Transcript for:
Bill Cosby's Legacy: Contrasts and Controversies

I know you should talk about Bill Cosby but I saw him live and like I saw him live too when I was a security guard oh yeah I saw him live yeah I was a security guard at at Great Woods uh I saw Kennison there when I was a security guard saw Rodney Dangerfield there yeah saw quite a few people there yeah well it was something to see him sit on his stool with his cigar and get the whole audience like literally hysterical I mean the guy in front of me was rocking back and forth so hard he could hardly breathe his wife kept elbowing him kind of you know turn back into something vaguely resembling a human being but it was it's really amazing to see someone with that much command to the audience and and so consistently unbelievably funny he's the most tragic story in all of show business I had next to Michael Jackson and OJ Simpson I mean those are the three most tragic stories in Show Business in in my mind yeah and and you know he's a monster it's crazy yeah BR what the hell you know the thing that's so strange about Cosby you'd think well like was this really necessary like man the guy was famous in 15 different directions and really well respected you wouldn't have think he would have had to date rap his women you know it's just well yeah I mean he if he just he could have just had prostitutes I mean if he really just needed sex I don't think that's what it was I think there was a sick perversion and I think he liked to do that to people he like to trick them I mean I'm just guessing right well it has to be something like that because it's so it's so counterproductive and so psychotic it's psychotic I mean I don't understand it you know I've tried to I've tried to sort of imagine what it must have been like to be around in the 50s and the 60s I think people did that to each other way more often than we'd like to admit and I think that it was more casual than we would think of today where people would slip someone a Mickey or you know I mean he even had a bit that he did back in way back in the day about giving someone Spanish Fly that you would give someone something that would make them horny right I think he I think he was probably a guy that had an incredibly inflated opinion of himself didn't want anybody to ever reject him experienced that a few times again this is pure speculation and just decided that he was better than people that he could just drug them it's so strange though CU his comedy was basically so like it was generally family oriented it was yes you know and he put himself forward as a role model and he was credible like he was credible as an actor as a role model and he seemed credible as a spokesperson is kind of kind of makes me think you know there's this idea that the psychoanalysts had there's guy named Eric nyman who was a student of Carl Jung's and one of the things that nyman said wrote a book called depth psychology and the new ethic right after World War II and it's a it's a great book a little thin book but it's a great book one of the things he says in that book is don't be better than you are and what he meant was he didn't mean don't improve like that would be foolish he meant beware of adopting a Persona that makes you a far better person than you actually are because all of that part of you that you're not admitting to that's going to go off and have it own life you're not integrating it you know you're suppressing it in some way and you're not and and so it's a living thing you know that well like the aggression you had when you were a fighter that's a big deep part of you you know you can't just push something like that aside and pretend that it's not there and think that it's not going to go off and have some fun when you're not paying attention yeah to me like something like that must have got him is that he was he was split between this really good guy that he was trying to be which was like too good and and and this this like more monstrous side of his personality that he obviously never integrated or perhaps never even admitted to it's really a hell of a story man it's like and it really is a catastrophe I think it was a absolute bloody catastrophe for his victims obviously and but just as a general cultural phenomenon is so awful