7 ms·

Naked Gun is funnier thanks to the unnerving experience of seeing OJ in it, but Cosby as "America's Dad" is creepy AF. What's particularly off-base about this

Naked Gun is funnier thanks to the unnerving experience of seeing OJ in it, but Cosby as "America's Dad" is creepy AF. What's particularly off-base about this analysis is that Cosby was always creepy. She raises this idea like it's an absurdity, but anyone who saw "Spanish Fly" should have understood Cosby was a creep pure and simple. This is kind of typical of the essay - it sprays around highly contentious snap judgements like the NYRB essay by Ghomeshi being "Weak-but-still-interesting", and Farrow's allegations being "dodgy" at a disturbing rate. Buried in there there's a decent point (or two) struggling to get out. But there's a (possibly disingenuous) blurring of people ranging from Barr though Keillor through Louis CK through Cosby (i.e. obnoxious all the way up to criminally convicted) and a blurring of consequences (are we talking about 'ostracism' or 'erasure' or 'market based companies not wanting anything to do with you any more because you suck?). Private companies failing to continue to propagate Cosby's work is in no way analogous to being 'disappeared' by the Soviet Union. I'm pretty sure it's still pretty easy to see most of the works by these people; they aren't getting systematically purged from the libraries.

kstenerud 8y ago
Private companies ending Cosby's prior art is giving in to the mob. Had there not been such vitriolic outcry, they'd have happily continued making their profits. No, the erasure is not on them; it's entirely our fault. Our modern equivalents of the library are being purged, and you're happily cheering the flames.
- dang 8y ago
  Please don't cross into personal attack. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- glangdale 8y ago
  It's cute that you think that the purging the "modern equivalent of the library" is "not getting to have reruns on network television". I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the "modern equivalent of the library" is, well, the library. A quick check reveals that it is still possible to find The Cosby Show at most libraries of record.
  - dang 8y ago
    This comment breaks the site guidelines. Please review and follow them when posting here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - linza 8y ago
      Is this really necessary? The exchange seems quite civil. What exactly in the GP gave offense that warrants pointing it out? HN seems like a generally civil place. Comments like these make it seem more uncivil, just like police patrolling "bad" neighborhoods more frequently.
      - Lewton 8y ago
        We can’t tell whether the posts have been edited
        kstenerud 8y ago
        They haven't.
        kwhitefoot 8y ago
        Then dang could have specified exactly which statement transgressed the rules.
        dang 8y ago
        "It's cute that you think [dumb thing]." Don't be snarky. Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        cortic 8y ago
- intertextuality 8y ago
  > Our modern equivalents of the library are being purged No, they aren't. Not in any way, shape, or form. Private companies don't have any obligation to continue showing anything. They don't have any such 'moral' obligations at all. They aren't going into libraries and purging books. An actual purge would be something like systemically recalling, redacting, and deleting any remaining records of art that involve Cosby. Saying this is 'our libraries being purged' is completely alarmist and untrue.
  - ardy42 8y ago
    > No, they aren't. Not in any way, shape, or form. Private companies don't have any obligation to continue showing anything. They don't have any such 'moral' obligations at all. They aren't going into libraries and purging books. What if the libraries are privatized? > An actual purge would be something like systemically recalling, redacting, and deleting any remaining records of art that involve Cosby. Saying this is 'our libraries being purged' is completely alarmist and untrue. No. An actual purge would consist of removing the work from circulation and locking the remaining copies in a restricted section in the library (a giftschrank). What you describe sounds like it's inspired by the fictional total censorship regime shown in 1984 [1] than by nonfictional examples. [1] Which was probably lie even in the context of that fictional world; I wouldn't be surprised if the Inner Party actually had accurate archives kept in a giftschrank.
    - vertex-four 8y ago
      > What if the libraries are privatized? Then there’s a serious issue with your society that needs to be resolved independent of anything else - libraries are a public good, not for the benefit of any individual entity.
    - intertextuality 8y ago
      Public libraries still exist. You're referring to a private company's catalogue. Thus, this entire argument is really moot. You can still go to libraries and obtain things, there is no purge or anything remotely even close happening. It's absurd to expect a private company to always offer content from now until the end of time.
arduanika 8y ago
> Cosby was always creepy Always? At all times? Congratulations on seeing it coming; you're luckier than apparently a few dozen women. > blurring of people Which is a worse fallacy, blurring Cosby into Louis into Keillor into Barr, or blurring Barr into Keilorr into Louis into Cosby? Or how about this: each case is different? > market based companies not wanting anything to do with you any more because you suck More precisely: coordinated pressure campaigns to intimidate market-based companies, and a lack of pushback from the people who just want to stream some R. Kelley, but are too scared to speak up. > in no way analogous When platforms act in concert under pressure through culture-wide groupthink, it might not technically be Soviet censorship, but it's pretty damn analogous.
- glangdale 8y ago
  OK, it was unfair to say 'always', but a more nuanced version of my point would have been: "it does not strengthen a case to claim that only in retrospect could Cosby, performer of the infamous 'Spanish Fly' routine, can be considered too creepy to be 'America's Dad'". Soviet censorship involved the exercise of the hard power of the state to achieve permanent removal of the person or their imprisonment for political reasons, and the 'groupthink' attitudes referred to here involved wholesale redaction of news and the historical record. "Pretty damn analogous" is true only if we consider a slap in the face "pretty damn analogous" to murder.
  - orbitingpluto 8y ago
    As a child, I was extremely uncomfortable with Dr. Huxtable when he was in his office. I would regularly walk away from the show when he was in his at-home office alone with someone. When I later saw Philip Banks in Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, I consciously compared the two. One felt safe and nurturing, the other did not. When a criminal's art replicates the conditions in which he committed crimes, I would hope that the commercial and artistic value of that work would diminish considerably. I hope that the Cosby show would not be able to survive continued syndication. However it should still be thrown into the bargain bin of available entertainment for posterity. In my opinion, deleting the Cosby show erases the chance for others to obtain that same impression.
api 8y ago
An even more unnerving example than Cosby from the "they were always a creep" files is Jimmy Saville, the British radio and television personality who was "later revealed to be" a serial sex abuser of virtually any sort of bipedal mammal. Go watch some of that guy's old interviews and TV shows. It was stupidly obvious that he was a creep. He radiated it. I find it impossible to believe that anyone actually working with that guy didn't know. Saville had charisma and used it to raise a lot of money for various people. It's obvious that people just looked the other way while he raped women and children for years.
throwawaymath 8y ago
> What's particularly off-base about this analysis is that Cosby was always creepy. Don't mistake this as complete agreement with the article, but I'd like to make the point that I grew up with the Cosby show and really enjoyed it. I didn't think Bill Cosby was creepy at all. I was deeply saddened to hear about his crimes when they were exposed. I think it's important to internalize that point because it shows we can be fallible in our assessments of people. I can't truthfully say I always knew Cosby was creepy after the fact. While you're saying it as though it was obvious, I didn't think about it whatsoever. The same thing happened with Kevin Spacey for me. I was actually distraught at the fact that one of my favorite actors could do these things. And if I'm being very honest, it upsets me that House of Cards (US) was essentially ruined by his removal. I don't disagree with his removal, but I can sympathize with competing perspectives on the broader phenomenon.
- DanBC 8y ago
  What got me about Spacey and Louis CK is that these were open secrets. Everyone in the industry apparently knew about it.
  - vkou 8y ago
    But you aren't allowed to do anything about it, until a jury of twelve peers convict them. I wish my manager could not rate me 'needs improvement' without running it past a jury of twelve of my peers.
malvosenior 8y ago
It's definitely creepy to hear Cosby talk about Spanish Fly and then combine it with the revelations that came later. I can't say in all honesty that it would have been considered creepy back then though. I've never heard anyone say the Beastie Boys were creepy for singing about it in Brass Monkey: "Me and the crew we're drinking Brass Monkey This girl walked by she gave me the eye I reached in the locker grabbed the Spanish Fly I put it with the Monkey mixed it in the cup Went over to the girl, "Yo baby, what's up?" I offered her a sip (sip) the girl she gave me lip (lip) It did begin the stuff wore in and now she's on my tip " I don't think you could say that in 2019.
- HoppedUpMenace 8y ago
  Just to go off on a bit of a tangent: There's something to be said about the past being inappropriate today. We should have 2 Live Crew post lyrics from their 80's and early 90's material on Twitter and see how quickly they are outcasted from society.
- glangdale 8y ago
  OK; I'll bite. Those are creepy lyrics. They were creepy then and they are creepy now. Beasties probably meant it as a joke as they, to my knowledge, don't have a rep as being otherwise creepy but I'm going to go out on a wild limb and say that if you don't think people talking about drugging people so they have sex with you isn't creepy you're not a woman and/or you don't really have much empathy with them either. This doesn't mean there isn't potentially funny jokes to be made here, as comedy can go everywhere. Some of Sarah Silverman's stuff is super-dark and still funny. But this idea that people invented the notion of "getting all upset over rapey stuff circa 2017" is ridiculous - it's just more that recently people started listening occasionally to victims.
  - malvosenior 8y ago
    I agree they're creepy. I disagree that not finding it creepy means you're not a woman or have no empathy for women. I know tons of women who love the Beastie Boys and I've never heard a single person complain about or even comment on Brass Monkey lyrics.

kstenerud 8y ago

Private companies ending Cosby's prior art is giving in to the mob. Had there not been such vitriolic outcry, they'd have happily continued making their profits. No, the erasure is not on them; it's entirely our fault. Our modern equivalents of the library are being purged, and you're happily cheering the flames.

dang 8y ago
Please don't cross into personal attack. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
glangdale 8y ago
It's cute that you think that the purging the "modern equivalent of the library" is "not getting to have reruns on network television". I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the "modern equivalent of the library" is, well, the library. A quick check reveals that it is still possible to find The Cosby Show at most libraries of record.
- dang 8y ago
  This comment breaks the site guidelines. Please review and follow them when posting here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - linza 8y ago
    Is this really necessary? The exchange seems quite civil. What exactly in the GP gave offense that warrants pointing it out? HN seems like a generally civil place. Comments like these make it seem more uncivil, just like police patrolling "bad" neighborhoods more frequently.
    - Lewton 8y ago
      We can’t tell whether the posts have been edited
      - kstenerud 8y ago
        They haven't.
      - kwhitefoot 8y ago
        Then dang could have specified exactly which statement transgressed the rules.
        dang 8y ago
        "It's cute that you think [dumb thing]." Don't be snarky. Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        cortic 8y ago
intertextuality 8y ago
> Our modern equivalents of the library are being purged No, they aren't. Not in any way, shape, or form. Private companies don't have any obligation to continue showing anything. They don't have any such 'moral' obligations at all. They aren't going into libraries and purging books. An actual purge would be something like systemically recalling, redacting, and deleting any remaining records of art that involve Cosby. Saying this is 'our libraries being purged' is completely alarmist and untrue.
- ardy42 8y ago
  > No, they aren't. Not in any way, shape, or form. Private companies don't have any obligation to continue showing anything. They don't have any such 'moral' obligations at all. They aren't going into libraries and purging books. What if the libraries are privatized? > An actual purge would be something like systemically recalling, redacting, and deleting any remaining records of art that involve Cosby. Saying this is 'our libraries being purged' is completely alarmist and untrue. No. An actual purge would consist of removing the work from circulation and locking the remaining copies in a restricted section in the library (a giftschrank). What you describe sounds like it's inspired by the fictional total censorship regime shown in 1984 [1] than by nonfictional examples. [1] Which was probably lie even in the context of that fictional world; I wouldn't be surprised if the Inner Party actually had accurate archives kept in a giftschrank.
  - vertex-four 8y ago
    > What if the libraries are privatized? Then there’s a serious issue with your society that needs to be resolved independent of anything else - libraries are a public good, not for the benefit of any individual entity.
  - intertextuality 8y ago
    Public libraries still exist. You're referring to a private company's catalogue. Thus, this entire argument is really moot. You can still go to libraries and obtain things, there is no purge or anything remotely even close happening. It's absurd to expect a private company to always offer content from now until the end of time.

arduanika 8y ago

> Cosby was always creepy Always? At all times? Congratulations on seeing it coming; you're luckier than apparently a few dozen women. > blurring of people Which is a worse fallacy, blurring Cosby into Louis into Keillor into Barr, or blurring Barr into Keilorr into Louis into Cosby? Or how about this: each case is different? > market based companies not wanting anything to do with you any more because you suck More precisely: coordinated pressure campaigns to intimidate market-based companies, and a lack of pushback from the people who just want to stream some R. Kelley, but are too scared to speak up. > in no way analogous When platforms act in concert under pressure through culture-wide groupthink, it might not technically be Soviet censorship, but it's pretty damn analogous.

glangdale 8y ago
OK, it was unfair to say 'always', but a more nuanced version of my point would have been: "it does not strengthen a case to claim that only in retrospect could Cosby, performer of the infamous 'Spanish Fly' routine, can be considered too creepy to be 'America's Dad'". Soviet censorship involved the exercise of the hard power of the state to achieve permanent removal of the person or their imprisonment for political reasons, and the 'groupthink' attitudes referred to here involved wholesale redaction of news and the historical record. "Pretty damn analogous" is true only if we consider a slap in the face "pretty damn analogous" to murder.
- orbitingpluto 8y ago
  As a child, I was extremely uncomfortable with Dr. Huxtable when he was in his office. I would regularly walk away from the show when he was in his at-home office alone with someone. When I later saw Philip Banks in Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, I consciously compared the two. One felt safe and nurturing, the other did not. When a criminal's art replicates the conditions in which he committed crimes, I would hope that the commercial and artistic value of that work would diminish considerably. I hope that the Cosby show would not be able to survive continued syndication. However it should still be thrown into the bargain bin of available entertainment for posterity. In my opinion, deleting the Cosby show erases the chance for others to obtain that same impression.

api 8y ago

An even more unnerving example than Cosby from the "they were always a creep" files is Jimmy Saville, the British radio and television personality who was "later revealed to be" a serial sex abuser of virtually any sort of bipedal mammal. Go watch some of that guy's old interviews and TV shows. It was stupidly obvious that he was a creep. He radiated it. I find it impossible to believe that anyone actually working with that guy didn't know. Saville had charisma and used it to raise a lot of money for various people. It's obvious that people just looked the other way while he raped women and children for years.

throwawaymath 8y ago

> What's particularly off-base about this analysis is that Cosby was always creepy. Don't mistake this as complete agreement with the article, but I'd like to make the point that I grew up with the Cosby show and really enjoyed it. I didn't think Bill Cosby was creepy at all. I was deeply saddened to hear about his crimes when they were exposed. I think it's important to internalize that point because it shows we can be fallible in our assessments of people. I can't truthfully say I always knew Cosby was creepy after the fact. While you're saying it as though it was obvious, I didn't think about it whatsoever. The same thing happened with Kevin Spacey for me. I was actually distraught at the fact that one of my favorite actors could do these things. And if I'm being very honest, it upsets me that House of Cards (US) was essentially ruined by his removal. I don't disagree with his removal, but I can sympathize with competing perspectives on the broader phenomenon.

DanBC 8y ago
What got me about Spacey and Louis CK is that these were open secrets. Everyone in the industry apparently knew about it.
- vkou 8y ago
  But you aren't allowed to do anything about it, until a jury of twelve peers convict them. I wish my manager could not rate me 'needs improvement' without running it past a jury of twelve of my peers.

malvosenior 8y ago

It's definitely creepy to hear Cosby talk about Spanish Fly and then combine it with the revelations that came later. I can't say in all honesty that it would have been considered creepy back then though. I've never heard anyone say the Beastie Boys were creepy for singing about it in Brass Monkey: "Me and the crew we're drinking Brass Monkey This girl walked by she gave me the eye I reached in the locker grabbed the Spanish Fly I put it with the Monkey mixed it in the cup Went over to the girl, "Yo baby, what's up?" I offered her a sip (sip) the girl she gave me lip (lip) It did begin the stuff wore in and now she's on my tip " I don't think you could say that in 2019.

HoppedUpMenace 8y ago
Just to go off on a bit of a tangent: There's something to be said about the past being inappropriate today. We should have 2 Live Crew post lyrics from their 80's and early 90's material on Twitter and see how quickly they are outcasted from society.
glangdale 8y ago
OK; I'll bite. Those are creepy lyrics. They were creepy then and they are creepy now. Beasties probably meant it as a joke as they, to my knowledge, don't have a rep as being otherwise creepy but I'm going to go out on a wild limb and say that if you don't think people talking about drugging people so they have sex with you isn't creepy you're not a woman and/or you don't really have much empathy with them either. This doesn't mean there isn't potentially funny jokes to be made here, as comedy can go everywhere. Some of Sarah Silverman's stuff is super-dark and still funny. But this idea that people invented the notion of "getting all upset over rapey stuff circa 2017" is ridiculous - it's just more that recently people started listening occasionally to victims.
- malvosenior 8y ago
  I agree they're creepy. I disagree that not finding it creepy means you're not a woman or have no empathy for women. I know tons of women who love the Beastie Boys and I've never heard a single person complain about or even comment on Brass Monkey lyrics.