We Need to Talk About Cosby, review: fine series refuses to let anyone off the hook
To the British, the downfall of Bill Cosby was interesting to note but not something that hit us hard. He was another sleazy man in the entertainment industry who turned out to be a sexual predator, one of many reputations to tumble in recent years. Across the Atlantic, though, Cosby was “America’s Dad”, beloved as Cliff Huxtable in The Cosby Show and revered for his decades-long career.
That career, the carefully cultivated image and the alleged crimes committed against women are intelligently explored in We Need to Talk About Cosby (BBC Two). I’m not sure how many British viewers will sit down to watch four hours’ worth of film on this subject, told through an American lens. But it is a fine piece of work, with film-maker Walter Kamau Bell refusing to take the easy route.
By that I mean that he confronts the reluctance of black Americans to believe that Cosby could be guilty, and the conflicting feelings they have about him now (Cosby was jailed in 2018 for drugging and molesting a woman, then freed in 2021 on a technicality; 60 women have come forward to make allegations and while many of these are now outside the statute of limitations, numerous civil lawsuits have been brought against him). “It doesn’t matter what colour you were, that’s the dad you wanted,” someone said of Cliff Huxtable, and that is true – I remember watching The Cosby Show as a kid and adoring him – but for black Americans, it went much deeper.
Cosby broke ground as a comedian, and a black performer on television – the first to play a heroic male lead, in the 1960s show I Spy – and presented a positive image of black, middle-class success in The Cosby Show. He changed the industry. He was a moral authority and a father figure, which is why so many feel a sense of betrayal.
All the contributors here accepted the allegations of Cosby’s behaviour, detailed in the film in case after case. But they spoke with honesty about where that leaves their feelings for him. One man says he still loves Cosby, and that wouldn’t change. One woman, when asked, “Who is Bill Cosby now?” replies: “He’s a rapist who had a really big TV show once. I can’t think of him any other way.”
