How sweet, CBS reports that Bill Cosby did a show last night and everybody forgot all about those pesky rape allegations and just had a damn good time laughing at his jokes. How warm and cuddly.
“I know people are tired of me not saying anything, but a guy doesn’t have to answer to innuendos,” the comedian told Florida Today. “People should fact check. People shouldn’t have to go through that and shouldn’t answer to innuendos.”
After giving the backstage interview, Cosby regained the revered status he long enjoyed, for 90 minutes at least.
The show in Melbourne, Florida, might have seemed destined for disaster for the comedian. What he got, though, was an adoring audience that laughed so hard they slapped their knees, shouted love at the stage and rose to their feet as he came and went.
“I think people went in there with him as Bill Cosby from the TV show,” said Travis Weberling, 40, of Melbourne, “not the guy they heard about on the news.”
As they should, as they should. He’s that guy from the tv show, and who cares about all those annoying women who say he raped them. The important thing is that he’s that guy from the tv show!
What remained to be seen was whether the evening marked a turning point for a beloved television father, or simply a momentary reprieve. It did nothing to immediately change the fact that Cosby’s projects have been nixed and stalled, performances have been canceled across the country and women continue to come forward accusing him of serious crimes.
Yes but he’s a beloved television father, which is as much as to say he’s all of our daddy, which means he’s kind of like god, which means he gets to rape women, because if god does it it must be good. (That Euthyphro guy said so.)
Cosby’s lawyer, Martin Singer, said the accusations had “escalated far past the point of absurdity,” dismissing them as “fantastical,” ”unsubstantiated” and “uncorroborated.”
“When will it end?” he asked. “It is long past time for this media vilification of Mr. Cosby to stop.”
And, throughout the audience, his fans agreed.
They talked of watching him on TV as a child, and of his albums becoming familiar friends when the moved to unfamiliar, faraway towns. They brushed off the accusations, howling at everything he uttered.
That’s right. That’s right. Brush them off. They don’t matter. All that matters is adoring the guy who played a good guy on tv. All that matters is maintaining the illusion that he’s a good guy like the one he played on tv. The many independent accusations of rape don’t matter at all.
His 90-minute set wandered from a childhood fear of God to the loss of freedom in marriage to the rocket-speed Spanish of a piñata-store worker.
He sat for much at the start of the show, then grew increasingly physical, impersonating jujitsu and gymnastics poses, laying on the floor in stocking feet and thrusting a fist upward in a gesture of battling the everyday oppression of living with a wife. And when it was over, he said “good night,” walking off as the audience again stood.
Cool. Battling women all the way.