Reflections on the Bill Cosby Show

Due to a request from a friend, I am going to post a conversation we had on the Cosby Show and race relations. Since I'm feeling lazy, I'm just going to copy and paste it from facebook...Enjoy! Or even better, comment and let me know what you think! And just so y'all know, I do respect Bill Cosby and I think he does have some valid points when he criticizes black America but why do people like him and Al Sharpton always try to assume the role of spokesperson for black America, especially an entertainer like Cosby? My biggest problem with Cosby's recent words has more to do with how he's fueling the conservatives and moderates who like to pretend racial discrimination and institutional racism don't exist. I'm all for open dialogue and criticisms though. I'm glad people are talking now (though not as much as they should). Anywho, just enjoy.

My friend's question to me: 

"I was recently thinking about the socio-economic impact and implications of the Cosby show. Have you read any essays on the subject? Looking back at it, the Huxtables were a depiction of an above-average affluent African American family living in an expensive brooklyn neighborhood. How did this image influence and resonate with average african americans living in the us at the time?"

My very long response that my friend wasn't expecting:

"I feel like we've discussed this in high school

african-americans were glad to see a positive depiction of an

African-American family during the 1980s and early 90s on television

However, Bill Cosby deliberately chose to stay away from racial ...and

political issues in his comedy so the sitcom never approached the level of

Fresh Prince or even Wayan Bros. and other black sitcoms like A Different

World when it came to race. Indeed, part of the reason for the Cosby Show's success was the absence of racial and political content because whites felt comfortable and non-threatened watching it. It is about a bourgeoisie

African American family that lives in a fairy-tale world where race doesn't really exist and whites and blacks live in harmony. In fact, I remember

episodes with the Cosbys just hanging out with white friends and colleagues, like their nerdy neighbor who they introduce to Claire's rival from another

law firm. Then there's Ruby's fat white friend who never talks. The issue of race never comes up in these relationships.

However, near the show's conclusion they made an attempt to appeal to a more "urban" audience by adding Claire's niece, a ghetto youth named Pam, to the show. They also changed the show's intro music theme to a hip-hop song and brought additional young, urban blacks to the show. Pam's best friends, the

girl who talks too much and her boyfriend, represented young blacks of the hip-hop generation. Furthermore, Theo started working at an after school

program center as a teacher and worked with impoverished inner-city youth.

So I would argue that the show became more political in the final seasons. Despite the lack of politically-charged material, the show was very

pro-black when it came to African American culture, history, music, and art.

For example, several episodes were about music and art. I remember an

episode about Claire buying a painting done by an ancestor of hers and

paying thousands of dollars for the piece. They also feature

African-American and jazz musicians such as Stevie Wonder, B.B. King, Art Blakey, Tito Puente, an African singer whose name I can't recall, and

everyone knows about Cosby's love of jazz music. They also promote funk and

soul music of the 50s and 60s, my two favorites being Ray Charles' Nighttime

is the Right Time blues cover and James Brown's I Got the Feelin'.

Furthermore, Claire and Cliff Huxtable met at a fictional Historically Black College/University and their daughter Denise briefly attends the same

school. So in somes ways the show promoted aspects of African American

culture for mainstream audiences who may not have had any exposure but it

stayed as far away from political issues as much as possible.

Another interesting episode involved Denise's step-daughter, played by Raven Symone. In one episode about multiracial Santa Clauses she observed at a

mall, Raven refers to them as black, white, and Chinese. Denise then tells

her to use the politically-correct terms African American, Caucasian, and

Asian American. This is one of the few instances that directly dealt with

race.

Personally, I never enjoyed the Cosby Show for its comedy. I know my mother

and her aunt enjoyed the show and watched reruns but Bill Cosby is really

not funny at all. I watched the show a lot in elementary school solely

because it was one of the few black sitcoms that wasn't stereotypical or offensive. The Cosby Show also introduced the black middle-class, or Afrostocracy as Michael Eric Dyson calls it, to me. I personally never knew

too many African-Americans and the ones I did know were actually Haitians, Jamaicans, and Africans. The show's emphasis on family was also interesting

to me because the Cosby family obviously has two parents, something I have

not experienced. So it shows that black men are great fathers as well, contradicting the stereotype that black men don't care for their children

and African American families with 2 parents are anomalous.

So about this extended reply but it had to be said. matter of fact, i have more to say about the Cosby show but I won't inundate you with information and commentary.

I should write an essay about the Cosby Show which would be relatively easy... because of my encyclopedic knowledge of the program. As for African-Americans during the show's run, I'm not entirely sure how they felt about it. I know it was popular with both black and white audiences but I can't really say what the consensus for blacks was.

This is also somewhat irrelevant but Michael Eric Dyson has a fascinating book on Bill Cosby and the black middle class. It's called Is Bill Cosby Right or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?"