Discussion for article #232432
Why is Woody Allen’s life as a progressive is worth saving and Bill Cosby’s is not? Cosby did many things that progressives cheered at the time. I remember a couple of days after 300 Hollywood celebrites signed a full page ad in the LA Times declaring their support for beleguered Gov. Ronald Reagan that Bill Cosby took out two facing full pages ads declaring that he didn’t.
But then again, Allen does deserve reassessment.
1 Like
TL;DR - The white guy should get the benefit of the doubt while the black dude gets lynched.
1 Like
Why is Woody Allen’s life as a progressive is worth saving and Bill Cosby’s is not?
Well, if you believe the worst about Allen (not saying I do) he appears to have offended exactly once (taking up with Soon Yi is unusual, but not criminal). That’s the worst that accusers–who hate him for other reasons–are saying about him (Allen does not appear to have disinterested accusers).
Cosby has been accused of serial offenses, by many different women who have no or little connection to each other. Many of the accusers have no other reason to attack Cosby. To many, it seems pretty unambiguous, and disturbingly central to Cosby’s character.
Cosby also isn’t a progressive icon in the way Allen is. Cosby’s contribution was putting an acceptable black face into mainstream white culture. But he did it, in part, by denying and attacking some aspects of black culture. He seldom if ever challenged white culture to examine its own hypocrisy and flaws, and instead appeared as a safe, non-challenging black person.
Which had importance. Simply creating the idea of middle-class black families was something of a revolution, at the time.
But that idea goes no further than its immediate effect on culture. Cosby’s contribution doesn’t lead to a lot of deeper understanding of America’s take, progress and reaction to race relations. It just portrays a nice black family that a lot of white people felt comfortable with.
4 Likes
Thanks for a well-written and well-reasoned article. I think you have made many valid points about the value of Allen’s contributions over the years. I take no position regarding the allegations made against him and think they are really irrelevant to the value of his art.
5 Likes
I don’t know what to make of the allegations against Allen, and don’t intend this to be a comment upon them one way or another.
I think that Allen’s heart is in the right place, but that as a practical matter it’s very hard to get progressive politics right if you don’t hang out with people who have normal jobs. I mean, people who live in mansions and have many millions of dollars, and only associate with extremely accomplished and successful people aren’t going to have an easy time getting the priorities right, even when they’re good, compassionate people.
2 Likes
It’s so funny that this article came up today. I just blogged about it yesterday. I guess we were on the same wavelength? Lol. Anyway, I feel very strongly about the need to separate ones progressivism and their character. One cannot completely justify or negate the other. However, his character us repulsive without Dylan’s accusations.
I don’t feel too much sympathy for the legacy of pedophiles or rapists, regardless of any perceived virtues they may have possessed.
1 Like
I think Cosby was a huge icon, a guy who broke through a glass ceiling in a very big way. He was a positive person, and a big believer in education.
When Michael Jackson came out with Off the Wall, MTV wouldn’t play it because he was black. There were very real ceilings on what people could do. And so guys like MJ and Bill Cosby who proved that african americans could do anything, could achieve at the very highest levels, were really important. Cosby wasn’t just a success, he dominated TV in a very big way. He was huge. And his show had a very specific message behind it.
We think of Norman Lear as a progressive hero, but if you look back now, the way he dealt with race in shows like Good Times was pretty problematic. I know a black woman whose mom wouldn’t let her watch those shows when she was a kid. Cosby was a very big deal, a totally different sort of guy.
I don’t know where this idea that he was all about making white people feel good came from. I’m a white guy, and I don’t have any ability to speak for black people, obviously. But friends have told me that the show was important to them. Black kids used to grow up with this idea that there were things they couldn’t do, because of this crazy irrational thing. Cosby struck a very big blow against that idea. It was important, and it was a very good thing. Michael Jackson was very much the same sort of person – he wasn’t just a guy who made good records. He was the biggest star in the world. These folks made important statements about what was possible, what could be accomplished.
But the allegations are hard thing to swallow. I don’t know how anyone can hear the same story so many times from so many women and not believe it. The facts are the facts. But it was very tough to see him fall.
2 Likes
How progressive! Clearly it is only because Woody the Pedo only molested children and married one afterward and has made more contributions to whatever the fuck this asshole thinks he contributed to than Bill did.
To be fair, I suggest taking Woody, Bill and Roman and dropping them into a volcano.
1 Like
Thank you and well said. An unfortunately necessary rebuttal to the egregious fishing expedition by Amanda Marcotte. And while I was shocked that TPM had the bad taste to run with that twaddle of sleaze masquerading as some sort of completely unnecessary salacious wondering out loud, relieved that this article was published. Great reprise of Woody Allen’s wonderfully entertaining contributions over time and fortunately in my time.
5 Likes
Bill’s rep as a womanizing scumbag go way back man. Successful in other ways or not his past has caught up with him. The accusations have been around a long time. The fact people still thought he was someone worth admiring up until this year shows you how full of shit they are. The young woman’s story from almost 20 years ago was compelling.
As an African American it was cool to have him and his pretend family showing America we were human. I already knew that without having to see it on TV. Having him be the very best at something was where his value to me was. The top show on TV for years. The guy was incredibly wealthy and made a run at buying NBC I believe. The Tiger Woods of television. Then he took time out to chastise poor stupid blacks with those horrible names who just don’t know how to not steal or be parents.
He should have kept partying with Hugh Heffner or linked up with Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew. Let’s keep it real though. Bill isn’t MLK or even Julian Bond. He’s an actor, comedian and philanthropist who used to drug and rape young women in his spare time. Fuck him.
1 Like
An entertainer’s legacy is their work. I frankly found Cosby’s work superior to Allen’s, but either way neither of their “legacy’s” should be affected by personal behavior. OJ sliced two people up. He is still one of the top 3 running backs in NFL history, and the best ever in college history. That’s his “legacy”, and nothing can change that. Roman Polanski raped a 13 year old girl. But his “legacy” is his films. Bill Clinton’s “legacy” was what he got done while in office, not his personal life.
1 Like
Which seems to be your biggest beef with the guy. The black community’s problems are a direct result of systemic, institutionalized racism and its lingering effects. I have no doubt about that. But there is also a culture of learned helplessness, refusal to accept responsibility and deeply indoctrinated resentment that plays a huge role in perpetuating all of those problems and creating the cycle of poverty, under-education and crime that we’ve witnessed for decades. Cosby is suffering right now not only because he did what he did, but also because he’s been branded a traitor and nobody’s got his back…and why? Because he had the audacity to point out the reality that responsibility for breaking that cycle ultimately falls on the black community, not the white community or anyone else…because nobody else is gonna do it for them (not even us effete and sensitive white liberals who believe in equality). Nobody else in in a position to make you be a daddy or stop you from ripping off that convenience store or selling that gun with the numbers scratched off it but you. With his words and his show about a family of black people assimilating to white society and what-not he threatened to take the excuses away and threatened the protective cocoon of insular, inwards-turned cultural identity…and that was unacceptable. So yeah, while alot of folks want to run around feigning righteous indignation at him for what he’s accused of doing to those poor women…which is obviously justified…I’m not buying that there’s not a significant part of it that involves the black community bathing in schadenfreude over the destruction of someone alot of them think of as a traitor and uncle tom. It seems the two sources of hate for him are often confused and intermingled and that the vicious criticism of him is driven in no small part by feelings that he’s getting what he deserves for his betrayals.
I can understand how defending a pedophile is nauseating, but what about defending an accused pedophile? Anyone can be accused, and with rape and pedophilia the accusation is enough for some people, the accused will be guilty in their mind forever, even if acquitted.
4 Likes
Well done. I think your point about Cosby breaking glass ceilings and opening up opportunities for others deserves consideration. He obviously expanded the scope of what the mainstream would allow for people of color.
As a lily-white person myself, I can’t really judge whether or not the example of the Huxtables spoke to people of color in a way that was empowering or enabling. Just don’t have any relevant experience to make a judgement.
But it certainly makes sense.
The mistake people make is in even framing things as if people are either Good or Bad, and we need to weigh the good things versus the bad things to determine if the person was good or bad. So if someone helps the poor, they’re good. But if they steal from an orphanage, that’s bad. And to determine if they should be accepted in polite society, we add their good stuff together, subtract the bad stuff, and see what the net result is.
But that’s stupid. People aren’t good or bad. They do good things and bad things, and neither defines their overall character. And that’s because people compartmentalize. When Bill Cosby was doing good, he wasn’t a rapist at that moment. And when he was raping unconscious women, he wasn’t a good man at that moment. These are all individual pieces of who he is. And so instead of us trying to do the arithmetic of how much good a person needs to do to justify rape, or saying that someone is pure evil because they’re a rapist; we just say that these are flawed people who did good things and bad things, and that’s who they are. So we can appreciate the good that someone did while still acknowledging the bad.
But as for the Woody Allen versus Bill Cosby issue, the real issue is that Cosby simply has too many accusers for it to not be true. It’s easy to dismiss one or two accusers, because we don’t know what happened. Heck, for years we know that Cosby was accused of bad things, but it wasn’t until more accusers came out that his reputation took a hit. And at this point, a pattern of behavior is clearly established and even if one or two accusers are lying, it’s absurd to think they’re all lying. But with Woody Allen, it’s supposedly just one incident without witnesses from several decades ago and false memories are a real thing. So we don’t know what happened, and we don’t see a pattern of behavior. That’s not to say the accusations are false, but just that we don’t know.
And that’s the difference. But if Woody Allen had twenty girls accusing him of rape, it’d be a different story. But even then, we’d be looking at a flawed guy who did many good things and many bad things, and one doesn’t cancel out the other. It’s easy to judge others and decide that they’re a “bad” person for what they did, but that’s just not how people are. Someone might be the best father in the world, but still enjoys snorting coke off of hookers; just so long as they don’t do so in front of the kids.
3 Likes
Yes… A good point to be raised…
Other than in the court of public opinion… has Cosby ever been criminally charged and found guilty of any of the allegations? Other than accuser Andrea Constand, has Cosby settled out of court with any of the other 26 alleged victims?
Waiting … patiently.
~OGD~
Maybe I misunderstood the article. Near the end, the author say we shouldn’t judge. Of course we should. But even if we judge many of us cannot help but appreciate his work and his progressive point of view. But we should judge. The problem is the lack of certainty.