Good ol’ Whoopi. Apparently she no longer believes in “innocent until proven guilty”, at least not if many of the public disagree with her. She spouted off that phrase on her soapbox, but now rescinds it after so many disagree with her stance. I am reminded of the old expression- if integrity was easy, we’d all have it.
She is a prime example of why I do not take political advice or morality advice from celebrities.
How is that supposed to be ok? Playboy mention or Cosby. But I think a lot of young women trust Bill as Dr Huxtable, the father figure, I’m sure those playboy bunnies didn’t have that trust with Hugh Hefner. They went in with wide opened eyes.
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Not necessarily. I think some of them were very young & very naive as I was at that age.
There was also a lot of peer pressure involved that these women were susceptible to.
http://www.salon.com/2015/06/11/shock_of_shocks_new_memoir_reveals_playboy_mansion_is_manipulative_rabbit_hole_not_all_fun_and_games/
I do agree that to most people it would obviously be a place to stay away from.
“Qualudes are thigh openers”. Thanks for the link, EK. That is a new expression to me.
Now someone has begun an online petition to get the President to revoke Cosby’s Medal of Honor. I don’t see the point of that because the horse is out of the barn. Yes, it’s clear that Cosby is a skunk and predator of women, but revoking the award seems to be an idea contrived to just make us feel better about being duped by his celebrity persona. He didn’t get the award for being a feminist or a healer. I can think of other Medal of Honor recipients whom where later convicted of crimes. Revoking the medal wouldn’t have accomplished much (the soldier was imprisoned for armed robbery). I mean, no one advocates criminal behavior. I wish I could think of effective ways to help victims like the women Cosby apparently preyed on.
It wasn’t the Medal of Honor, LakeWashington, it was the National Medal of Freedom. Only people who are heroic in combat situations can be awarded the Medal of Honor.
Some of his victims speak out and are photographed for New York Magazine:
http://jezebel.com/35-cosby-accusers-come-forward-are-photographed-for-ne-1720060806
I cannot imagine how much pain these poor women has suffered.
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“Qualudes are thigh openers”. Thanks for the link, EK. That is a new expression to me.
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Yikes! Sadly, some a-hole will read that and get ideas.
Powerful stuff in the magazine. The observation that rape culture has changed significantly over the last four decades is very eye-opening.
I just want to say that anyone who says that media portrayal should be anything other than innocent until proven guilty for people who are simply accused is wrong.
There was a woman who recently made a scene in Australia I believe over a man who was just taking a selfie at a Star Wars convention and accused him of trying to take “pornographic” pictures of her children (they were in daylight, at a public place). She went on Facebook and crusaded against this man for no reason. For some people, especially educators, this could be ruinous to their personal lives and, potentially, their careers. You can personally feel that someone is guilty, but brigading against someone and spouting that he/she is 100% guilty and should just confess to the crimes is a disgusting mob mentality.
There is a famous case of this being done on Reddit. Someone spotted someone who looked like one of the Tsarnaevs and posted a picture of him. When he found out that people accused him of terrorism and were following him around reporting him to the police, he ended up committing suicide. Similarly, the man who was just (falsely) accused of having child pornography potentially had his life and career ruined by erroneous allegations. The Danish movie The Hunt does a very good job of portraying the darker side of false accusations, and it’s part of the reason why so many people are against the death penalty. There are plenty of statistics out there about how many people are falsely on death row, and it’s not fair to just say that since YOU believe there’s no way someone could be innocent and you’re not a judge/jury member, their charges don’t deserve to be treated with skepticism.
Bill Cosby is a human being. A scumbag, piece of s*** who committed atrocities, but a human being nonetheless. Justice and vengeance are NOT synonymous. We already live in a country that has the largest prison population – maybe we should focus more on rehabilitation/prevention and less on trying to seek vengeance for victims?
Interesting points, Micmatt. You might find similarities to your arguments in the matter of the McMartin Pre-school Case acquittal in California, the Wenatchee false scandal in Washington State, and the Wee Care Nursery (Margaret Kelly Michaels) overturned conviction in NJ.
Can we assume that the practice of giving people things “in the hopes of having sex” has lost its acceptance after this?
We are all shocked, shocked I say, to learn that there are people who get girls for celebrities, and that the celebrities have sex with these girls, sometimes after giving them drugs, and/or after making promises to help them in some way. Really, we are only shocked because of the benign image Cosby has. This kind of behavior by rock stars doesn’t even count as a scandal, for example.
I’m not defending this at all. I’m just saying that our culture is hypocritical and inconsistent about it. How many movies have we paid to see in which James Bond does stuff pretty much like this?
Do rock stars still behave that way?
The ones I know don’t, and I don’t think they ever have.
I don’t remember James Bond ever drugging ( or needing to), a woman in order to rape her.
Which movie was that?
Did Cosby actually admit to giving them the drugs without their knowledge?
Because if they agreed to take the drugs, the resulting sex would not necessarily be rape. (unless there was a “no” moment…).
Until and unless this actually goes through the judicial system (which it could if the statute of limitations has not expired), we may never know what actually happened. I try to shy away from slander and libel, so I’ll stay away from bashing him. If he deserves punishment, I trust it will somehow come to him. Certainly his economic interests, popularity, and legacy have suffered greatly already.
It bemuses me somewhat that the fact that he was repeatedly, serially unfaithful to his wife wouldn’t be enough to tarnish his image much.
Yes - that seems to have been glossed over by nearly everyone.
I think the fact that Camille has not denied anything, and seems to be complicit in that she was not surprised by allegations, and according to at least one of the women " disappeared" at a convenient time,possibly affects that detail.
I couldn’t care less if a celebrity is unfaithful to his or her wife. That’s between the two people in the marriage. The allegations against Cosby – involving a remarkably similar pattern of predatory behavior spanning 40 years – is utterly, truly, disgustingly shocking.
If you assume this is typical behavior of rock stars or other celebrities, you are a much, much more cynical person than I.
The New York magazine piece is eye-opening and sickening.
I’m frankly offended by the comparison to garden-variety infidelity. This has nothing whatsoever in common with sex between consenting adults, even adulterous sex. Nothing at all.
I agree that this is much worse than mere infidelity, even serial infidelity. I’m just saying that the gross infidelity would be enough for me to think that Cosby is not such a great role model after all.
Let me put it this way: he has a lot of nerve telling others to pull their pants up.