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Getting harder and harder to believe there's nothing to the allegations. Best case scenario, he's a dirty old man who did a great job of hiding behind a veneer of respectability created by his various portrayals on The Cosby Show and Fat Albert. Worst case scenario, he's a serial rapist who did a great job of hiding behind a veneer of respectability created by his various portrayals on The Cosby Show and Fat Albert.

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I think he's guilty. I think in his own fucked up mind it was cool to slip a roofie In a drink and then plow away. What I find more disturbing is that if he did it, imagine how common it was (is) for other powerful men to do this with no regrets?

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Getting harder and harder to believe there's nothing to the allegations. Best case scenario, he's a dirty old man who did a great job of hiding behind a veneer of respectability created by his various portrayals on The Cosby Show and Fat Albert. Worst case scenario, he's a serial rapist who did a great job of hiding behind a veneer of respectability created by his various portrayals on The Cosby Show and Fat Albert.

No disrespect intended, but allegations have been whispered for ages, and (I think?) as far back as his 2006 settlement, it was public knowledge that a dozen women had accused him of abusing them. This isn't to say there is substance to every allegation. But with the sheer volume of people coming forward with similar stories, it's been hard for me to hold on to the right and noble "innocent until proven guilty" thing for quite some time. This is one of those situations where I just don't understand how anybody can think there's nothing to the allegations. One woman? Even two women -- eh, I guess it's possible they're just trying to get a paycheck/fame/whatever. But 12 women, most (all?) with a similar story? Yeeeeea, that's pretty hard to swallow.

 

It's a shame that an entertainer whose act could be enjoyed by the entire family, who seemed to have really had his heart in the right place regarding children/education would have such a nasty side.

 

The more "wholesome" somebody appears, the less surprised I am when it turns out they eat babies in their spare time. This Bill Cosby stuff certainly isn't helping with that perception.

 

-------

 

tl;dr version: me think he at least guilty of something

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Legally, he should be afforded innocence until conviction.

 

In my gut? I think he's guilty of almost all charges-so far. I haven't done any real research, just read what I've stumbled across and seen a couple things on tv. But the details are SO similar and there are so many with the same accusations going back so far-it'd have to be a pretty vast and complex conspiracy. It were all recent and undocumented, it could be a smear campaign-it seems unlikely to me in this case.

 

also, seconding THIS:

 

What I find more disturbing is that if he did it, imagine how common it was (is) for other powerful men to do this with no regrets?

More than we can bear, is my guess.
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tl;dr version: me think he at least guilty of something

I agree. Now some of the stories, at least as printed, don't come across as very rapey, but overall it sounds pretty likely that he's pretty evil and a rapist. But even he isn't, he's at least a predator that takes advantage of women, many of them seemingly underage.

 

So, yeah, he's done. His last attempt at resurrecting his career is over. Which is the worst punishment he's going to get.

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His comedy is **** too.

Matter of taste, of course, but in my opinion, it depends on the topic and era we're talking about. When he was younger and did more than just dodder and mug for the camera, he had some funny bits and his timing was brilliant. I honestly don't remember The Cosby Show, despite it being on the "must see TV lineup" for years, so I can't speak to whether that show was any good. I can't even remember its theme song! I just know that in the 1970s or late 1960s he was occasionally funny and did not seem like the caricature of himself he is today.
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The high ratings for The Cosby Show were justified for its first few years. It was funny and yeah, Cosby was a master of timing, of perfectly sustained pauses, of precisely moderated reactions to stupid things other people say, and of balanced give-and-take between himself and the other performers -- knowing when to be the funny man versus when to be the straight man.

 

IMHO the show got less funny when it phased out the original kids and focused more on the newer characters. Even the show's opening credits, which they changed up every season or two, seemed a symptom of shark-jumping onset and grew more smug over time. And the less said about the follow-up CBS sitcom that came next, the better.

 

Before we warped a whole generation into believing that it ain't funny if it ain't R-rated...heck yeah, Cosby was funny. I'd definitely recommend his one concert film, Bill Cosby Himself (rated PG!), which was a few years before the show came along. I know he did albums before that, but I haven't heard any of them myself.

 

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Cosby was evil. So that sucks, and pretty much flushes everything.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

I dunno what to believe. Maybe the guy is a rapist, or maybe this is just a case where he was a celebrity who had influence, and some of these women slept with him consensually on ye olde casting couch, but when said promised favors offered by Cosby never materialized, it was lawsuit time. Certain aspects of show biz is a slimy biz.I just find it a little too convenient that ALL these women put themselves in a situation where they are alone with Cosby, end up drugged, and then get groped/fondled/raped/molested. If he was such a serial rapist, and it has been public for so long, why did these later women put themselves in a situation where they were alone with Cosby to begin with. Smells more like a set up to me. At least the later cases.

 

Now, as for the earlier ones, I don't know what to make of them. Maybe where there is smoke, there is fire. If there is fire, I think his ass should be locked up, but there needs to be evidence, too. That said, I think if there were evidence that he was a rapist, I would think that at least one of those cases would have had enough of that evidence to charge him with SOMETHING. And before someone screams Michael Jackson, its different when the parents get paid off. Basically in those cases with MJ, the parents refused to go to trial in exchange for what I believe to be blood money.

 

In Cosby's case, the allegedly victimized women seem to have sat on their stories for years, and hit him up for money. Cosby wasn't actively pursuing them to pay them off, like MJ did. Not to mention, I would think if a woman was really raped, no dollar amount would assuage the hurt and right that wrong. I would think a woman who was raped would want CRIMINAL charges brought (and wouldn't rest until it was), instead, rather than accepting pay offs or seeking out said hush money via civil lawsuit.

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A struggling young woman trying to claim that BILL COSBY, the nicest man in the universe, raped her? In 2014 that's a hard case for a woman to make, 30 years ago it would be so ridiculous that the police would laugh her off, so it's not even worth reporting.

 

And most of the cases took place before there were strong allegations about Cosby. Maybe some whispered backstage stuff, but nothing people would really believe. If Bill Cosby wanted to hang out and offered me a pill for a headache, I think I would have trusted him. Again, he's BILL FREAKING COSBY. Cliff Huxtable. A man so nice that he should be hanging out with Fred Rogers all the time.

 

What woman in her right mind is going to ever have it enter her mind that Bill Cosby is a rapist? That he's going to drug her and climb on top of her while she's knocked out? Sure, you expect that type of thing from Andrew 'Dice' Clay back in the 90s, but not the Cos.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/11/19/it-s-not-just-cosby-hollywood-s-long-list-of-male-scumbags.html?via=mobile&source=twitter

 

 

 

I just find it a little too convenient that ALL these women put themselves in a situation where they are alone with Cosby, end up drugged, and then get groped/fondled/raped/molested.

 

Really? It's only about 20 women over a 40+ year career

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I don't. Especially since he's lately shown himself to be little more than an old frat boy. That isn't going to stop me from watching Ghostbusters, but I'm not in any way surprised.

 

Julian Assange is a tough one, though. Unless there's more that's come out, his charges seem like nothing more than a trumped up attempt for the US government to get him into extraditing hands so they can execute him.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

A struggling young woman trying to claim that BILL COSBY, the nicest man in the universe, raped her? In 2014 that's a hard case for a woman to make, 30 years ago it would be so ridiculous that the police would laugh her off, so it's not even worth reporting.

 

And most of the cases took place before there were strong allegations about Cosby. Maybe some whispered backstage stuff, but nothing people would really believe. If Bill Cosby wanted to hang out and offered me a pill for a headache, I think I would have trusted him. Again, he's BILL FREAKING COSBY. Cliff Huxtable. A man so nice that he should be hanging out with Fred Rogers all the time.

 

What woman in her right mind is going to ever have it enter her mind that Bill Cosby is a rapist? That he's going to drug her and climb on top of her while she's knocked out? Sure, you expect that type of thing from Andrew 'Dice' Clay back in the 90s, but not the Cos.

But the flip side is we live in an age now where an accusation just has to be SAID someone did something, and they are convicted in the court of opinion. Once accused, whether there is proof or not, everyone just accepts Cosby is guilty because of some twitter echo chamber. How do we know some or all of these women aren't working together, or maybe each is working alone for their own payday. There's no evidence anything really happened, but it seems everyone is ready to string the Coz up by his nuts, anyway.

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But the flip side is we live in an age now where an accusation just has to be SAID someone did something, and they are convicted in the court of opinion. Once accused, whether there is proof or not, everyone just accepts Cosby is guilty because of some twitter echo chamber.

I totally agree with you that it's lame how some people are soooo eager to pile on before both sides of a story have been heard.

 

In this specific instance, however, I have no problem saying it at least looks a hell of a lot more like a long history of gross enabling and a systematic cover up than a gaggle of gold diggers out for a payday. It's not like this is new news.

 

If I learn something new today that supports the idea that it's just a giant conspiracy, well, it will look like something else. I like to think I have an open mind -- but with what I've read up until now, it looks really damning to Bill Cosby and everybody who covered for/enabled him.

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I think it's possible that these women are bitter because Coz sex didn't lead to a better career, but I lean to guilty because I can see him thinking he was untouchable because no one would believe his victims.

 

he'll likely never go to jail for this, but the public shaming and death of his career will hopefully give these women some solace.

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I wish there was something we could do to people who make false accusations, especially of rape. I think the punishment needs to be severe because "we live in an age now where an accusation just has to be SAID someone did something, and they are convicted in the court of opinion".

 

But I just don't see conspiracy in this case. The allegations go back over a decade. The details are almost identical (herbal pills? How many people could make that up?). Many women would likely feel shame and some responsibility in this kind of situation-they took pills from him, it wasn't a blatant, forcible rape and maybe many thought there was no evidence. And the vast majority of people who claim rape and children who claim abuse are telling the truth-there are statistically very few fraudulent charges.

 

http://www.vulture.com/2014/09/timeline-of-the-abuse-charges-against-cosby.html

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But the flip side is we live in an age now where an accusation just has to be SAID someone did something, and they are convicted in the court of opinion. Once accused, whether there is proof or not, everyone just accepts Cosby is guilty because of some twitter echo chamber. How do we know some or all of these women aren't working together, or maybe each is working alone for their own payday. There's no evidence anything really happened, but it seems everyone is ready to string the Coz up by his nuts, anyway.

I wish there was something we could do to people who make false accusations, especially of rape. I think the punishment needs to be severe because "we live in an age now where an accusation just has to be SAID someone did something, and they are convicted in the court of opinion".

 

But I just don't see conspiracy in this case. The allegations go back over a decade. The details are almost identical (herbal pills? How many people could make that up?). Many women would likely feel shame and some responsibility in this kind of situation-they took pills from him, it wasn't a blatant, forcible rape and maybe many thought there was no evidence. And the vast majority of people who claim rape and children who claim abuse are telling the truth-there are statistically very few fraudulent charges.

 

http://www.vulture.com/2014/09/timeline-of-the-abuse-charges-against-cosby.html

The problem, I think, is the extent to which rape as a crime and as an issue has been politicized, typically by those who wish to exploit it for use as ammunition in a gender war. So much public discourse surrounding the issue has this huge undertone of sweeping accusation being leveled against one entire gender, that naturally those on the other side will dredge up instances of false accusations, or of the much less frequent phenomena of female on male (or female on female or male on male) sexual assault in an attempt to balance the moral books, so to speak. They succeed only in making a poor case for themselves and distracting from serious discussion on a serious matter ... but we should hardly be surprised that it happens given how eager some are to use the issue as a pretext for claiming, in so many words, that women > men. It's much like what I was saying about political posturing over in the Ferguson thread. The real losers here are the victims, who come forward beneath this air of suspicion that there's is just another Tawana Brawley type scenario being exacted for revenge or personal benefit of some kind, when they are already suffering enough to begin with.

 

Back in the sixties and seventies, we successfully uncorked the genie of politicizing gender and sexual differences, of making "the personal political", so to speak. We shall long regret it.

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Partially on topic, I've seen several people respond to Shia Lebouf saying that he was raped by calling him weird.

Wasn't he doing performance art or something? And he had to go along with whatever? In that context, hard to call it rape when he could have just walked out of the art performance. I'm betting Cosby's [alleged] victims didn't have that option.

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