How to Approach Bill Cosby’s Comedy Legacy
Why He Didn't Make Our List of the Best Comics of All Time
Photo courtesy of Getty Images
UPDATE: On April 26, 2018, Bill Cosby was convicted of three counts of aggravated indecent assault. In light of that news, let’s revisit this article from last summer, which contends with how his comedy legacy should be viewed today.
If you see that headline and immediately think there’s no reason to consider Bill Cosby’s comedy legacy at all in 2017, well, we don’t blame you. That’s what we wrestled with when we compiled our recently published list of the 50 best stand-up comedians of all time. No matter if you skimmed or dug deep into it, you likely noticed that there was one big name missing: Bill Cosby. And there’s a good chance that your response to that realization was either a small rush of relief or a complicated mix of sympathy and confusion.
Trust me, you’re not alone in those feelings. It’s something that many Paste writers have been wrestling with for the past three years when the allegations of sexual assault were first widely publicized, in part due to a viral clip of Hannibal Buress calling Cosby out in his stand-up. For some, there was no question that Cosby’s name should be kept off the list. He admitted under oath in 2005 that he intended to give drugs to women before sex, and the allegations against him were too numerous, egregious and horrible to even consider including him alongside his contemporaries like Richard Pryor and Phyllis Diller and the stand-ups that continue his comedic legacy (Jim Gaffigan, Patton Oswalt). Others among us wonder if it’s worthwhile to completely erase the man from the rolls in the wake of the seismic impact he had on popular culture.
It’s telling that the divide between those two was a generational one. The younger writers who voted for the best stand-ups list were, by and large, the loudest voices against including him. Others, like myself, that grew up with Cosby’s albums, his enormously popular titular sitcom and who still shake our heads in bewilderment at the existence of Leonard Part 6, had a long internal and external debate about the issue. We knew he likely wouldn’t make the cut, but we felt there was an argument to be made for his inclusion.
The simple truth is that Cosby was an incredible comedic talent. He was absurdist yet cool. He had a remarkable facility for sound effects, which he used to perfectly punctuate his bits and punchlines. And he delighted in making himself the butt of the joke. His stand-up albums from the ‘60s are perfection; longform bits that, as Keith Harris put it in a 2011 blurb that proclaimed 1968’s To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With the best comedy album of all-time, “taught a country infatuated with sentimental myths of domestic tranquility that children and parents are natural adversaries—and that their absurd clashes help make family life worthwhile.”
Then there is Bill Cosby: Himself, the 1983 film that captures Cosby at his best. Besides kicking the door open for his eventual reign at NBC, it forced an entire generation of comics and fans to rethink their understanding of his talent and to appreciate it anew. To quote Oswalt, from a celebration of this film’s legacy on the occasion of its 30th anniversary from GQ (which, it should be noted, Buress participated in):
“I’d heard all his albums and was a big fan. But to see him visually doing what he was doing, that was a big deal. Up to that point a lot of the stand-up I’d watched was very frenetic and they would run around onstage and be very active. He was sitting down but even more in control because of that. He was kind of controlling the volume of what he was doing and the impact of what he was saying.”
The film pushed Cosby into a new income tax bracket through the sitcom, commercial endorsement deals, book deals and his ill-fated attempt to become a movie star. It’s the kind of rare second act that very few folks in entertainment ever receive. He was set to settle into his twilight years with less relevancy but a great deal of respect, until…