What is there to address? I DON'T understand how someone can enjoy The Cosby Show in 2021. It's all about Cosby as an entertainer and he's not entertaining. Of course I understand that people can be "complicated" but Cosby's entire career is built on how relatable he is to other people (dealing with the dentist, feeding his kids, dealing with parenting issues). How can anyone relate to a show where he played a GYNOCOLOGIST? There are no "other aspects to The Cosby Show - even if he's not in a scene, it's all about him.

I don't have a "hard time accepting" that I enjoyed Cosby once. I didn't know then what I do now. He fooled me - but I certainly won't make the mistake of wasting a second of my time on his material going forward.

At what point do we admit that someone fucked up too badly to stop supporting their artistic efforts? It's very easy for me to avoid Cosby - I just don't watch or listen to his stuff.

I don't want people to negate Bill Cosby's career as a successful comedian. That did happen, but his wikipidia page shouldn't start "William Henry Cosby Jr. (/ˈkɒzbi/; born July 12, 1937) is an American stand-up comedian, comedian, actor, and author who had an active career for over six decades, starting in 1961" followed by 3 paragraphs describing his career, while his life as a serial rapist is first mentioned in the 5th paragraph.

William Henry Cosby Jr. (/ˈkɒzbi/; born July 12, 1937) is an American serial rapist, who used is influence gained as a stand-up comedian, comedian, actor, and author who had an active career for over six decades, starting in 1961, to rape dozens of women.

So you want to edit his Wikipedia page to include many errors and generally make no sense?

You're so emotionally conflicted that your posts are like pretzels. I hope you thoroughly research the lives of any comedian you watch moving forward.

Good lord. I'm not "emotional" at all I just don't want to watch Cosby anymore and I think it's weird that anyone else does knowing what we know about him.

And if information like this comes out about another comedian or any artist I currently enjoy in my ignorance, I'll happily drop them too!

Sure, Jan.

Laughing at a comedian who's also a serial rapist is a weird flex but okay.

I think the only one flexing is the person trying to prove his moral superiority but okay.

But definitely not the person who's trying to prove he's a better person for being able to compartmentalize a serial rapist's raping from their past work, some of which was made during the same time in which he was raping.

Sure, Dan.

Let's shut it down, guys. Getting too political and personal.

Who's trying to prove he's a better person? I never said that.

I think that's the problem some people are having here. The fact that I can laugh at a joke someone makes doesn't make me a better person. It also doesn't reflect on my morality or what I think about Cosby as a person. I said that I can respect others' views on it, but clearly others can't.

And I don't remember the stand-up special that was filmed during a rape. I guess I missed that one.

Fair enough. "Better person" was the wrong term to use. I guess I'm just saying that, for as much as Draven (and others, like myself) is saying that he can't disassociate the rapist from the rapist's jokes, you keep saying that you have no problem doing so. I misunderstood this to mean that you felt like your position was more... correct? rational? unbiased? I don't know. As I said, I'm not sure what the right choice of words here is... it just comes off that way. I apologize for this error.

True, and I also said I don't particularly care if you can or can't keep laughing at and consuming the guy's material, even if I do find it very strange that folks can do so, without much of a second thought. Like, if you want to binge-watch The Cosby Show in 2021, you can go ahead, but... are you really going to do anything like that without the reminder that, yeah, this dude was raping folks on the down low while making bank off of this show?

Well that's not what I said. "during the same time" doesn't literally mean "at the exact same moment" but I can understand that I could have been clearer and said "timeframe"

I'm 35 and I'm not really familiar with much of Bill Cosby's work. I haven't seen much of his standup and I'm aware of his sitcom but it was before my time. When I think of Bill Cosby the first thing that comes to mind is the sexual abuse. It's probably the same way with most people my age and younger, and it's unlikely that new generations will be discovering his work in a positive light. It seems to me like the history of rape will be his legacy.

One might even argue, that if a person is concerned about their legacy, they probably shouldn't be raping people.

as far as compartmentalizing, it's easier to do so with a Polanski movie because he is not there front and center. I can't watch a movie with OJ in it, and not think oh yeah he's the guy who almost cut his ex-wife's head off, it kind of messes with my suspension of disbelief.

Yep, that's back to my point about The Cosby Show and his stand-up specials being all about him. Those wouldn't exist without him - that's why it's impossible for me to make that distinction between "comedian" and "serial rapist".

You bring up an interesting point. Did serial rapists and sexual predators who are famous, rich and powerful always behave that way or did they start out without any skeletons in their closet and at some point think, "Hey I can act out this desire of mine and get away with it because no one will ever believe my victims?" These people evidently think they won't ever get caught and--as we've all learned--many times they don't. I mean, some people enter politics or the movie or TV business precisely because it will provide them access to young women or men or boys or girls to sexually exploit, while others found out after achieving success how easy it would be. I can't imagine Cosby became a successful comedian because he thought that would allow him to drug lots of women and rape them. I don't know that the comedy business in his day would offer many of those opportunities. I'm guessing he became successful and then, over time, saw how easily he could manipulate women and had a lovely, loving wife who would pretend it wasn't happening, so somehow he started on that path. At what point did that begin and what did he tell himself to justify it? I don't know and I doubt we ever will.

Give it ~30 years and Cosby won't have much legacy one way or the other. He will start to be forgotten, like almost everyone. How many 20-year-olds today know who George Burns was? Or Jackie Gleason? Or Bob Hope? A hundred years from now, few people are going to even know Cosby's name, let alone that he was a famous comic and a rapist. The current widespread knowledge of his rapes will likely sweep his relevance into the dustbin sooner than otherwise, but it would have ended up there eventually anyway.

So what's important is the here and now. The fact that Cosby has been released doesn't exonerate him in the public's eyes, and everyone knows that--including him. He will live in shame, for what time he has left.

I’m sure it depends on the individual but cases like Cosby or Harvey Weinstein, it’s obvious that they used their position of power to rape these women.

I think you're off on how things happened. I came in just to point out a faulty comparison that someone else made. Draven decided to once again chime in and say who's going to laugh now at any of his routines. I didn't even bring that up. He was the one pushing it and wanting to continue to perpetuate that discussion. Yet I'm the one who keeps saying something?

But if you want to speak being rational, I don't think it's rational at all for one to expect everyone to fall in line with your point of view, especially when it comes to humor. I don't think many of the things that Draven in particular has said are very rational - at the least I find them a bit contradictory.

But when did I say that anyone was outright wrong? I even said I respected the other viewpoint. Please look again at what I've said or asked - many of which went unaddressed. Why can't someone think Cosby is a monstrous and terrible person and is also funny? How did this totally destroy his legacy as a comedian? He has no longer had a major comedic influence on people? It seems like a lot of "because I said so." Why is Draven so focused on pointing out he can't find observational humor from a serial rapist funny? Because it's all right if it's slapstick?

When I watch a movie or something, I might have a moment where I recall something about the person, but I'm not watching it to ponder that person. When I listen to a Led Zeppelin song, I'm not thinking about all the underage girls they slept with. Speaking of which, who here has quit listening to that group because of their past?

My biggest issue with much of what is being said is the absolute nature of it. It's not a simple "I can't view his material any more because of what he did." It's basically saying something is wrong with you if you don't agree with the way I think.

But I think a lot of it in this case is that many of his fans felt duped by him. Draven even said at one point about being fooled by him. I guess I always saw it as a stand-up act. I didn't necessarily believe everything in it. I also don't understand how he fooled his fans when he made jokes about Spanish fly as early as the 1960s.

For me, the line I draw isn’t necessarily whether someone can still appreciate the performer’s old routines/performances but whether they justify enjoying those performances and ALSO claim they’re innocent.

Saying, “Cosby is a serial rapist piece of shit but I won’t insist that his past professional history is erased” is a completely different story than someone who says, “See, justice was finally served! Cosby was exonerated and his shows, comedy specials should still be aired on ABC Family.”

For the record, I don’t think anyone here is doing the latter.

To be fair, almost EVERYONE was fooled by him. During the height of The Cosby Show in mid-to-late 80s, Bill Cosby was known as “America’s Dad”. Not only was he on the #1 show on TV, he was making commercials aimed at children, hosting additional shows aimed at children, was giving inspirational speeches at college graduations, etc. It was more than just Cosby acting for his show or his stand-up. That WAS the Bill Cosby everyone knew and loved.

Yeah, his whole image was squeaky clean. I can't even remember a single role where he "turned heel" (anyone have any?)

Well, he was the devil...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_and_Max_Devlin

My edit was lazy, but so was your response. You should't play stupid. I think it's pretty clear what I meant. Being a serial rapist trumps his being a comedic achievement, it doesn't negate them, but I'm pretty sure that in future years, when people talk about Bill Cosby they will talk about him like people talk about O.J. Simpson. You can't ignore his heinous acts, while thinking about him. It's not like 2Pac or Mike Tyson where one crime tends to be forgotten. It's not that I want to force people to think that way, I certain it will happen, especially since it's will be last thing Cosby is going to be in the limelight.