I suspect each of them simply had the confidence of living in a society that shames victims and protects abusers, far more than that they were consciously creating fake non-abusive aspects of their personae as a stalking horse
― grab bag cum trash bag (sic), Tuesday, 2 March 2021 21:29 (three years ago) link
someone who seems normal
citation needed
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 21:31 (three years ago) link
well, woody knew better than to make a movie about molesting a 7 year old. i think the point is that woody and ck seemed to reveal "the worst" of themselves. i think that was a way of concealing that there was actually more to the story.
― treeship., Tuesday, 2 March 2021 21:31 (three years ago) link
like, what allen has done is far more than "being a creep."
― treeship., Tuesday, 2 March 2021 21:32 (three years ago) link
sic you're being too harsh to treeship on Cosby at least, while those are aspects of his career that are well known now, his whole thing in the 80s and 90s at least was all about being wholesome and innocuous
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 21:33 (three years ago) link
Here's the trick: I don't know about Cosby's work, but Allen and CK were highly relatable because they were misogynists.
― Van Horn Street, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 21:35 (three years ago) link
with both Woody and CK a huge part of what made their art transgressive (and popular i think) is/was their willingness to challenge social mores and boundaries about sexuality - how and when we talk about it, what we're willing to own up to, what behaviors are and are not acceptable. in that respect it shouldn't surprise people that they weren't, in actuality, maintaining their own boundaries of acceptable behavior and respect for others' humanity. Cosby is way way more nefarious imo
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 21:37 (three years ago) link
I watched the Cosby Show every week like everyone else and have seen the spanish fly bit now in reference to him being a rapist, but it's not like stand-up was big on TV back then, I remember my uncle having one of his records but I never saw him as a stand-up, I don't think people were relating to him as anything other than Heathcliffe Huxtable.
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 2 March 2021 21:39 (three years ago) link
And relating goes both way, when you believe someone is just like you, it’s hard to imagine that they would do something horrible.
― Van Horn Street, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 21:40 (three years ago) link
right. with allen and ck what i connected with was the self-deprecation. these were guys who weren't very sure of themselves, and they turned their weaknesses into strengths, making fun of themselves. the misoyny in allen's films is obvious in retrospect but wasn't what i saw when i was a 15 year old. i don't think it's what i related to.
― treeship., Tuesday, 2 March 2021 21:43 (three years ago) link
there is a whole article in the new yorker about ck's self-deprecation and hatred of the body. the author compares him to nikolai gogol, and says that he is pushing through self-hatred, toward misanthropy, and onto the other side, to a place of sympathy. his work was very beloved and people saw it as humane. it is a falsification of the past to say that everyone saw it as misogynistic at the time, as dr. sic seems to suggest
― treeship., Tuesday, 2 March 2021 21:45 (three years ago) link
The majority of that self-depreciation comes from how women view and act with them as men.
― Van Horn Street, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 21:48 (three years ago) link
Allen had been publicly funny as a stand-up, published writer and latterly a film performer/maker for nearly 20 years before "40-yo man fucks teenager" became part of his work, and much of that work was about sexual screwed-up-ness at whatever age he was at the time. And American mainstream film was largely in favour of teenagers fucking 40-yos until, approximately, last week: the extreme naif that Hemingway plays is what read as the larger red flag than her age.
CK acted his fetish out in public, making sexual inadequacy and mimed masturbation a major part of his work. It seems that he was sincere in expecting people to find this relatable, and the immediacy with which ppl realised it was him when blind items began appearing in 2012 show there was no fooling. It's far more horrifying that Dave Becky hasn't been cancelled yet (the Golden Globes were two days ago!) than that some audiences are still happy to pay CK.
I don't have enough of a handle on Cosby's rewriting of his persona from stand-up to movie star to TV paterfamilias to judge how much of any of them were crafted as a cover, but he was drugging and raping women through each phase of his career, from the 1960s on.
― grab bag cum trash bag (sic), Tuesday, 2 March 2021 21:49 (three years ago) link
xps
Cosby as Cliff Huxtable presented himself as ambassador to Blackness. Dizzy Gillesie, B.B. King, the family dancing to "I Got the Feelin'" and "Nighttime is the Right Time," allusions to Zora Neale Hurston -- for a Latino in Miami, I can't separate my experiences with these artists from learning about them from The Cosby Show. He made rather a show of his smarts -- the last credit refers to "William H. Cosby, Ed.D."
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 2 March 2021 21:58 (three years ago) link
yeah idk, maybe if you watched his sitcom or saw him in TV commercials. if you saw his book in every hospital and newsagent, had only seen him talking in a bit of Uptown Saturday Night or Mother, Jugs & Speed on TV. and knew the Eddie Murphy story from someone bringing the tape to a school camp, wholesome Cosby might seem like a fake cover for someone trying to impose control on others.
― grab bag cum trash bag (sic), Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:09 (three years ago) link
Yes Cosby had that spanish fly joke in the 70's but there was absolutely nothing else that would have led the public to believe he was capable of the shit he pulled.
― akm, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:10 (three years ago) link
He made rather a show of his smarts -- the last credit refers to "William H. Cosby, Ed.D."
I worked with Bill Cosby on fat Albert. He had two of the writers write his PHD thesis. - Sam Simon (@simonsam), Dec. 17, 2014
- Sam Simon (@simonsam), Dec. 17, 2014
― grab bag cum trash bag (sic), Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:11 (three years ago) link
― grab bag cum trash bag (sic), Tuesday, March 2, 2021 4:09 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
a vast majority of people didn't know about all that shit and just knew him from commercials and the sitcom
like maybe fat albert was as far back as it went, and that was certainly far more well known than anything you're talking about
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:13 (three years ago) link
Being an annoying, scolding social conservative is one thing. Cosby was obviously that. But i think it’s a stretch to think that people in the 90s or whatever should have known he was a serial rapist.
― treeship., Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:14 (three years ago) link
There are different forms of badness.
i mean my first exposure to Cosby was on Picture Pages, teaching math to preschoolers while interacting with an animated marker. then graduated to the Huxtables and Ghost Dad. it's absurd to claim that in the pre-internet era his general audience was or should have been aware of the red flags in his behavior and story
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:20 (three years ago) link
Mine too.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:23 (three years ago) link
totally
the cosby show, family ties, cheers, night court block on NBC thursday nights was like insanely popular in an era when network television still ruled everything in the U.S. all that other shit, uptown saturday night, mother jugs and speed was like so so so far out of what most people knew about
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:23 (three years ago) link
i feel like we're arguing whether more people heard of "jump" by van halen or "jump" by aztec camera
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:26 (three years ago) link
Considering how Allen continued to thrive long after the Soon-Yi Previn scandal it's fair to ask if people knew about Cosby would it have triggered anything.
― Van Horn Street, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:27 (three years ago) link
i have literally never heard of mother jugs and speed until right now
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:30 (three years ago) link
Cosby was a regular on talk shows, where people would have seen his stand up.
― nickn, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:39 (three years ago) link
important to note that the Cosby Show's prime was in a pre-Simpsons era where sitcoms were way more wholesome and formulaic - not far removed from the time where actresses routinely got booted off their shows for getting pregnant. someone like Charlie Sheen couldn't have come within 100 miles of a network sitcom back then.
― frogbs, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:39 (three years ago) link
Look at what happened with One Day at a Time's Mackenzie Phillips.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:40 (three years ago) link
And his LPs were big sellers. I don't remember the Spanish fly bit but his material was generally inoffensive.
― nickn, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:40 (three years ago) link
I still like Jello Pudding.
― Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:41 (three years ago) link
I'd bet around the mid 80s he was among the most broadly known and liked people in America
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:44 (three years ago) link
driving in SF is still a great piece. he was a very good stand up.
"Considering how Allen continued to thrive long after the Soon-Yi Previn scandal it's fair to ask if people knew about Cosby would it have triggered anything"
probably, because unlike Allen, Cosby is black and generally people are faster to condemn a black celebrity for shit than a white counterpart (though I guess R. Kelly is an exception here)
― akm, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:47 (three years ago) link
Cosby's victims were mostly white, though, while Kelly's are entirely black
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:49 (three years ago) link
good point
― akm, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:51 (three years ago) link
fuck Woody Allen for life; i wish i had not allowed him to colonize my brain when i was a teenager.
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:53 (three years ago) link
it's disturbing to me how i totally recognized the misogyny in his movies and how i talked myself out of being troubled by it.
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:54 (three years ago) link
yea wasn't the whole thrust of Jim DeRogitis's reporting that nobody really cares about young black girls
― frogbs, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:55 (three years ago) link
i will not be watching the documentary, but it seems to me that twentysomethings who don't already know all this stuff which has been a matter of public record for decades are finding out about it this way and are appropriately appalled.
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:55 (three years ago) link
yes, it's one of the especially salutary points about Dero's advocacy.
I'm not arguing anyone *should have suspected* Cosby was a serial rapist, just saying it was possible for human beings on planet earth born between 1940 and 1980 to encounter his work or existence outside of a 1980s sitcom.
certainly far more well known than anything you're talking about
The (also ghost-written, like his thesis) book was the fastest-selling hardcover of all time, spent half of its 55 weeks on the NYT best-seller list at #1, and as I anecdotally cited, was popular in at least one territory outside the US. More people surely watched the American sitcom, but that doesn't make the book culturally non-existent.
(Gratified to see that article confirms my memory/impression of flipping through it: the text was so scanty that a whole designer had to be hired to spread it out through the budgeted book's length when it was delivered too late to demand revision.)
― grab bag cum trash bag (sic), Tuesday, 2 March 2021 22:56 (three years ago) link
Yeah. It's difficult to explain how unfathomably popular Cosby was starting in 1986, one of the more remarkable second acts after twenty years already as comedian/actor. I swear, every Waldenbooks and B. Dalton from 1986 to 1988 had ample copies of Fatherhood.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 2 March 2021 23:03 (three years ago) link
Some relevant wisdom in this interview with, of all people, Steve Albini (the interviewer is Eugene Robinson of Oxbow):
Some folks who have gotten their tickets punched I begrudgingly still embrace for a variety of complicated reasons. Mike Tyson because he served his time, Paula Poundstone, David Letterman, and Quentin Tarantino? I somehow want to grant a pass. Louis CK, Elvis Costello, Woody Allen, and Roman Polanski I cannot. It's not willful...I just find myself much less interested in their work. Who is on your Keep/Toss list?STEVE: I respect fighting as a trade less than you, so I was probably off the Tyson bandwagon before it got rolling. Anybody who uses a position of power, status or authority to exploit people who are vulnerable to that power, status or authority is dead to me. I don't care what kind of movies a rapist makes, don't care if other people think they're good, they're rapist movies and I'm not watching them. I have limited attention to lend to other people's art, and I get to choose who deserves it. I'll admit I laughed at Bill Cosby's humor before I knew what a monster he was. Never since. Those Spanish Fly jokes just hit different now.I've never had a problem with transgressive art, but it sure seems like you can tell when it's just a veneer used to justify being a fucking creep. Always hated Vice, still hate it. Just a parade of gawkers reveling in whatever misery they can observe from an ironic distance. Fuck that shit completely.Rogan, Barstool, all the anti-woke comics, just fuck them all in the eye. It's trash garbage and I want it all to fail. What if all the stupid shit your racist neighbor you can't stand said was typed up and put on a blog? Nope, still trash, still fuck it. I want them all out looking for work. Into the chipper with all of it.
STEVE: I respect fighting as a trade less than you, so I was probably off the Tyson bandwagon before it got rolling. Anybody who uses a position of power, status or authority to exploit people who are vulnerable to that power, status or authority is dead to me. I don't care what kind of movies a rapist makes, don't care if other people think they're good, they're rapist movies and I'm not watching them. I have limited attention to lend to other people's art, and I get to choose who deserves it. I'll admit I laughed at Bill Cosby's humor before I knew what a monster he was. Never since. Those Spanish Fly jokes just hit different now.
I've never had a problem with transgressive art, but it sure seems like you can tell when it's just a veneer used to justify being a fucking creep. Always hated Vice, still hate it. Just a parade of gawkers reveling in whatever misery they can observe from an ironic distance. Fuck that shit completely.
Rogan, Barstool, all the anti-woke comics, just fuck them all in the eye. It's trash garbage and I want it all to fail. What if all the stupid shit your racist neighbor you can't stand said was typed up and put on a blog? Nope, still trash, still fuck it. I want them all out looking for work. Into the chipper with all of it.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, 2 March 2021 23:29 (three years ago) link
I was not aware of any Costello allegations.
― Van Horn Street, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 23:35 (three years ago) link
I'm sure it's regarding his use of the n-word when talking about Ray Charles in the late 70's.
― akm, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 23:36 (three years ago) link
afaik Costello was just a one-time thing while he was drunk right? or is he more Claptony than I thought?
― frogbs, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 23:48 (three years ago) link
I've never heard anything untoward about Elvis Costello besides the stupid remark he drunkenly made during a Playboy interview.
― Andy the Grasshopper, Wednesday, 3 March 2021 00:00 (three years ago) link
I was aware of the Soon-Yi scandal at the time it broke and deeply disliked WA based on his annoying nebbishy phony “harmless guy” persona. The grossest thing I’ve learned from watching the show is his obsession with being a “starter man” for the women he victimized — a man obsessed with young virginal women. That’s fucking gross and also so very familiar. Thanks to horseshoe for piping up ❤️
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Wednesday, 3 March 2021 00:14 (three years ago) link
The thing I’ve always loathed about WA is his self-deprecation— it’s profoundly aggravating and a huge smokescreen
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Wednesday, 3 March 2021 00:17 (three years ago) link
is he more Claptony than I thought?
Costello was drunkenly trolling in a private conversation and has apologised many times since for being a cunt
his use of the word (in character/in context) in Oliver's Army probably doesn't get airplay in 2021, but considering Amazon have multiple paid service reps spending an entire 2021 weekend publicly denying the existence of the invasion/war that the song was about, the context ship is probably permnanently sailed
― grab bag cum trash bag (sic), Wednesday, 3 March 2021 00:22 (three years ago) link