The way black people should be.
Out Loud: The Complicated Life of Bill Cosby
BY THE NEW YORKER
In this week’s magazine, Kelefa Sanneh writes on the life and work of the comedian Bill Cosby, who is in the midst of a late-career comeback, and is the subject of “Cosby: His Life and Times,” a new biography by Mark Whitaker. Sanneh and Sarah Larson, a cultural correspondent for newyorker.com, appear on this week’s Out Loud to discuss the comedian with Michael Agger, the culture editor of the Web site.
Cosby is best known for his role as Cliff Huxtable, the lovable patriarch on “The Cosby Show,” but his life and comedy are far more complicated than many of his fans might be aware. Cosby has used his own experiences for inspiration throughout his career, beginning with his early, explicitly political standup. “There’s something slightly obsessive about the process of constantly reimagining your life, first for the stage and standup and then on TV, and sort of trying to create the perfect, idealized version of your own family life,” Sanneh says. But the public image that Cosby has created leaves out troubling aspects of his personal life and controversial statements he’s made about race in America. Larson mentions the handful of accusations of sexual harassment and assault that have been brought against the comedian—it’s hard to reconcile those allegations, she says, with “the figure we all grew up with and this sort of father to everybody.”
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