I grew up watching Bill Cosby in " Fat Albert". I was too young to be thinking about racism or stereotypes; all I knew when I watched that show, was that it was funny and had really cool music.
As I grew older " The Cosby Show" became a standby, just like "Cheers" or "Taxi".
I liked Bill Cosby. He was genuine, displaying the same personality and sense of humor, from Saturday cartoons, Jello commercials and Monday night family sit-coms.
I loved his stand up routines. No one else seemed to be able to perform a two hour stand up comedy special, without bad language or blatant, overly sexualized humor, and still be hilarious, except for him...
The only black comedian at the time, who never used the " N" word...
Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed Eddie Murphy, George Carlin and Richard Pryor. They made me laugh so hard, I think sometimes I peed myself.
But they often leaned on shock, vulgarity and disrespect to get their laughs; Cosby relied on intelligence, true wit and humor, not needing censoring...
Any show he did or was in, you knew your kids could watch.
And you knew they would laugh just as hard as you would. I know this because my McMonkeys watch " The Cosby Show" reruns, and laugh...
If it sounds like I idolized this man, I would have to agree with you.
I did...
Today, I look at how we demonize or defend celebrities, depending sadly, on how much we " like" them, and how they have made us feel...
Over twenty five women had come out accusing Bill Cosby of drugging and raping them. Professional, successful women...
That shouldn't matter, in this day and age. In any day and age, it shouldn't...
But, of course, it does...
Point being, enough women too fill two juries, in a court of law, and enough too more than occupy an entire Grand Jury, came forth with charges that were brushed aside or ignored by our Judicial system. Most of them, due to statute of limitations and public dis-belief.
I didn't start giving any of this situation credence, until well over the first dozen complaints surfaced...
Shame on me...
And shame on him.
Sadly, it has taken affidavits of his own confession, to finally sway public opinion...
But this really is not about " The Coz".
What I think this one is about, maybe, is just how easily our perceptions are decided by emotion and not fact. Our entire perspective on the severity, or even possibility of guilt, is often based simply on how good someone has made us feel, in the past..
Magic Johnson was heralded a hero when he anounced he was HIV positive. Nobody questioned that he had unprotected sex with thousands of women, infecting many of them. No one said anything about the irresponsibility of the lifestyle that caused his and others disease...
In some states, what he did, was criminal...
Except everyone liked Magic. So he became a hero...
At almost the exact same moment in time, Paul Ruebens ( Pee Wee Herman) was caught " abusing himself" ( throwback to George Carlins " confessions" routine) in an adult theatre.
Labeled a pervert, his career ended.
He was an odd duck, kind of freaky.
I'm not defending him, but he certainly wasn't infecting unsuspecting women with a terminal disease...
Magic, a hero. Pee Wee, a fiend.
Bill Clinton became President and survived countless sexual scandals, while Gary Hart was destroyed by one single affair.
Bill Clinton has a charisma that nullifies almost all negativity that went, or goes his way.
No one ever really believed Bill was innocent of the scandals, even his supporters. He had charm and humor, and most importantly, was" like-able".
I wouldn't mind having dinner with him myself, drinking iced tea and joking around, and I'm a conservative...
Our nature, regarding each other, is kind of twisted.
Business success is proven to be dependent much more on people skills, likability, than competence...
If our judgements are this skewed with celebrities, how badly deformed are they regarding regular people, who's first impression we don't like?
Regarding those much different, socially, economically and racially?
If we can ignore abundances of facts, to the degrees that we have done, to allow us to protect our own misconceptions so easily, what else are we capable of distorting?
Is " unbiased" an impossibility?
Me, I'm not so confident on that answer...
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