qualify for a ripped from the headlines episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Bill Cosby now is primarily a serial rapist and he should be remembered as such. Charles Manson isn't remembered as a song writer.

There have been a lot of wonky comparisons in this thread, but this one is pretty out there. I get what your point is supposed to be, but Charles Manson isn't remembered as a songwriter because he was unsuccessful at it. Like it or not, Cosby was one of the most influential and successful stand-up comedians of all time.

Yep, and his serial raping destroyed his legacy. It doesn't matter how good of a comedian he was - who's gonna laugh at his routines now? How can anyone laugh at his jokes about being a dad and going to the dentist?

How is his legacy as a comedian really destroyed? I'd say it doesn't necessarily matter if you can laugh at his routines now. Were other comedians not influenced by him? Was he not one of the most successful comedians of his time? Those things aren't erased; his legacy is intact. You might feel it is now tainted, which is understandable, but it doesn't erase the other things. To me, his legacy as a person is the thing that's tainted.

And I could still listen to and laugh at those routines. It's not possible for someone who has done horrible things to also be funny? If someone else recited the same routine it would be OK for it to be funny again? Do rapists not go to the dentist?

I cannot bring myself to laugh at the observational humor of a serial rapist Knowing what we now know about him, he is no longer entertaining. And he's not even in jail for his crimes either. Nothing funny about him anymore. And I feel terrible for enjoying him as much as I did, knowing what a monster he was.

Yes, you've made your personal feelings on the subject very clear. A number of times. In fact, you basically just chose to repeat those feelings again without addressing the things I asked.

I respect your feelings on the subject, even if I think those feelings are laced with a good deal of drama. How come you don't seem possible to respect others? How come you can't accept that some people might be able to see that he's funny AND a monster? How come someone has to be only one or the other? How come people can't be very complicated and with many sides to them, sometimes good and other times very bad? Why is it that because *you* no longer find him entertaining, his entire his legacy has been destroyed (because you didn't actually respond to what I wrote, you just repeated your feelings - again)? Why can't someone enjoy other aspects of The Cosby Show besides Cosby? Because you say so?

I think you're just having a hard time accepting that you enjoy the observational humor of a serial rapist. That doesn't make you a bad person - unless you were laughing at him joking about serially raping people. It just means that the guy was funny.