I’ve always assumed that Cosby was trying to accomplish two things with that:
-show the white audience that black people are capable of high achievements
-give young black people some successful role models to look up to and encourage them to have high aspirations.
As I recall, a lot of the episodes’ themes emphasized higher education and career ambitions. Perhaps that helped send a positive message to some young people who may not have been getting nay positive encouragement for ambitions anywhere else.
I’m not especially fond of the show myself, but I do think Cosby deserves some credit for giving the world a portrayal of black people as a successful and happy family. I’m not black, so maybe I am not qualified to comment on the social impact of the Cosby show, but I would expect that if everywhere you look you see people of your race constantly portrayed as unsuccessful, troubled, poor, etc. it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Who knows, the show may have planted the seed for success for some young black people watching it.
Huh, that’s funny; most of the older teenagers I know grew up watching old Cosby Show episodes in syndication, just like I grew up watching Three’s Company (I think they got the better deal!).
Yeah, there’s nothing like young 20-somethings to make you feel old. Last year I was at my SIL’s place and looking at her old yearbook. “You looked just like Belinda Carlisle!” I exclaimed (and she did). The 25-yo woman who was there said, “Who’s Belinda Carlisle?” Argh.
It’s weird for me to think that my memories of TV shows are actually as much as 30 years old. And in my job I regularly interact with people who are only 20 years old themselves.
I brought up Jason Donovan a few months ago, and was alarmed that nobody knew who I was talking about. Even the people from the UK. It made me feel very strange.
As someone else said, it wasn’t supposed to be standard at all. Whether you agree with him or not, Cosby’s thing is for people to aspire to something better.
The jazz musician ones were boring as shit though. It wasn’t each night though.
What beloved American sit-com family can you say wasn’t like this? Were the Bradys dropping out of school and doing crack in the bathroom? Was the Beav holding up liquor stores? I must have missed the episode when Mallory Keaton got raped by Skippy and then got an abortion (much to the dismay of Alex P., of course). Your gripe applies to 95% of all 20th century primetime television.
The Huxtable’s were just as, if not more so, easy to relate to than any other popular TV family. People liked the show not because the Huxtable household mirrored their own, but because the comedy was unpretentious and accessible. It was “family” TV without the contrived cutesyness and lameness (that is, until Raven showed up and caused the series to jump the shark). And it was also cool that the Huxtables were folks you could aspire to be like.
you with the face- good points, but…my beef with “Cos” is that he is now this obnoxiously smug elitist prick who takes every opportunity to bash poor people for, basically, not having the lifestyle depicted on his show, which is pretty ridiculous, and sets unrealistic goals for many. Many people work hard, go to school, do the right things, and still end up without a brownstone. The Brady’s and Cleaver’s were cheesy old fashioned type sitcoms- shouldn’t William H. Cosby Phd, DDU, DVM, and whatever the hell other phony honoary titles he uses, aspire to something better than the lameness of the Brady Bunch? You care so much about the state of poor black America, why not show problems facing real people and how to deal with them? Or better yet, why not have an episode which mirrors your real life, and show how the family deals with your hyporcritical ass having several mistresses on the side? And as for the comedy being better than average- if you call Sir Bill mugging for 30 minutes elevated humor, than we also disagree on that point. The really good sitcoms, like All in the Family, do deal with real issues.
I agree with you that Cosby has turned into a crotchety old man who seems to think that preaching to the choir about irresponsible behavior represents the best use of his time. Thank God the Cosby Show didn’t clobber people over the head with the messages he’s been delivering lately, because I would have hated it. The show wasn’t preachy and that’s why it worked, entertainment-wise as well as positive role model-wise.
Well, let’s see…Vanessa lied to her parents to sneak off with her friends to a concert in another city. The van they were driving got stolen but they still went to the concert, then lost their tickets to a guy who asked to see them, said they were good seats and he would escort them to where they were sitting, then slithered off through the crowd.
When they got back Claire went off completely on Vanessa, to the point even I was cringing in my seat, saying “Yes, ma’am, yes ma’am.”
I think that was a pretty egregious example of a teenager Screwing Up Royally.
Yep, and she and her friends had a party, and got drunk. She also got engaged to a guy about ten years older than her, and didn’t tell her parents for several months. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s still sketchy. One of the other kids got caught stealing out of Claire’s purse too.
Who knows why I still remember all this. I enjoyed the show as a kid, along with a lot of other 80s and 90s sitcoms.
Me: "When I was a kid, we always made sure to be home in time to watch The Twilight Zone."
My cousin’s kid: "Couldn’t you just Tivo it?
I didn’t have the heart to tell him we were watching its first run, in the late '50s and early '60s. There were no reruns back then, so we assumed it was our one and only chance to see each episode.
And for the record, I think I watched only one ep of Cosby.
I was speaking to my friend’s boyfriend the other day, and he had never heard of R.E.M. They’re pretty mainstream and haven’t they been around almost 30 years now? He claims the last band he heard of was Jefferson Airplane. :eek:
I liked the Cosby show. They had manageable problems, that were true to life. IMS, and it’s been a long time, Theo lies to his parents, as does Rudy, Vanessa and Lisa Bonet (never can remember her name). They did all manner of petty crimes that kids do, and learned along the way.
My favorite character was Claire–I completely agree with ivylass --that woman could mother like no other. She shot straight from the hip and did it so articulately, I could forgive her never paying a lick of attention to her law practice. She had the number of all of her kids-as every mother should. She was an awesome character.
I do remembe one criticism of the show: Cosby had to be told that no ordinary teen would be able to just go out and buy a $200 shirt or sweater (it was an episode dealing with Theo and peer pressure, I think). So they changed it-to what I don’t know, but it gives me pause, since this show aired when the Air Jordan’s were THE shoe to have among a certain set, and kids were hurt because other kids literally stole them off their feet.
Why would you presume that the type of family portrayed on The Cosby Show aren’t “real people,” and didn’t address precisely the kind of problems “real people” in that socio-economic group would have to deal with? You don’t think there are “real” black people who are doctors and lawyers and come from upper-middle class families? Why should a sitcom about black people be about poor black people in order for it to be about “real people,” or to be considered as “real” as All in the Family?
Rose Darko: Kitty, do you even know who Graham Greene is?
Kitty Farmer: I think we’ve all seen Bonanza.
Seriously, I have these kinds of conversations with my coworkers (22-27) all the time. Then I realize that about the time I stopped habitually watching television, most of these people were barely in grade school. Recently I was talking with someone about Raiders of the Lost Ark. “Oh yeah, I was in 4th grade when that came out.” “Wait a minute…you weren’t even born in 1981.” (It turns out he was talking about Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.)
In regard to “The Cosby Show”, I probably sat down and watched an entire episode at one point, but I don’t know that I could even identify all of the kids except for Lisa Bonet, and then only because of the furor from her role in Angel Heart. The reference likely would have blown past me, too.