How sweet, CBS reports that Bill Cosby did a show last night and everybody forgot all about those pesky rape allegations and just had a damn good time laughing at his jokes. How warm and cuddly.
“I know people are tired of me not saying anything, but a guy doesn’t have to answer to innuendos,” the comedian told Florida Today. “People should fact check. People shouldn’t have to go through that and shouldn’t answer to innuendos.”
After giving the backstage interview, Cosby regained the revered status he long enjoyed, for 90 minutes at least.
The show in Melbourne, Florida, might have seemed destined for disaster for the comedian. What he got, though, was an adoring audience that laughed so hard they slapped their knees, shouted love at the stage and rose to their feet as he came and went.
“I think people went in there with him as Bill Cosby from the TV show,” said Travis Weberling, 40, of Melbourne, “not the guy they heard about on the news.”
As they should, as they should. He’s that guy from the tv show, and who cares about all those annoying women who say he raped them. The important thing is that he’s that guy from the tv show!
What remained to be seen was whether the evening marked a turning point for a beloved television father, or simply a momentary reprieve. It did nothing to immediately change the fact that Cosby’s projects have been nixed and stalled, performances have been canceled across the country and women continue to come forward accusing him of serious crimes.
Yes but he’s a beloved television father, which is as much as to say he’s all of our daddy, which means he’s kind of like god, which means he gets to rape women, because if god does it it must be good. (That Euthyphro guy said so.)
Cosby’s lawyer, Martin Singer, said the accusations had “escalated far past the point of absurdity,” dismissing them as “fantastical,” ”unsubstantiated” and “uncorroborated.”
“When will it end?” he asked. “It is long past time for this media vilification of Mr. Cosby to stop.”
And, throughout the audience, his fans agreed.
They talked of watching him on TV as a child, and of his albums becoming familiar friends when the moved to unfamiliar, faraway towns. They brushed off the accusations, howling at everything he uttered.
That’s right. That’s right. Brush them off. They don’t matter. All that matters is adoring the guy who played a good guy on tv. All that matters is maintaining the illusion that he’s a good guy like the one he played on tv. The many independent accusations of rape don’t matter at all.
His 90-minute set wandered from a childhood fear of God to the loss of freedom in marriage to the rocket-speed Spanish of a piñata-store worker.
He sat for much at the start of the show, then grew increasingly physical, impersonating jujitsu and gymnastics poses, laying on the floor in stocking feet and thrusting a fist upward in a gesture of battling the everyday oppression of living with a wife. And when it was over, he said “good night,” walking off as the audience again stood.
Cool. Battling women all the way.
Bill Cosby’s new tag line: “I’m not not-a-rapist, but I play one on TV.”
Bill Cosby is a comic leader, and we all know that we must revere our adored leaders, right? *cough* Shermer *cough*
In the Guardian report of this show they quoted an audience member who said “I don’t care about his private life.” Says it all.
MrF – it’s so damn similar.
edith – that’s so grotesque it’s almost funny.
Link, which has been expanded from when I first read it with a bunch of other horrific audience comments http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/22/bill-cosby-receives-standing-ovation-at-florida-show
Wives – only fit for punching AMIRITE??? YEAH!!!
Supposed to play my city in a couple of months. If it doesn’t get cancelled. I suspect he’ll keep the gig…who’s going to complain in Bakersfield, right?
So, if you murder someone in private, that’s just your private life and nobody else’s business? Really?
You can’t even argue that women aren’t human so who cares, because if you did stuff like that to a dog you’d have the SPCA on your case.
dismissing them as “fantastical,” ”unsubstantiated” and “uncorroborated.”
Reread that carefully. None of those constructions of language mean “they’re not true”
Really? That’s an interesting interpretation of the current set of problems.
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What would you suggest as a method of fact-checking, oh sweater-lord?
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Sounds rather much, really, like and audience with an agenda or journalistic license. Maybe not, but that’s how it sounds. If it were in a work of fiction, I would read that as the author’s intent.
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Unfortunately, he’s never been successfully prosecuted for the TV show to which they all obviously refer.
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Not by other women speaking up, to point out a pattern. That’s never corroboration at all. Just like no one ever abuses their privilege or orchestrates assault so that their is little physical evidence, or the victim is left without clear memory (whether in fact or in the judgement of the law and society).
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Who the fuck, if i may ask, talks this way?
Exactly, quixote. But if The Coz were to drug and rape a woman during his act, then that guy might seriously consider no longer being a fan. That’s called being rational.
I gotta admit that Cosby is still able to make me laugh. Calling what Barbara Bowman’s been telling the media ‘innuendo’ is freakin’ hysterical.
During Ted Bundy’s trial, people said was friendly, intelligent, handsome and likable. They couldn’t believe was a serial killer.
Just because someone presents a friendly face doesn’t mean there isn’t something dark behind it.
Part of this is how the media reports on white men who have committed heinous crimes – the wholesome aspects of their characters are emphasized:
Their humanity is emphasized, in other words. Now notice how black VICTIMS are described:
Notice that these are the VICTIMS of violence, whereas the white men above were PERPETRATORS of violence – WHY are the *victims* being portrayed in such unflattering terms, while the CRIMINALS’ humanity, even likability, is emphasized?? Read more here: http://www.thomdunn.info/blog/2014/8/26/a-round-up-of-terrible-people-who-still-received-more-flattering-news-coverage-than-the-late-michael-brown
Perhaps it is a coincidence, but Melbourne, Fla is an extremely conservative town. When I lived there after having lived in South Florida, I was surprised by the level of evangelical religiosity I encountered.
Cognitive dissonance at work. How does one reconcile the idea of a man who can inspire laughter and good feelings in us with the idea of a manipulative rapist? Obviously, those in the audience will have a harder time thinking “Well, he’s really not that funny,” so they find it easier to rationalize his crimes away. Not sure why one can’t find a person funny and a terrible human being (some kind of Halo Effect, maybe?), but that’s people brains for you.
WTF?
That’s not the reporter quoting either Cosby or an audience member, that’s his* own choice of words!
OK, he’s summarising the worldview Cosby has portrayed in his act, but there’s nothing to indicate that. There’s no “…as Cosby sees it” or whatever, it’s just a bald statement of fact: a husband living with a wife must necessarily resist her oppression of him.
That’s a really sick attitude for Cosby and the reporter to share with the world. It’s the time-honoured pretend persecution pose of the previously privileged – if I can’t have absolutely everything completely my own way you’re oppressing me.
Being married means you occasionally have to consider your spouse’s wants, needs and desires, and where they conflict with your own, sometimes you compromise or give in. Actually, that’s true not only of marriages, but pretty much any human relationship.
* – Assuming the reporter’s a man (which, in this case, I feel is justified)
Obviously it’s possible to find someone to be good at their art (whether it being composing operas, painting, film directing, acting or comedy) and a terrible human being. That’s perfectly allowable.
Ever expressing out loud anything other than condemnation for them being a terrible person, that’s the bit that’s Not Allowed. Try it some time, and watch someone leap to “correct” you.
You mean his life hasn’t been ruined forever because women told people he raped them and people believed them?
How can that be when rape culture doesn’t exist?
/s
Bundy thought that was hilarious, btw. He thought people were stupid and he enjoyed manipulating them. He said so. That’s why he tried to blame his murders on pornography in the James Dobson interview. He knew people would say, “Oh look what that thing I already disprove of did to this perfectly normal, educated, charming white man”. He knew he’d be given the benefit of the doubt because he didn’t look like what people thought a man who could keep heads as trophies looked like.
BTW, at the end he was quoted as saying,
battling the
everyday oppression of
living with a wife
This is especially funny since Camille and Bill have lived separately since the 70s.
Bill Cosby has a net worth of $400M. He’s got to be a good guy, since rich successful people are good by definition. He’s the jello pudding guy who says blacks are getting too uppity about civil rights. He’s Cliff Huxtable. Twenty women and counting independently now say his real expertise is in date rape techniques spanning decades apart. There is no financial incentive for any of this, or no means to prosecute Cosby for any of this. So why are they doing this? What did Cosby do to them to piss them off so much, to make them all make all of this up in collusion? I must get my fill of right wing faux family value comedy from a serial rapist, damned be the facts. Why do these women conspire to upset my carefully crafted delusions. Next your gonna pick on someone like Jian Ghomeshi. Right.
Everyone who clapped or cheered Cosby’s recent performance has been disappeared. True story.
Case in point: The recently auctioned Hitler watercolor, which was really quite a charming little work of art – there appeared to be enough actual talent there that I was left wondering if perhaps he might have possibly had a career in art instead… I saw comments online hoping that someone would buy it and burn it. What would be the point of that?
Blanche @23
Oh, if only Hitler’s artistic talents had been nurtured a bit more, he might have just been your run-of-the-mill Catholic antisemite.