Honestly, Bill Cosby looked funny in the light to me well before that infamous Hannibal Buress YouTube clip. Between his criticism of Eddie Murphy and other younger Black comics and 2004’s Pound Cake speech, the math hadn’t been mathin on Bill for a long time to me. However, that bitter disappointment didn’t hit others until that previously mentioned clip went viral and the sexual assault accusations came like No Limit albums in the late 90s. Suddenly, Bill was no longer the undisputed America’s Dad.
The aftermath of that seismic shift in 2014 was a rift in Black America so divisive that it’s doubtful we’ll see the likes of it again. You were either with the Black superhero Cosby or against the rapist Cosby, who allegedly drugged and raped more than 66 women, and there was no grey area.
In what’s probably the first effort to have a meaningful dialogue about the trauma our community experienced, comedian-writer-director W. Kamau Bell brings us We Need to Talk About Cosby. Flying through the doors Surviving R. Kelly walked to open, We Need to Talk About Cosby is a docuseries that attempts to explore both sides of the Bill Cosby dichotomy without undermining either part. Is We Need to Talk About Cosby a legitimate conversation starter or an attempt to exploit the crimes and traumas associated with its subject?
We Need to Talk About Cosby is an all-encompassing discussion about Cosby. It uses four 1-hour episodes to cover the five decades his legacy spans through archival footage, interviews, and commentary from those who worked with him, those who studied him, and those who idolized him. However, this is more than an encyclopedic journey to the past.
Bell quickly reminds (or educates) you about the talent, accomplishments, and activism that endeared Cosby to generations and made him a once-in-a-lifetime entertainer, but also how they intertwined with his perverted tendencies and growing list of sexual misconducts/assaults along the way. It sounds like a classic case of “Is It One Mic or Oochie Wally?” but it’s more so asking for us to consider that “One Mic” and “Oochie Wally” can exist in the same person. This approach allows the doc to flow in a way that educates both Cosby supporters and detractors without nullifying either side’s merits.
The handling of Cosby’s accusers is treated with an equivalent level of care. Rather than give them a peppering of questions similar to their previous public appearances, Bell gives the accusers in We Need to Talk About Cosby the space to tell the story of their experience free of interruption and the air of suspicion. The viewer isn’t challenged to determine if the women are believable. Yet, the amount of factual information the doc provides through first-hand anecdotes and its discussion of Cosby’s own words makes it worthy of being heard at a minimum.
While it masterfully walks the tight rope of acknowledging Cosby’s trailblazing path in entertainment and Black history and the alleged misdeeds that took place along the way, We Need to Talk About Cosby misses an ample opportunity to address rape culture accurately.
In its finale, the doc correctly assesses rape culture as a factor in Cosby’s decades-long avoidance of accountability, despite his consistent public championing of drugging women for sex across various platforms for decades. That much-needed truth serum is tainted when We Need to Talk About Cosby goes the cliché route of solely blaming Black men for the presence of rape culture in the Cosby conversation and the Black community.
Prominent Black women such as Phylicia Rashad, Jill Scott, Whoopi Goldberg, MC Lyte (check the 16:27 mark), and Erykah Badu publicly stated their belief in Cosby’s innocence. If you search the hashtag #FreeBillCosby on any social media site, you’ll find scores of tweets/posts made or liked by Black women professing his innocence and celebrating the tossing of his conviction. All of that makes it clear that ending rape culture’s persistence in our society is a group project that will require both men and women of all races to change their mindsets on rape and rape accusations.
True to its title, We Need to Talk About Cosby is the start of an intelligent conversation about an iconic figure who used comedy to sew the seams that brought us together and tore us apart when we learned he serially drugged and raped women. Bell confronts the viewer with both the good and the bad during Cosby’s rise from stand-up novice in San Francisco to the cultural icon who singlehandedly saved NBC and does so in a way that respects both sides of his tainted legacy.
At this point, the question of whether Bill Cosby will justly pay for any crimes he committed will ultimately rest with God or whatever deity he follows to determine. But until that day of judgment comes, We Need to Talk About Cosby gives a community burdened with finding a place for Cosby in its heart and minds a start towards finding the closure it needs.
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