America loves Bill Cosby. He’s so warm, comforting and. And he makes us as well. He taught us good manners, how to be a loving spouse, a good and raise well-adjusted and respectable children. He was the wholesome, All-American spokesman for Jell-O and the squeaky clean, proper and harmless Dr. Cliff Huxtable from The Cosby Show.
Mar 25, 2017 View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 2015 Vinyl release of There's Nothing Wrong With Love on Discogs.
Everything about Dr. Huxtable was trustworthy, right down to the he wore.
Bill Cosby was welcomed into virtually every American home because he was. Well, safe and trustworthy. That persona has come to a screeching halt.
- When he was acting before the camera, he was warm, loving and kind. We tend to blur the lines between these fictional individuals and the actors portraying them. On television Cosby was the ultimate standup guy. With the latest news, we are forced to acknowledge that TV has nothing to do with who.
- Car Lyrics: You get the car, I'll get the night off / You'll get the chance to take the world apart / And figure out how it works / Don't let me know what you find out / I need a car, you need.
First, comedian Hannibal Buress' standup video in Philadelphia went viral when he began sounding off about. After that, Cosby's account attempted to do some damage control by asking the public to create a Cosby meme. It backfired more than anyone could have imagined. Tweets began, with rape and drug accusations splashed across his image.
Whisperings became louder and bolder, and the genius and wholesomeness of Cosby started to crumble. Women began to come forward one after another after another. There are currently seven named women who say they were raped or sexually assaulted by Cosby (note these are allegations only):.
Joan Tarshish was a 19-year-old actress when she was allegedly raped by Cosby. The year was 1969, and he was starting a new sitcom, The Bill Cosby Show. One night after taping the show, Cosby invited her to his bungalow.
There, he gave her a drink and suddenly he was removing her clothes. Unable to stop him, she says the man she idolized raped her. She told no one until 2014 when she went public with her story. Tamara Green, now 66, is a retired California attorney. She recalls in 1970 being sick with the flu. Cosby, seeming to care, offered her pills.
He removed her clothing, she says, and was groping and kissing her as she screamed for help. She did not come forward with her story because she was intimidated by him, although she now says Cosby is 'twisted' and a 'sexual predator'. Who would have believe her then? He played mind games as well. The day after the rape he visited her brother, who had cystic fibrosis.
When she arrived at the hospital, her brother, mother and hospital staff were elated because 'the great Bill Cosby had been there; the children were happy, my brother was a hero.' She went public in 2005. Barbara Bowman, Cosby. Barbara Bowman claimed Cosby assaulted her on a number of occasions when she was 17 years old.
Once she claimed she blacked out after one glass of wine, and when she came to, she was wearing only her panties and a man's shirt, with Cosby towering over her. As a teen, Bowman wasn't sure if her imagination was running rampant or if this was just part of breaking into the entertainment industry. Ultimately, she confided in her agent, who did nothing. She told an attorney, but he denounced her for. She went to an attorney in 1989 to discuss taking legal action against Cosby, but said he 'laughed me right out of the office.' It was that feeling of hopelessness that kept her from going to the police, eventually giving up. 'I've been silent too long,' she adds.
'No more code of silence.' . Andrea Constand went to police with rape allegations in 2004. The district attorney, however, refused to file charges. She ended up filing a civil suit, and Green came forward to help her, since Cosby was denying everything. All in all, thirteen women came forward at that time. She says dozens of women contacted her with similar stories who did not want to go public.
Her suit was settled in November 2006, but terms have never been disclosed. Beth Ferrier was in her early 20s in the mid-1980s when Cosby began to mentor her. One night she says he gave her a laced cappuccino, after which she woke up in a parking lot in her car with her clothes disarrayed and no of the event. She says, 'I wondered - I still wonder - what did he do with me? Why was my bra unhooked?'
. Carla Ferrigno, married to Incredible Hulk star, Lou Ferrigno, is the latest woman to step forward. She says Cosby is a true monster. In 1967, she double dated with Cosby and his wife, Camille, and they ended up at Cosby's home to play pool. At one point she and Cosby were alone, and he allegedly began kissing her roughly and groping her. She fought him off and ran away from the home. She suspects her date and Camille helped set up the encounter.
She never told anyone because she feared she would not be believed. She discussed all of this with her husband, telling him she felt she had to come forward to tell her story and hopefully help stop Cosby from attacking anyone again. Thirty years ago it was very difficult for women who had been raped to come out due to and a public attitude that ‘she deserved it’. Things have changed for the better, but it’s still not easy. Women are finding their voice, although there are still those who place blame on the victim rather than the perpetrator. On Tuesday CNN reporter Don Lemon interviewed Joan Tarshis. What should have been an informative conversation about how a victim responds and survives such an assault turned into victim blaming.
Incredulously, Lemon quips, 'You know, there are ways not to perform oral,' then clarified his comment by mentioning 'using of the teeth'. In other words, bite the guy's dick if you don't want to perform oral sex. He almost smugly insinuated if a woman doesn't take defensive actions, she probably wants it. (As far as Tarshis, she showed incredible grace as she reminded Lemon she was stoned out of her mind because of the drug Cosby slipped in her drink, and the thought of biting Cosby's dick never entered her mind.) Then Lemon cracked flippantly, 'I had to ask.' Twitter didn't agree with those sentiments and they're. For Cosby, it appears to be too late for justice to be served.
There will be no prosecution because the physical evidence is long gone and the statute of limitation in all cases has lapsed. The public is taking sides.with the victims. Since the resurfacing of these rape reports, Netflix has postponed a post-Thanksgiving Cosby special, and NBC has announced it will be. Cosby's attorney vehemently denies the allegations, and calls Dickinson 'a liar.' Cosby won't discuss it. In fact, he has been. It needs to be stressed that these are allegations.
Cosby has not been convicted in a trial, but with these women coming forward with very similar stories, it makes one pause. As they say, where there's smoke, there's fire, and this is turning into a bonfire. Did he do it?
Could the kind and wise character we know so well from TV be this type of predator? Here’s the deal: We really don’t know Crosby at all because the actors we see on television are just that - actors. Television and movies can be misleading, because we think we know the actor personally. For Bill Cosby, we loved I Spy, Fat Albert and The Bill Cosby Show, but we must remember we loved the CHARACTERS he portrayed. When he was acting before the camera, he was warm, loving and kind.
We tend to blur the lines between these fictional individuals and the actors portraying them. On television Cosby was the ultimate standup guy. With the latest news, we are forced to acknowledge that TV has nothing to do with who Crosby really is. Of Cosby, Green says, 'If he wants to be a great man instead of a small man he needs to embrace his errors as well as his talent, because I do not dispute he's done great things; I just think he's a hypocrite and a liar.'
Bill Cosby is an icon, and his wholesome brand made him not only incredibly wealthy, but a role model for young and old alike. He has repeatedly stressed to all that we should always do the right thing and be responsible. Being responsible means owning what you've done and accepting the consequences for your actions. If, Cosby could do himself a favor by coming clean and addressing these allegations.
If they are true, then let the public know he's not the perfect father figure we; that he's human and regrets parts of his past. Yes, he would probably face civil charges, but it would put him on the road to redemption in the public perception arena and perhaps within his battered psyche as well.
As Charles Frazier said in Cold Mountain, “No matter what a waste one has made of one's life, it is ever possible to find some path to redemption, however partial.” And if allegations are untrue? Then he still must speak out, not via an attorney but personally. Otherwise, If he continues to say nothing he will be presumed guilty as well as a coward and a liar - forever.
I agree the facts don't look good at all so far, but I think it's one of the basic tenets of our society that we don't judge another guilty until they've had their day in court. Having spent time as an attorney and in law enforcement I recognize the importance of hard evidence, circumstances and the adversarial process in coming to a true and much more realistic view of each situation. Through experience and often 'jumping the gun' myself (and being wrong) on my view toward certain people and what they've done over the years I've learned to wait until the end of the process to really make any determination about a person or a situation. To do otherwise simply resulted in mistakes and inaccuracies making my job more difficult and, frankly, were often petty judgments which fell below the level of decency which I feel I owe to my fellow human beings. So, over the years I've learned not to judge so readily, not to read anything into silence (as given the psychology of the other party it can mean any of a variety of things) and to give others the benefit of waiting until they enjoy the full process to which they're due. The pattern with the Cosby reports is drugging. Don't think Clinton ever did that.
It also suggests a creepy fetish on Cosby's part. It's not like it's hard to get women to have sex in a mutually enjoyable way. So apparently he liked something about 'doing them' when they were like impersonal limp dolls. And apparently he thought it was ok as long as they weren't physically hurt. You can call them allegations, but at this point there is just too much history, and it's hard to see the motivation for so many women to make the same false allegations. Look, Cos could have had women if he wanted them.
It's called cheating and it's horribly sad because as the article states, we wanted Cos to be the way he was on TV, the ever-adoring dad and husband. He admitted years ago to cheating. His wife stood by, not sure how she really feels or what the partnership consists of, what understandings they had, etc. What hurts and devastates about these latest and similar allegations is that, as per my first sentence, Cos could have had women without drugging and raping them. These are the acts of a mentally sick individual, all about control, not about enjoying the pleasures of a sexual encounter because it feels good and you're a plain old cheat for whatever reasons. Not saying that cheating is OK, unless both partners are ok with it, and thinking of Cos as a cheat was tough. However, drugging and raping, once again, indicates mental illness related to control, not lust.
If he did this, knowing he could be outted and ruined, and had SO much to lose, he is indeed quite ill. My hope is that these allegations are false, but if not, he does come clean. It's up to him, but so many folks believed not just in Cliff Huxtable, but in Bill Cosby himself. His stand up routines alone, mostly about his family and their humanness, good and bad, are woven into the fabric of so many of our psyches and lives. His openness about what the black community needs to do so that we can all live together more peacefully, was to me, music to the ears.
If he is ill, he owes it to those who love and believe in Bill Cosby to share. I, for one, hope this is all a setup and these womens' feet are brought to the fire.
I think you're kidding yourself to hold on to hope that he's clean at this point. You're not a court of law, so you're not taking away his rights. The thing is, if you have one woman accusing someone of rape, it's sometimes difficult to figure out who might be motivated to do what. But a long history? And so many women?
And the story is the same? And why do other Hollywood figures never even have one such accusation in all of their history?
I'd say that at this point, you'd almost have to be a misogynist to think that one man has not made a mistake, and that a huge number of women are instead lying. However, even if the accusations are true, I don't think it means Cosby is 'mentally ill' or 'quite ill'. It was a different time, and many men grew up in a culture where such things were not uncommon. Just take a look at the recent article in the Rolling Stone about the University of Virginia, where drugging freshmen girls and gang raping them at some fraternities has been repeatedly hushed up.
I'm sure Cosby rationalized it like many of those guys do. He figured it wasn't much different from getting drunk and passing out. And besides, he didn't physically hurt them. So from some guys' point of view, the reasoning is, what's the difference as long as she doesn't get pregnant? Perhaps Cosby privately has considered coming clean at this point. But perhaps his lawyers have advised against it because civil lawsuits could still be a problem, even though the criminal liability has expired. Surely we all know by now that just because a person is otherwise talented and kind, it doesn't mean he's not a rapist too.
People are capable of being many things at the same time. Of course, it could all be a 'setup' and I could be wrong. But at this point, that stretches my credulity beyond the breaking point. A 'setup' that lasts for decades?
And wouldn't at least one woman come forward and spill the beans on the 'setup'? At this point I think you need to stop deluding yourself. His career is over permanently, period. He won't go to jail, but he's just going to go away quietly into a private life with a bunch lawyers.
Ralf Youtz
I suspect someone who's held it in until age 77 is not flexible enough to change his position at this point. I predict he'll just keep denying it. Funny how his lawyers say they're not going to dignify old claims that were discredited long ago.
And that repeating a claim doesn't make it true. Well, the fact that a claim was discredited a long time ago doesn't make it not true either. The details about why women have so much trouble reporting these things is very well described in the recent Rolling Stone article about the UVa, now called 'the rape school' by some people.
Many of those same elements are playing out in the Cosby 'he said, lots of women said' story. As the person who wrote further above, I would amend my comments to say I don't think his career is over completely. But it will certainly be diminished. Personally I would go to see a good performance or watch one of his old shows. Even the best of us has some flaws.
The reports now are not only decades old, but more women are coming forward. The fact that they are decades old does not discredit the reports. In fact, it's typical in these kinds of cases because even when the reports were fresh, there was little evidence.
It's the nature of the crime. You speak as if this is going to come to some kind of resolution.
It might very well never. It may just pass into history about as it is now - unresolved. And that lack of evidence is typically the reason many women don't come forward. Because each of them realizes their voice alone is not enough. The problem for me is understanding in what world so many well-spoken women would come forward if the accusations were ALL false, and over so many years.
It is easier to understand the misguided motivations of one man. In the court of law, you're given the benefit of the doubt. But in the court of public opinion, including mine, you don't get it when the preponderance of commonsense is what it seems to be in this case. Yes, there are many bandwagons - I'm not an idiot.
But rape allegations involving a preponderance of women is a special case. It's not like the child abuse witch hunts where untrained interviewers were eliciting fake stories from kids. These women as far as I can tell are coming forward very much on their own as adults. It's also clear from even more revelations in the last day that Cosby made all kinds of quiet deals and tradeoffs to suppress stories in the past, to the frustration of news editors etc. If you can suggest a clear motivation for why all this would come up, and has come up for years, if it's false, I'd be really interested to know. I can think of other bandwagon cases where the public and other supporters ganged up, but when they turned out to be false, it was the case that there was just one victim who was making the accusations from alleged personal injury experience.
It's tougher when you have a large number of people over many years all claiming the same separate PERSONAL injury, not just echoing the accusations of others. I can see your point of it being equal-equal 50/50 and we have to see where it goes. I'm only saying it's looking pretty lopsided at this point. Unless you can even remotely suggest a reason for a 'conspiracy of women' making the accusations. Two very sad realities of rape are that people question the victims and blame them. This, despite the fact that 98 percent of rape testimonies are true.
In my post below, I speak to the research I cite. What a sad society we live in if in 2015, members continue to blame and further victimize victims. What does the number of victims need to be before you believe? It is time to stop victimizing Cosby and rationalizing his actions. Time to listen to the victims.
Their stories are consistent and span decades. The victims are newsworthy and credible. Beverly Johnson for example is a credible source. She is famous and wealthy already. She has a net worth of over 5 million dollars. She has nothing to gain except scrutiny from members of society, who despite over two dozen women coming forward with rape testimonies, try to rationalize Cosby's actions.
No, not really much food for thought in this case. It would be a good point to raise if there were a single accuser, or a few accusers who had tenuous connections with Cosby, or maybe none at all. The problem here is the sheer number of women, including some very rich and famous women, who are coming forward. And that these accusations have been happening over a long time. And that they had clear connections to Cosby. I think at this point a better question might be, is Bill Cosby experiencing a false memory conviction that he did not do this? Has he blocked out of his memory?
Seriously, is it really MORE likely that several dozen women ALL, without exception, are having false memory problems while just one guy, Cosby, is not? Rape research reveals that 98 percent of rape testimonies are true. Research also reveals that rationalization of rape is problematic and common. Wealthy and famous men are not somehow exempt from or above the law.
Cosby has the financial means to keep paying his way out. He reportedly paid off the National Enquirer not to publish incriminating material.
He settled out of court. One district attorney reports he believed Cosby is guilty but Cosby was not convicted due to a legal technicality. These women's stories are consistent and span decades. Now victims are finding strength and courage from each other. Research tells us it is typical for rape victims to be afraid to come forward because of a fear of not being believed.
Imagine how much harder that would be against a famous influential person. I am tired of hearing innocent until proven guilty in the context of Cosby. The statute of limitations have expired.
Lack of conviction does not equate to lack of guilt and cannot serve to dismiss or discredit over two dozen victims. I am tired of hearing the women are looking for fame and money. The statute of limitations have expired. All the women are 'gaining' is scrutiny from Cosby apologists. Some of the women are famous and wealthy already ie Beverly Johnson with a net worth of over 5 million dollars. These are unconnected women from all walks of life and their testimonies span decades. I am tired of hearing conspiracy theories to try to rationalize Cosby's actions.
Over two dozen victim testimonies need to be believed. If you still find yourself trying to defend Cosby ask yourself 'How many victim testimonies do I need to hear before I believe? Does it need to be me, my wife, partner, sister or daughter making a testimony before I believe?' Remember 98 percent of rape accusations are true. Hundreds of credible sources will support the research I have spoken to including the University of Western Virginia and the Ontario Rape Coalition Crisis centre.