We Need to Talk About Cosby (8/10)
by Tony Medley
4 episode TV miniseries SHOWTIME
According to this revealing but flawed documentary, Bill Cosby was a modern-day Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Cosby was a star on the ‘60s TV Series “I Spy,” co-starring with Robert Culp. Cosby received three Emmys, but Culp was ignored even though he was the glue that made it work. If you watch the show, you can see that Culp was the actor; Cosby was pretty wooden throughout. Culp has said that what made it work was the chemistry between the two. He said that producer/director Sheldon Leonard told them to stick to the script, but Culp said if they had done that the show wouldn’t have lasted long. It was the ad libs and the chemistry between the two of them that made the show a hit.
But even though this was the time that made Cosby a star (the show ran 1965-68), according to this film Cosby was apparently already drugging and raping women. Some of the women who testify in the film to these actions are:
Kristina Ruehli, 22, 1965
Sunni Welles, 17, 1966
Carla Ferrigno, 18, 1967
Louisa Moritz, 21, 1969
Linda Brown, 21, 1969
Cindra Ladd, 21, 1969
Linda Traitz, 21, 1969
Cosby was sweet, lovable onscreen, but allegedly a monster offscreen. The movie identifies sixty women who have come forward with similar stories and they are astonishing in their similarities. The actions continued throughout the decades, through his #1 rated show on NBC as “America’s Dad.”
Equally shocking are interviews he did. One, with Larry King, in 1991 shows Cosby joking about Spanish Fly and the effect it has on women. King and Cosby laughed, but it’s frightening to watch now that it’s common knowledge that he drugged and raped women.
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The flaw in the film is the bias of director W. Kamau Bell (he does not disguise his bias since one of his shows was entitled “Totally Biased…”), who has proclaimed his total belief in the racist theory of White Supremacy and the people he chose to interview. One is Jamele Hill who was finally fired by ESPN for making on air claims that Donald Trump was a White Supremacist, an idea right up Bell’s alley, but what does this have to do with Bill Cosby? Another is Marc Lamont Hill, another believer in the fable of White Supremacy, and one with the unenviable Curriculum Vitae of being fired by both Fox News and CNN. Again, though, what does he have to do with Bill Cosby? Clearly, neither has anything to do with Bill Cosby, so why does Bell put these White Supremacist advocates in his movie? These unreliable people, who appear throughout the film, devalue the testimony of Cosby’s female victims.
Worse, their comments are mostly pretentious nonsense. Lamont Hill says, “You have to ask the question, what investment do we have as a culture; what investment do we have as men; in Bill Cosby being innocent?” The fact that Cosby was released from prison has nothing to do with guilt or innocence. He was released because a District Attorney granted him immunity from prosecution for whatever he testified in a civil trial, when Cosby admitted drugging women. A subsequent prosecutor reneged on this grant and Cosby was convicted based on that testimony. An appeals court, rightly, said this was not proper and overturned the conviction. That does not mean that Cosby was innocent. Hill is either ignorant, or he intentionally misrepresents the facts to make a point.
They aren’t alone, however. Near the end of the film one woman, who might have been identified earlier but I didn’t write down her name (and the film has no production notes and no list of cast and crew), tries to sum up the film with this comment, “Bill Cosby is a catalyst for understanding the American Experiment.” What? Talk about pompous gibberish.
I had no personal experience with Cosby but my friend, the late Burt Prelutsky, told me that he was in Cosby’s agent’s office one time when the apparently happily married Cosby called the agent on the phone and told the agent that he would be in town the following week and to line up some women.
Despite its faults, this is a series that should be seen.
Tony Medley is an attorney, columnist, and MPAA-accredited film critic whose reviews and articles may be read in several newspapers and at rottentomatoes.com, CWEB.com, RobinhoodNews.com, Movie Review Query Engine (mrqe.com), and at www.tonymedley.com. His most recent book is “Learn to Play Bridge Like a Boss,” the most complete “all in one” book for beginners and also for advanced players. He is also the author of three books, UCLA Basketball: The Real Story, Sweaty Palms: The Neglected Art of Being Interviewed, the first book ever written on the interview for the interviewee and still in print after more than thirty years, having sold over a half million copies, and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Bridge, which has sold over 100,000 copies. He is an American Contract Bridge League Silver Life Master and an ACBL accredited director.
