Well, that just doesn’t matter, yanno? Because people thinking poorly of him, on the Internet no less, amounts to being run out on a rail or something. Heaven forfend, especially on stale allegations. Some Dopers, don’t ever cease to disappoint me.
Why would you be disgusted with yourself? You think you should take for granted that someone is guilty if someone else accuses him? That’s it’s a bad thing to assume innocence until evidences of guilt begins to accumulate?
Sure, “I doubt your story about being raped” isn’t nice for a real rape victim, but “I doubt your story about not being a rapist” isn’t nice for a really innocent man, either.
It seems to me it’s perfectly normal, and justified, to doubt an isolated accusation and to become less doubtful when there are 15 of them.
There’s a lot of smoke against Cosby. The fire is certainly not far away. Is this unfair to Cosby? While the SoL may have run out, and while it may be near impossible to find and produce evidence worthy for trial, this isn’t unfair to Cosby. I hope he loses much (or all!) of his wealth and that his reputation remains marred, such that he loses his popularity. I hope he dies a broken man. What a jerk.
Well, when someone is a famous person, the public’s thinking poorly of that person affects their livelihood. Cosby now has two shelved projects with NBC and Netflix, and TVLand has pulled reruns of his show. Since Bill Cosby is rich, this probably doesn’t apply so much in this case, but it could happen to anyone, regardless of their wealth.
If the allegations are true, then maybe that’s justice. But on the possibility that the allegations aren’t true, I don’t think it’s fair for people to be tried in the media.
Agreed.
Noooo! Big Pudding got to ya!
Do you know who else thought that there must be some truth to an oft-repeated story?
This post made me chuckle. Bill Cosby is worth somewhere between a quarter and a half billion dollars.
Sure, but remember he’s been cheating on only one wife for decades.
I might be inclined to feel a bit more sympathetic if (A) Cosby didn’t have more money than Og, (B) there weren’t so many allegations, by so many different women, over so many years, and (C) he hadn’t already paid off one victim in the previously and everything else in the past was falling under the statue of limitations now. Shrug. If I was in his position (shudder), I think I’d let a little internet grousing roll of my back like the get-away-with-it rapist that I’d been for decades. Besides, he’ll bounce back even in the court of some public’s opinion. Look at here. I’m sure there’s a misogyny network somewhere willing to redeem him.
Obviously, your mileage various a lot. I’ll be saving my outrage for these women and others like them. Oh, and his wife too.
So then, the whole “Fat Albert” thing?
Boy, I’m not sure about that. This is a different time.
My brother in law is quite literally the biggest Bill Cosby fan I have ever met in my entire life. An actor, and a black man, he regarded Cosby as his role model and a secondary father figure - indeed, he has said it is BECAUSE of Cosby that he chose a career in acting.
His attitude towards Bill Cosby is now “to hell with Bill Cosby.” He’s heartbroken but my brother knows what’s right and what’s wrong.
Hard to know. The public is fickle.
Woody Allen looked pretty doomed recently too, and there was question over whether his alleged transgressions would sink the Oscar chances of a woman whose crime was only starring in his movie. By now it seems to have completely blown over. People moved on to the next outrage.
I realize no two situations are exactly the same, but in general, public mood now is a very poor indicator of public mood a year from now.
This thread has delved back into the old misogyny and women hating that the Dope is so good for. Already we have decided that the women who speak are whores, the woman who don’t speak are unreliable, that women casually throw around accusations of rape, that 14 different women thought it would be a good idea to do so despite no chance of monetary gain. So. I’m going to say a few things then I’m going to bow out. The level of misogyny on the Dope really depresses me and makes me not want to be here, so I don’t intend to keep reading what upsets me.
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I have no doubt that some women falsely report rape. No doubt at all. However, reporting a rape to the police isn’t exactly a simple process. Here are the steps:
a) Report to the police. Tell strangers just like you guys - some who believe, some who doubt you, and some who think you are lying, the intimate details of what happened. Listen to them say “If you ___, why didn’t you ____?” This also means getting your name on a police file. No, it’s not part of public record. Yes, it does mean your name is forever in their files.
b) Get the medical exam. This is obviously intrusive and intimate.
c) Hope they catch someone. -
Don’t forget if you were underage drinking or committing some other crime into the bargain your credibility goes down. If you were out in the bars at night your credibility goes down. If you have sex a lot your credibility goes down. If you were voluntarily hanging out with your rapist your credibility goes down.
hen there’s what the cops think. Here’s a great article on Slate: “What cops are really thinking when a woman claims she was raped.”
How cops respond to rape: A new study of officers at one police department.
It’s worthy of a read, but here are some salient points:
Small sample but I have no problem believing this is how cops think. It’s just a fact of life.
- Now comments have been raised about women sleeping around to get better positions. First of all, I would like to submit that for all of the nasty comments that are directed to women sleeping their way upwards, I hardly ever hear nastiness about the men that are allowing this. Keep your dick in your pants and this won’t happen.
All of this stuff being said, let’s think about the women in the allegations. So you are trying to be someone in showbiz. The great Cos pays attention to you, charms you, woos you. Whether you are trying to raise up in the business or not, you may be charmed. You may even go to bed with him. You wake up in the morning and you’ve been raped, you think. You were drugged so you aren’t entirely sure. There is little to no physical evidence. Cosby has the reputation he does and you have the reputation of exactly nobody. You consider going to the cops to report it…but it is going to be a he-said she-said situation and you know everyone is going to believe Cosby. You are humiliated and miserable but the physical wounds, if there are any, will heal.
It is not remotely a surprise to me that women would elect to gather the shreds of their dignity about them and not bother reporting it. Not even a little bit.
- The last thing I want to say is I laugh at people who think because Cosby has wealth he shouldn’t need to drug women and rape them. Power corrupts, are you so freakin naive? It’s the same thing people say about handsome frat boys - they’re so goodlooking, they can get any girl they want, they would never rape. Of course they would! It is decidedly different to rape a girl, I’m sure, then it is to try and woo her and convince her, and I’m sure there’s a whole ego trip to it.
Did Cosby rape those women? I’m leaning heavily on the side of yes. I completely believe how hard it is to get anyone to believe you when you say “Bill Cosby raped me”, and how the court of public opinion is leaning towards him. He had the means, he had the access, and he had the power. I just don’t believe 14 separate women decided simultaneously to ruin him, and it’s nothing we haven’t seen before with hundreds of different powerful men.
That is how the public behaves, and it favors Cosby in the long run. In this case we don’t know what happened, and unless he admits something we’ll never really know, so in time the public will remember there were unproven allegations, and how much they loved Dr. Huxtable.
Again, this is a problem with the press. The talking heads should be apologizing to these women, to Bill Cosby, and to us for their practice of muckraking and scandal-mongering, and the selective way they do it based on which side their bread is buttered on.
I won’t miss Cosby, nor long for him, nor welcome his eventual return anyway, it’s all just another open sore on the body public.
Roman Polanski has his defenders when there is no question of his guilt. In the fullness of time, Cosby will have his defenders too. All that is required is for the mob to find some new outrage to titillate them.
You’re thinking Mushmouth was drugged?
It would put the cartoon series in a whole different light if it turned out that “Fat Albert” is what he calls his private parts.
If true (as seems very likely), this is sad.
I grew up on Cosby. We had “Wonderful” on LP, and I would listen to it constantly.
Watching the Cosby Show was a family event for us.
I know it’s silly to expect an entertainer to be the same as their stage persona, but it’s those personas like Dr. Huxtable that we often come to admire as the good husband/father/friend, and we want to believe that they are real; that the performer is the character. It’s disappointing to learn that it ain’t so.
But what’s sadder is that more than a dozen women have had to wait so long for people to start taking their accusations seriously.
The 2006 article linked to by **Dorjän **in post #5 was chilling. A real eye-opener.
Thanks for posting it, Dorjän.
Wow! Those devious, attention-whoring, anonymous, money-grubbing, dillydallying bitches! They’re the worst, hey!?
(Seriously, “the casting couch”!? Sheesh!)
I think you very well could be.
What perplexes me is why you have invested so much thought into being wrong.
I know, right! Look at how people are speculating about Tracy Morgan faking his brain injury after a horrible car accident. Who knows why people do such things.
Sadly, (for the women these people have assaulted, and for humanity in general), this, I think.
There are too many people who don’t want to believe that their idols are bad people. The sins will be excused or glossed over or explained away in time.
People will say “let’s remember him as the wonderful man who made us laugh. Let’s not dwell on his human foibles, for what good can come of that?”
The *good *that can come of not ignoring assault should be self-evident.
The harm in this practice of excusing celebrity criminals, if not abandoned, will be felt by numerous victims of assault for generations to come.