Bill Cosby

[Money]

Whether Cosby is guilty or not I hate it when women wait until years after to state they were raped or sexually assaulted. It just screams suspicion to me. One can argue that they were afraid for whatever reason but then it all it takes is one person and then you have a slew of other women claiming the same thing. You just don’t know if it’s courage or they simply want to get on the gravy train. Considering that this allegation has dogged him before I tend to believe his hands aren’t completely clean. Cancelling all of his promotional gigs isn’t a good move. It’s just adding fuel to the fire and sooner or later he’s going to have to address it because there is absolutely no way he can remain silent.

[marceline]

Well, he hasn't canceled his stand up. He's on his way to Ohio in January. There are efforts to get the show canceled. I'll be interested to see if they work.

Edited November 19, 2014 by marceline

[JaneAusten]

NBC joins Netflix in dropping Cosby projects

http://deadline.com/2014/11/bill-cosby-nbc-series-canceled-1201289210/

[Marco Dane]

Some affiliates are dropping The Cosby Show from there schedules.

[Juliajms]

It is incredibly sad. To me, it's a harsh reminder never to believe the shiny images these celebrities portray. We might feel like we know someone like Cosby, but we don't. It's all just bs to make money. We saw this to a lesser extent with the MM sexual harassment situation as well.

[dragonflies]

It's because when women do come forward they are often not believed or are told it's their fault cause of the way they dressed or whatnot. Plus it's traumatic, it's not something easily talked about

[MissLlanviewPA]

Just out of curiosity:

What were the rumors about Lisa Bonet? I know there were things about how Bill didn't like it when she married Lenny Kravitz so young/ that sex scene she did with Mickey Rourke, but were there rumors similar to the allegations we're hearing about now? Because I honestly had no idea about any of that.

[marceline]

Ta-Hahesi Cotes has a very honest, thoughtful piece about Cosby.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/11/the-cosby-show/382891/

Edited November 19, 2014 by marceline

[Vee]

Hannibal Burress is a trip. I've seen him around, on TV and in films, but I haven't watched much of his Adult Swim show. Speaking of Baratunde Thurston, I did wonder what had become of J&J Politics.

All I know about the Lisa Bonet thing (or wanted to know) is that the word was that he had supposedly made advances or something, and she'd rebuffed him. I'm sure there is more to the allegation than that.

Bill Cosby has not been directly challenged like this in, I'm not sure how many decades. Sooner or later he is going to have to do exactly what he refuses to do, which is deal with the public on their terms, or retire from public life.

[Juliajms]

I think that about nails it. About 6 months ago, I read an article talking about how allegations against Cosby pop up every few years, but people would just forget about it because it didn't gel with what we wanted to believe as a culture. Not sure I can find it again, but these allegations are far from new. Women did come forward over the years.

As to keeping an open mind and not passing judgement, well, we are not on a jury. There never will be a jury. He's not facing charges and he won't, so I am free to look at the evidence and draw my own conclusions. There is no way I would ever believe that 14 women are lying, to take down a man at the end of his career. Sure, maybe one or two will be discredited and jumping in for publicity. 14? No way in hell.

In the case of Cosby, his best move is to retire and never publicly speak about this, imo.

I'm just happy for Stephen Collins victim that there was audio tape because you can bet some would be trying to drag her through the mud too, if it wasn't clearly undeniable.

[ThePrinceOfSunspear]

I absolutely do not believe that the vast majority of farm people or even a minority of people think, act, and behave like you have done on this forum repeatedly. If anything I have to believe you represent a very very small part of society because the things you've said and continue to say are just utterly ridiculous and have no logical basis. In short your comments add no value and are just meant to provoke/shock people. I'm done responding to the race bait and I will try my hardest to follow other people's examples and not let other emotions get the better of me.

I haven't even said whether I believe this allegations or not but you seem to have lumped me in with the rest of society (or this board as you put it) and think that I believe he's guilty. I honestly can say right now that I have no freaking idea whether he's guilty or not. I just know that he's a beloved icon and that I do agree with some of his thoughts on the African American/Black community in America. That's a constructive conversation that black people and allies of African Americans/Black people (and not ignorant people like you) absolutely need to have.

All I'm saying is that there are so many allegations that chances are very slim that none of this happened. And if that's the case it will be a huge blow to this mans legacy. His legacy is already tarnished because of the current situation but there is a large part of the society that will not accept this ever happened without concrete evidence. And I myself also do have to wonder about why some of these individuals waited years before coming forward with their story or reporting it. I get that Cosby was basically a king back then but still....say something or at least go on the record. Still another part of me has always looked at Bill Cosby and wondered if he was just too good to be true.

[Ben]

I wasn't going to post in this thread, but I've seen several posts question the validity of the alleged victims simply b/c they didn't come forward at the time. I don't know how much (or if any) of the UK celebrity rape cases made the news in the States, but one thing I learnt from all of that was the era that the allegations took place in (and this is the same for the Cosby allegations) was very important as to why the alleged victims didn't come forward at the time.

Those eras had a terrible stigma associated with women who reported rape: they may get blamed, made to feel like it was their fault; they were less likely to be believed; going up against a famous person who has national (and international) status made it even less likely you would be taken seriously. The 70s/80s/even the 90s, were eras where people turned a blind eye. So these alleged victims should not be blamed for not coming forward when it happened. That's victim blaming. Of course, not everyone who makes these kinds of allegations are legit, but it's important to take them all seriously for the ones who are genuine.

[DRW50]

One of the accusers was on CNN, and the idiot anchor asked her why she didn't bite his penis. This is a great example of how deluded many people are. They expect TV and movie scenes where the woman always has a way to fight back and magically saves herself, or is saved. They don't have any clue just how often in real life women have no option, especially when they are drugged.

[dragonflies]

[marceline]

For me the question isn't why wait so long to come forward, it's why would anybody ever come forward at all. There's really nothing to be gained.