How ‘The Cosby Show’ Fooled America: The Sitcom That Reveals Our Ugliest Reagan-Era Fantasies
As a child, I loved eating dinner in the kitchen, sitting alone at the family table and watching monster movies, “Sanford and Son,” “Good Times,” “The Jeffersons” and “The Cosby Show.” .” My mother obsessively washed the dishes, leaning against the air conditioner on humid summer days; our dog, a black-and-white mutt, would lie on the linoleum floor, waiting intently to see who was coming. one of our first evenings, when I had finished my homework, before going back to playing Nintendo, I was shouting about the wonders of “The Cosby Show,” that The Huxtables are America’s greatest family, everyone should have a father like Bill Cosby.
My mother threw the dog a piece of bread and pulled up the sleeves of her winter coat to keep from catching fire in the oven, poured tea and threw a few verbal darts. “You don’t have to look at TV to find a role model or a father figure. He is here, in this house, right now.”
I remembered that moment the other day when I saw on the news that Cosby had admitted in a previously sealed trial to drugging women to rape them. It’s very possible that Cosby is a serial sex offender. Thus, the public scolding of the black ghetto underclass may in fact commit worse “crimes” than wearing low pants or giving their children names that reflect their There is an unfortunate deficit in economic and social capital. As Salon’s own Brittney Cooper explained, much of the Anger at Bill Cosby stems from the fact that he betrayed the special trust that Black Americans placed in him. His most notable enterprise, “The Cosby Show,” is a shining example of upward mobility, dignity and a well-functioning black family. Now Cosby’s legacy has been called into question.
Americans on both sides of the color line were upset by Cosby’s behavior not only because of the horrific nature of his crimes but also because his failures robbed people of their innocence and positivity. the youth of many of them. Forgetting childhood nostalgia is one of the most painful parts of becoming (and remaining) an adult. But perhaps the focus should now be on the origins of that nostalgia, and how the politics and value of “The Cosby Show,” which was so appealing to so many people and for so long as such, relies on a distorted and inaccurate representation of the black community, a community that has allowed a dangerous type of right-wing “colorblind” racism to flourish. Television presents a distorted image of reality. It—and other types of mass media—are the primary means through which the public can understand unrealistic and misleading images of human social relationships. Family films and sitcoms are both good examples of this phenomenon.
“The Cosby Show” follows the struggles and daily experiences of a wealthy New York black family called the Huxtables. Cosby’s father is a successful obstetrician, and his wife, Claire, is a partner in a law firm. They have one son and four daughters. They come from a long line of successful African Americans who have graduated from historically black colleges. The show was a response to the white imagination, which largely viewed black and brown Americans as poor, as members of the lower class, as criminals, or as beaten down by racism – and therefore lack autonomy, freedom or upward mobility.
