Daddy’s daughter was active on the Cosby show
It can be said that this is a highlight for the art of impersonating team life. I’m sure many of you can walk and chew gum at the same time, right? Well, I bet Bill Cosby could too. In fact, I bet he can think and talk at the same time. Indeed, I bet he can act brilliantly, write excellent comedy, and is a sexual predator. It’s called the human condition, and its inherent contradictions are part of the complexity I study, but I’ll study more about that later. So it’s not a character flaw if you like The Cosby Show; if it was a staple in your family growing up. There’s nothing wrong with that. However, I have never been a fan of the show. That doesn’t make me a better person, a psychic or anything like that. Certain things always worried me as a teenager, especially when it came to girls and their bodies. Especially their virginity.
Imagine it’s a normal day in the Cosby family (season 6, episode 12—so America and the Cosby family are very comfortable with each other at this point), but Denise (played by Lisa Bonet), who second eldest, returned from Africa married. That’s right, she is married and has a daughter of her own! Shock, excitement, hurt, awkward laughter and a father questioning his new son-in-law about his daughter’s virginity on her wedding day. Did I mention that Denise spent two years in college and met Martin while working in Africa? Martin asks for some time alone with Cliff as his new son-in-law and what is said to be initially uncomfortable turns into fun since they are both military and relieved for their time as children. Denise’s daughter. This part of the show still sticks in my memory as one of the strangest and most awkward parts of television. Why is this important? Why is it important? Why is this funny?
When Cosby’s name appeared in the headlines in 2004 after his famous “Pound Cake” speech, I thought: hmmmkay, there’s a fussy old man but whatever. I recall how he fell out with Lisa Bonet after she posed nude for Interview Magazine and she eventually left the show because of “creative differences.” I think I can at least appreciate the movie for its depiction of healthy, no-nonsense parenting because I can relate it to my own parenting. But that’s it. My parents have been divorced. My father was engaged for the third time and my mother never remarried. According to Cosby, I come from a broken family.
However, according to Cosby, it is completely normal for a father to discuss his daughter’s sexuality. This is not okay.
This is important now because for sexual predators like Cosby, they view women as property. Women are not human beings, have no identity, no name, personality, habits, eccentricities, certainly no completely autonomous self. Why, if autonomy is taken for granted for women, is it okay for a sober adult man to sit down with another sober adult man and be completely mutually concerned about the virginity of his child? My daughter/wife is completely abnormal.
Even Bill Cosby, that episode is not an exception in our society. Chastity is a completely acceptable statement in television sitcoms and entertainment in general. It goes like this: There is a daughter who is developing, almost an adult. There is a father. A girl dates/marries/marries/gets married to a man. Sex is discussed, gah! This plot and sexual dynamic between father and daughter occurs regardless of the racial or class position of the characters/family. For example, I remember another screwball scene in Father of the Bride II with Steve Martin. In this one, his daughter is now pregnant and after they announce this, the camera quickly pans to Martin, who then has a brief, angry daydream where he realizes that his daughter him being pregnant means she definitely had sex. GASP. Who is the boss? , The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, that entire list of TGIF shows every Friday night (in Step by Step, the contrasting sexual prudence and insatiability of the stepsisters is a joke going on. Again, I see something gross (in the case of Step by These are teenage girls – not grown women).
So why does this matter now? Because, in this case, Bill Cosby’s art is not so far removed from his personal life. In his personal life, he treated women as property, and in his writings and performances, he also treated women as objects.reats a woman’s sexuality as his own dispossessed and negotiable object to be a sexual predator?
