It is probably is beginning to get exhausting at this point, talking about Bill Cosby. I've honestly tried to stay as far away from the whole scandal as possible. In fact, I haven't watched "The Cosby Show" in years, in part because it hadn't been on my mind to watch it, but also because as time has gone on, it has become more and more clear that Dr. Bill Cosby isn't as lovable in his real life as he was in his role as the renowned Dr. Cliff Huxtable. However my own coping with that reality is as complex as the legacy that Bill Cosby and his first show have left in the fabric of American culture.
GrI grew up with "The Cosby Show". I remember staying up to watch it on Nick-At-Nite. I specifically remember my crush on Lisa Bonet. I remember all of it. I may not have been alive during it's initial run, but that hardly made any difference on how important it was in my life. I grew up in a single parent household, and while there were plenty of male figures in my own life who stepped up and were examples to me, including my grandfather (an amazing man in his own right), there was always a time of the day where the only father figures I had to turn to were the ones on my TV screen. Bill Cosby, or rather Cliff Huxtable, was one of those father figures, constantly reassuring me of what I could do if I worked hard enough, teaching me the importance of fatherhood, being a good husband, setting goals for one's self and then achieving them. To this day I hope that I find a wife as loving and as amazing as Phylicia Rashad's Claire Huxtable. They were ideals and goals that any reasonable person could grasp and internalize.
Additionally, in a lot of ways Cliff Huxtable reminded me of my grandfather, which is another reason why I held him so close to the fabric of my morals. Both were family driven men, who cared immensely for their families and would welcome anyone who was willing to learn, into their homes and lives. And for the record, my grandfather to this day remains one of the best people I have ever known and one of my most favorite people in the world (Rest in Power). So, a few years ago, when I was hearing about Bill Cosby and the sexual assault allegations I couldn't help but try and deny it, rationalize it, ignore it entirely. You see, I didn't completely love Bill Cosby as a person. As a young teenager I found his deriding of the black community for the problems we face, detrimental and almost hypocritical. But I chalked it up to the cranky old age of one of the world's most brilliant talents. His achievements were too great to let his vocal frustrations with the black community overshadow his legacy. Cliff Huxtable was too important to my life to truly criticize his creator.
As time went on I did the typical rationalizing of the allegations by a person blinded by nostalgia. "Why would these women wait so long to come out and tell the truth?", "How could the man who created "The Cosby Show" ever be so vile?", "Someone must be out to get him." As celebrities jumped on his bandwagon, it only solidified my resistance to the idea that Bill Cosby could have been a bad person. However, as more and more women have com out and testified to this truth, there is no more denying it. I would love to join in on the conspiracy that this is a plot to ensure that the black man remains down in a society of systemic oppression, but I've never been much of a conspiracy theorist. At the same time I am not going to condemn the man either, whatever happened, is between Bill Cosby and the women who have stepped forward. I'm not here to speculate, but instead reflect.
It wasn't until I decided to re-watch "A Different World", a much less Cosby centric show that I truly had to confront these feelings. I won't lie, for a while I succumbed to the jokes about Bill Cosby as a coping mechanism and as a way to distance myself from my true feelings about the man. However, I never truly dealt with it, with knowing that my fictional father figure was just that, fictional. As I watched Denise ask her dad for money in one of the early episodes, I was forced to confront the conflicting feelings that Bill Cosby brings to me as a young black man. I was forced to confront my initial refusal to accept the idea that Bill Cosby could indeed be a bad person. I was forced to confront the idea that legacy doesn't equal reality, and that as much as I would love to believe that Bill Cosby was Cliff Huxtable, the truth is that they will always be separate entities, two entirely different people. One an ideal molded into a lovable role model and the other a human with the ability to make choices that have weight in the real world.
And with that confrontation came the reality that "The Cosby Show", will never be the same for me again. The glass has been forever broken. It wouldn't even matter if tomorrow every woman who came forward recants their allegation, my perception of the idea of legacy will always be guarded and tainted.
I don't know if I'll ever be able to truly watch "The Cosby Show" again. I know some people feel like you can separate his legacy from his reality, and I will always recognize the contributions he made to black culture and entertainment in general. However if you've ever been made sick by a food you really like, you know how hard it is to still like that food afterwards. It doesn't matter how much you liked it in the past because it won't ever be the same. "The Cosby Show" is that food for me that made me sick. There's a lot of beauty that was created by evil in this world, that's a fact of life. It's disappointing to know that your heroes are just as human as you are, however I guess that's a part of growing up. However, if there's one good thing to take out of this whole situation, it's that beauty and good can come out of the worst situation. And while my perception of Bill Cosby and his creations will forever be altered, the effect that he and his work have had some beautiful repercussions and I can take solace in that.
