In the U. K. where I've lived most of my life, Bill Cosby, while well-known, wasn't as prominent a figure as he was in his native America. I only remember him for two things, his breakthrough dramatic part in the mid-60's Bond-influenced hit spy-series "I Spy" and especially in the 80's as the respected, beloved father-figure in the long-running even bigger hit comedy show named after him "The Cosby Show". As this four-part docu-series makes clear though, in America he was massive, one of the richest, most influential and popular television actors of the second half of the 20th century, but also successful as a straight actor, stand-up comedian and all-round, often proselytising black establishment icon.
I, like many, at first personally found it hard to believe that such a powerful figure with such a wholesome reputation and having the ability one might have thought to obtain or do anything he wanted (within the law of course), would instead turn out to be a sociopath, secretly drugging and raping scores of young women throughout his long career in the public eye. But there I see I've used the word powerful and of course that's why he was able to do and keep on doing it, until his victims finally started to break cover and tell their almost identical stories of abuse at the hands of "America's dad".
This four-part documentary by W Kamau Bell gives us his back-story as it takes us through Cosby's stellar rise to fame in the 60's, 70's and especially the 80's and 90's but each time punctures the big balloon created by introducing different female victims telling their own story of how this apparently happily-married megastar, who we see being decorated by then President George W Bush, receiving honorary doctorates and being hugged by Oprah Winfrey, lured them into one-to-one encounters with him which invariably ended up with them winding up naked in bed and certain they'd been violated by him.
This series pulls no punches, jumping clear off the fence to give Cosby's accusers' testimonies further amplification. Arraying beside them on a range of direct-to-camera-facing chairs and sofas, are a number of social commentators, journalists, psychologists, aspirant black comedians and a number of actors who previously worked with Cosby. His reputation and legacy are ruthlessly torn down, as, on the evidence shown here, it absolutely should be.
Most galling of all for the victims however was the sight of Cosby being freed from incarceration after serving only three years inside, getting out on a legal technicality, as one participant says, good law aiding a bad man, his legal team still defiantly proclaiming his innocence with their normally effusive star client standing mutely beside them.
And yet, as powerful and at times harrowing as it was for me to watch, I would still I think have appreciated some balance, some counter-defence to the charges made. Certainly Cosby always protested his own innocence and he even has his supporters, most prominently I believe, his "Cosby Show" television wife Phylicia Rashad.
Having said that, I personally had no doubt at all of his culpability. How could I not, after watching the honesty and bravery of these several women coming forward to take on this major establishment figure.
Director Bell provides his own commentary and opinions throughout the full four hours but in the main serves up his film as a platform for these women to tell their stories and in doing so vindicate themselves, confront their own demons and try, if ultimately fail to put away for good a deeply depraved person of extreme power and position.
Nevertheless, like Simpson, Weinstein and R Kelly alongside him, Cosby's reputation and legacy lie in ruins and one can only hope that in the final analysis further high-profile exposure cases like this, speaking truth to power, just might help stop a lot sooner some of the horrific acts of concealed criminality laid bare here by those who think their wealth and celebrity status makes them above the law.
