brchthethird Review of We Need to Talk About Cosby

We Need to Talk About Cosby (2022)

Important conversation that leaves some things to be desired

[7/10 · 4 February 2022]

Much like real life, this docuseries starts out great but fumbles the finish. There was so much about Cosby's early career that I had never heard before, and which actually deepened my respect for him in some ways, having known him mostly for his eponymous 80's sitcom and Kids Say the Darnedest Things. All of the interviews with survivors also felt important, if a little hard to stomach. Where it fails, in my estimation, is in what larger message it wants us to leave with. Discussions about the corrupting effect of power, America's fraught racial past, etc. Are important issues that need to be reckoned with, and in some ways, we are doing that. The question that never seems to cross people's minds is just how much we are still reaping the fruits of the sexual revolution in terms of what kind of behavior we tolerate as socially acceptable, irrespective of the circumstances. Until we are able to directly confront questions of sexual morality and its effect on culture, stories like Cosby's will continue to need to be told. We need to talk about Cosby, yes, but there are much deeper things that should be explored as well.