Speaker 1: Pushkin. This is Talk Easy. I'm stanfordco So welcome to
Speaker 1: the show today. I'm joined by comedian and filmmaker w
Speaker 1: Kamal Bell Come Out first came on our show back
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen. Since then, he's moved a little bit
Speaker 1: away from stand up comedy and into documentary filmmaking. He's
Speaker 1: the creator and host of a great program on CNN
Speaker 1: called United Shades of America. The premise of the show
Speaker 1: is simple enough. In each episode, Kamal travels to a
Speaker 1: different part of the country to sit with a particular
Speaker 1: issue inside that region. He's gone to the South to
Speaker 1: speak with the Ku Klux Klan. He's visited inmates in
Speaker 1: the San Quentin Prison, a Muslim community in Michigan, Indigenous
Speaker 1: people in the Dakotas. As Kamal says, he's focused on
Speaker 1: having these difficult but necessary conversations even when we may
Speaker 1: not want to have them, and it's that mission statement
Speaker 1: that brock Camal to his latest project, We Need to
Speaker 1: Talk About Cosby, a four part docuseries that recently premiered
Speaker 1: on Showtime. Here's a clip from the trailer. Do not
Speaker 1: edit this. A lot of people knew because you can't
Speaker 1: do what he did unless you have other people supporting
Speaker 1: what you're doing. Spanish fly, the girl would drink it
Speaker 1: and hello. Bill Cosby had been one of my heroes.
Speaker 1: I'm a black man stand up comic. I was born
Speaker 1: in the seventies. This for Bill Cosby, the accusation just
Speaker 1: keep coming in. This was complicated. How do we talk
Speaker 1: about Bill Cosby? It's complex come out? You know. Bill
Speaker 1: Cosby was our teacher, center of morality all throughout his career.
Speaker 1: Made my grandmother laugh, made everybody in the house laugh.
Speaker 1: Can't speak about Black America in the twentieth century and
Speaker 1: not talk about Bill Cosby. Bill Cosby has been leaving
Speaker 1: bread crumbs, barbecue, saw us people. They get all huggy,
Speaker 1: buggy things. Was talking about how to drug women, beautiful women.
Speaker 1: They were lined up outside of his dressing. What did
Speaker 1: you think was going on? He looked at me and
Speaker 1: he said, fool them again. And don't often learn that
Speaker 1: your heroes the worst sorts of villains. This is just
Speaker 1: a sad day in the history of black culture. It
Speaker 1: was just like, no, not Bill Cosby. It's tough being
Speaker 1: a sister. I feel like I have to have this discussion.
Speaker 1: We thought we knew Cosby. We never knew Cosby. That
Speaker 1: was from We Need to Talk About Cosby, which is
Speaker 1: now available to stream on Showtime. To his credit, Kamal
Speaker 1: does a skillful job of sitting with the totality of
Speaker 1: Cosby his descent from America's Dad to alleged sexual predator. Kamo,
Speaker 1: as you probably heard in that clip, grew up idolizing Cosby,
Speaker 1: he said recently in an interview. When I watched him,
Speaker 1: especially on his show's aimed at kids like Fat Albert,
Speaker 1: Picture Pages and The Electric Company, I saw a black
Speaker 1: man who wanted me to be smart like he was.
Speaker 1: He wanted me to be successful like he was. He
Speaker 1: wanted me to be a good person like I thought
Speaker 1: he was. And much of the docuseries shows comedians, journalists,
Speaker 1: and survivors reckoning with both Cosby's singular career and the
Speaker 1: alleged abhorrent crimes. Kamal and I get into all of
Speaker 1: this in our episode, but before we jump in, I
Speaker 1: want to offer a mild warning. Given that Cosby is
Speaker 1: at the center of this conversation. We do speak of
Speaker 1: sexual assault and the various accusations made against him, So
Speaker 1: I just want to make sure to mention that at
Speaker 1: the top, if you do decide to join us, and
Speaker 1: I hope you do, I think you'll find Kamo's clearheaded,
Speaker 1: empathetic approach to his work refreshing and deeply moving. Kamo believe,
Speaker 1: as I do, especially in thinking about our recent episode
Speaker 1: with doctor James Whitfield, that we can't afford to lose
Speaker 1: our history, no matter how painful it may be. So today,
Speaker 1: on this episode, we dive head first into that history
Speaker 1: to have a conversation we maybe don't want to have,
Speaker 1: but probably need to. This is W Kamalbell. W Kamalbell,
Speaker 1: Welcome back. This is your fifth time on the show?
Speaker 1: Is fifth time? Your fifth? Wow? I'm glad you're back.
Speaker 1: I want to begin. In twenty twelve, you have a
Speaker 1: show on FX executive produced by Chris Rock. It's called
Speaker 1: Totally Bias with W Kamalbell. As the program gets picked up,
Speaker 1: the press starts doing interviews with you, and one question
Speaker 1: they repeatedly ask is who were your favorite stand up
Speaker 1: comics when you were growing up? And that was a
Speaker 1: difficult question for you to answer, wasn't it? Yeah, even
Speaker 1: back then? Which is funny to see that. You know,
Speaker 1: that's before the survivors all came forward, but there was
Speaker 1: already enough stories. And it's funny, it's hard to even
Speaker 1: remember that time of Bill Cosby being accused of rape
Speaker 1: and sexual assault. That it was just clear that I
Speaker 1: couldn't just be like, oh, Bill Cosby and Eddie Murphy,
Speaker 1: next question. So I started to say Eddie Murphy and
Speaker 1: the artist formerly known as Bill Cosby, which was my
Speaker 1: way of sort of like trying to say, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying here, I don't really want to talk
Speaker 1: about this anymore. But because it felt like if I
Speaker 1: didn't say Bill Cosby, it would be weird to be
Speaker 1: a black man at my age and not mentioned Bill
Speaker 1: Cosby as an influence. And if I did say Bill
Speaker 1: Cosby and just sort of let his name hang in
Speaker 1: the air, then it didn't feel like I was turning
Speaker 1: my back on the survivors. Now looking back, it's the
Speaker 1: most mealy mouth support that anybody could almost pretend to offer,
Speaker 1: but it was that was how I handled at the time.
Speaker 1: But I think in that answers me going like, how
Speaker 1: do we talk about Bill Cosby? How did you go
Speaker 1: from a comic saying I don't really want to talk
Speaker 1: about this anymore too. We need to talk about this,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to devote four years of my life
Speaker 1: too talking about it. You know, I'm sort of following
Speaker 1: the Bill Cosby case like everybody else. I'm sort of
Speaker 1: having these conversations with friends and family and seeing conversations happen,
Speaker 1: and also building a career where I'm specializing in difficult
Speaker 1: conversations and being known to have difficult conversations. And I
Speaker 1: end up at the offices of Boardwalk Pictures and I
Speaker 1: was talking to my agent, this is so Hollywood, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I really like those guys, Like I
Speaker 1: wish they could make the comedy documentaries or I I
Speaker 1: wonder if they would make comedy documentaries and I could
Speaker 1: be involved in. And he was like, we represent them,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, I didn't like. I don't
Speaker 1: know who my agent represents. And I end up in
Speaker 1: an office with them, and their office is talking about it,
Speaker 1: just talking about a general conversation about comedy documentaries. In
Speaker 1: that conversation Andrew Freed, It's Andrew Freed and Jordi. When
Speaker 1: Andrew says, could you make a comedy documentary about a
Speaker 1: comedian that's fallen? Could you celebrate the work of a
Speaker 1: comedian who has fallen. And when you say that, you're
Speaker 1: talking about a few comedians, and one of the preminent
Speaker 1: one is Bill Cosby and my memories that I responded, Well,
Speaker 1: if you did that, you'd have to do it like O. J.
Speaker 1: Simpson made an America's style the Ezra Edelman documentary about Simpson,
Speaker 1: where you look at the person's life, their career and
Speaker 1: America and their crimes and all. You'd have to do
Speaker 1: all of it at once. Andrew tells me, and I
Speaker 1: forgot this that I like the next day I sent
Speaker 1: him a super long email laying the whole thing out
Speaker 1: like it was just like I couldn't stop thinking about it.
Speaker 1: And that's how that's how it stay. It was not
Speaker 1: a pitch. It was just a people coming together. What
Speaker 1: did the email sound like? How you would trace his career?
Speaker 1: Very early I realized, as much as I think chronology
Speaker 1: is a bad way to tell a story, very early
Speaker 1: I realized that becausemys over a fifty year career in
Speaker 1: show business and so many people come into it at
Speaker 1: different points, that you sort of have to go chronologically
Speaker 1: just to go this is where this guy came from.
Speaker 1: So you don't think he was always doctor Huxtable, or
Speaker 1: if you're young, you don't always think he was this
Speaker 1: cranky granddad who was accused of these crimes. And so
Speaker 1: it felt like a big part of what I do
Speaker 1: is always education. And then once you look back over
Speaker 1: his career, you can sort of break it into eras
Speaker 1: the climb to the success, which is pretty short. He
Speaker 1: sort of takes off quickly trying to figure out where
Speaker 1: he lies in show business, which is like the seventies
Speaker 1: and of the eighties and the Cosby Show and post
Speaker 1: Cosby Show. So it breaks up in sort of ways
Speaker 1: it makes sense. And then once you start to look
Speaker 1: at the assaults, which I hadn't looked at, you realize
Speaker 1: they go back to the early days of his career,
Speaker 1: which I think most people don't realize. They think it's
Speaker 1: something that maybe happened in the Cosby Show era, but
Speaker 1: they go back to the early days of his career
Speaker 1: and so and then it's like how you would sort
Speaker 1: of weave those stories together. So that was the email
Speaker 1: was a lot about that and about how it's also
Speaker 1: what it tells us about America. You said you hadn't
Speaker 1: looked at the assaults when did you first sit with them.
Speaker 1: I hadn't looked into the assaults. I was like a
Speaker 1: lot of people where you're watching the news and there's
Speaker 1: another woman who says Bill Cosby assaulted me, and maybe
Speaker 1: I watched the whole news clip. Maybe I just see
Speaker 1: the headline, maybe I read the first paragraph the article.
Speaker 1: Very quickly, I sort of understood. And this is the
Speaker 1: tribute to the women in my life, my mom, Janet Bell,
Speaker 1: my my wife Melissa, my friend Martha, lots of women
Speaker 1: life who had schooled me on sexual assault. And we're like,
Speaker 1: if a woman is going to come forward and say
Speaker 1: that a man raped her, has actually assaulted her, you
Speaker 1: should take her seriously, Like that's not a thing that
Speaker 1: is easy to do, and it's not something that that
Speaker 1: women are going to do. Lightly doesn't mean that there
Speaker 1: aren't women who falsely accused men, but those are statistically
Speaker 1: negligible when you're counting these things. It's not it's it
Speaker 1: has happened, and it is shitty, but it is not
Speaker 1: something that happens as often as people who defend rapists
Speaker 1: want to act like it happens. The idea being that like,
Speaker 1: once I started to look at them and like really
Speaker 1: take the women's stories in. It was just clear that, like,
Speaker 1: this is deeper than I thought it was. I think
Speaker 1: those was who even maybe believe the women early on,
Speaker 1: you sort of can classify it as like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: like sixty one night stands that went wrong. Not that
Speaker 1: that's a good thing, but you sort of put it
Speaker 1: in this sort of category of like they probably all
Speaker 1: happened during the Cosby show. It's probably one night stands
Speaker 1: it went wrong. It was. But then when you look
Speaker 1: until you find that he knew some of these women
Speaker 1: for years, he really worked hard to get them to
Speaker 1: be in their lives, to really tell them he was
Speaker 1: going to give them success in blah blah blah, and
Speaker 1: you know, and as one of the women in the documentary,
Speaker 1: he says he worked as hard at his predation as
Speaker 1: he did at his career. You mentioned Melissa and Janet
Speaker 1: your mother, and I think one of the early criticisms
Speaker 1: of the documentary is that this is a story about
Speaker 1: a man who has a routine pattern of assaulting women,
Speaker 1: and it's directed and made by a man. Kb and
Speaker 1: Complex wrote, hearing the violence against these women was infuriating,
Speaker 1: and I felt so much empathy for these women who
Speaker 1: decided to share their stories so bravely. As I watched,
Speaker 1: I started to ask myself, as I'm sure others will, why,
Speaker 1: as a man tackling this documentary, why at the center
Speaker 1: of this body of art that so vulnerably uplifts these women,
Speaker 1: do we now need to talk about Cosby? How have
Speaker 1: you personally wrestled with that question in the last three
Speaker 1: to four years? And then on the production end, how
Speaker 1: did it inform the diversity of talent behind the scenes
Speaker 1: and the environment I know you've created. I think I
Speaker 1: certainly understand, like this doc could be made by anybody,
Speaker 1: because Bill Cosby's presence is so outside in show business
Speaker 1: that we you know, That's why this is such a
Speaker 1: hard thing to struggle with this because there are like
Speaker 1: Andrew Fried is a white man around the same age
Speaker 1: as me, and he also loved the Cosby Show, So
Speaker 1: it's like, but it's going to be feeled differently for
Speaker 1: white man makes it. Once I decided to make it,
Speaker 1: and once it became clear that we weren't going to
Speaker 1: get a wide range of sort of other like a
Speaker 1: list talent to talk about it. Not that I'm a list,
Speaker 1: but weren't gonna get a list talent. I really want
Speaker 1: to then own the perspective of like, I am a man,
Speaker 1: I'm a black man, I was born in the seventies,
Speaker 1: I'm a standing up comic. So this is all coming
Speaker 1: through that lens. So it's not like I'm trying to
Speaker 1: hide it and act like this doc is being directed
Speaker 1: by the invisible hand of show business. So and because
Speaker 1: I'm saying that out loud, I think it's fair for
Speaker 1: someone to go, I don't want to hear a man
Speaker 1: talk about this. I don't want to hear that's totally fair,
Speaker 1: not gonna say that that means anything about you other
Speaker 1: than Yet, don't I get why you would say? This
Speaker 1: is not how I want to take this in because
Speaker 1: these issues are super thorny. Now, once I've decided to
Speaker 1: do it, all I can do is handle it is
Speaker 1: sensitively and with as much good humor as I can,
Speaker 1: and do the homework. And the project is staffed, if
Speaker 1: not mostly by women, of which I think it is
Speaker 1: mostly by women. There's just you know, Katie King as
Speaker 1: our showrunner, Geraldine Pors is our COEP, Kelly Rafferty as
Speaker 1: a consulting producer. The first time we ever talked about
Speaker 1: the creative It was with Geraldine Kelly and Jim Laking,
Speaker 1: who's a journalist with BuzzFeed. At then she was with
Speaker 1: Mother Jones. The main editor who touched all the episodes
Speaker 1: is Jen Brooks, are archival producer. Who's the person who
Speaker 1: makes sure that you can use those clips from the
Speaker 1: Cosby Show that you're using Emily Koe Francesco. I'm not
Speaker 1: even patting myself back. I'm just saying that's the the
Speaker 1: way it is. You can look at the names when
Speaker 1: they were in the credits. And also Geraldine did most
Speaker 1: of the outreach the survivors, so it was not like
Speaker 1: I was calling these women and sort of like badgering
Speaker 1: them to be in it. It was a woman who
Speaker 1: was reaching out to them. So having said all that,
Speaker 1: I've heard from people who say, I'm glad a man
Speaker 1: is doing this, because it's usually women who do this.
Speaker 1: But having said that, I don't begrudge anybody the doc is.
Speaker 1: It's not a superhero movie. You can have problems with it.
Speaker 1: There's things that I wish we could have done more.
Speaker 1: There's things that if we had five hours, which we
Speaker 1: wanted to, we could have gotten into deeper. There's ways
Speaker 1: in which it's clearly a man who's talking about rape culture.
Speaker 1: Some people find that to be helpful, that a man
Speaker 1: is finally talking about rape culture. Some people go, oh,
Speaker 1: he didn't say the things that he's supposed to say
Speaker 1: or that are the most helpful, and I accept all that. Well,
Speaker 1: what I think is interesting and the reason I brought
Speaker 1: this up one so that you could outline all the
Speaker 1: talent and women who did work on this and who
Speaker 1: had integral roles on it. But it's very clear in
Speaker 1: watching the movie that you all created an environment where
Speaker 1: women were comfortable to come forward. In those moments when
Speaker 1: women are sharing this with you, how do you hold
Speaker 1: that as a man and a father. Again, all the
Speaker 1: reps that I've done a United Change has really prepared me.
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the most intimidating interviews I've ever
Speaker 1: done that I ever walked into. As we did an
Speaker 1: episode in season two that was formed mostly about Standing
Speaker 1: Rock and Native American activism at Standing Rock, and we
Speaker 1: also filmed in the Pine Ridge Reservation, and while we
Speaker 1: were filming, somebody told us like, oh, you should talk
Speaker 1: to this family. They'd have a lot to say about
Speaker 1: live life. On the REZ and how America doesn't respect
Speaker 1: us here. Their son was just killed by gang violence.
Speaker 1: There's a wake at his house right now, at his
Speaker 1: family's house. I called them, They said, you can come
Speaker 1: over there. The show's only been in existence for one year,
Speaker 1: so likely these people don't know the show, but they're
Speaker 1: being told by a friend of theirs talked to this
Speaker 1: crew about your son passing. So I walk into like
Speaker 1: a family like, you know, not the wake, but like
Speaker 1: the family sort of eating food and talking about their
Speaker 1: dead family member who was killed by king violence. And
Speaker 1: I was like, why am I going into this? Like
Speaker 1: this is not something that I was trained to do,
Speaker 1: This is not something I'm a comedian, Like, why would
Speaker 1: they say I should go? And I remember walking into
Speaker 1: that and just being like, all right, just put one
Speaker 1: foot in front of the other, bearly respectful and let
Speaker 1: them lead the way. And by the end of that
Speaker 1: conversation we were laughing and people clapped in the room,
Speaker 1: not because of something I necessarily said, but because of
Speaker 1: something that Vincent's mom has said. And it was just
Speaker 1: like I was really transformed in that moment to go
Speaker 1: if you could just go in and or talk to
Speaker 1: people in a respectful way and let them know you
Speaker 1: can trust them. And I understand that you have to
Speaker 1: earn their trust. You can get people to open up
Speaker 1: and talk. And the other side of that is that
Speaker 1: a lot of the survivors said they would do the
Speaker 1: series once they realized I was doing the interviewing because
Speaker 1: they've seen my work on The United Shades. So I
Speaker 1: understand saying why would a man do this? But then
Speaker 1: I think at some point it's like, well, who's the
Speaker 1: man and what is his track record? You know. In
Speaker 1: the middle of episode two, Jelani comp of The New
Speaker 1: Yorker says, you don't often learn that your heroes are
Speaker 1: really the worst sorts of villains. I was thinking, in
Speaker 1: the process of interviewing Cosby, is someone that you looked
Speaker 1: to as a hero growing up. How did you hold
Speaker 1: those two truth that he was your hero and he
Speaker 1: was becoming more and more of a villain the more
Speaker 1: you made this film. Well, I think at some point
Speaker 1: you realize he was my hero, he's not my hero anymore.
Speaker 1: And I think the thing you have to realize, and
Speaker 1: I think we all have to realize this, is that
Speaker 1: just because someone makes good work, it doesn't mean they're good,
Speaker 1: and good can be whatever you define who personally is good.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be about criminal activity. I think
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of white baby boomers are struggling
Speaker 1: with their love of Eric Clapton right now. I thought,
Speaker 1: I thought Eric Clapton. Eric Clapton wrote Tears in Heaven,
Speaker 1: it's a song that connects me to loss in my life.
Speaker 1: And he wrote Layla and it's and I love that
Speaker 1: song and blah blah blah. And also he did some
Speaker 1: racism in the seventies, and he's anti vaccine. He's also
Speaker 1: a COVID conspiracy theorist. He did some racism in the seventies.
Speaker 1: He did some racism in the seventies. It may be
Speaker 1: in the late sixties, I don't remember there, but he
Speaker 1: did some racism. He did some guitar work, and he
Speaker 1: did some racism. So the idea being that, like, I'm
Speaker 1: sure there are people who are going to still listen
Speaker 1: to Eric Clapton's music and just sort of put the
Speaker 1: rest of it in a part of their mind where
Speaker 1: they don't worry about it. I think you see it
Speaker 1: with musicians a lot. I mean, again, done to be
Speaker 1: criminal activity. It could be that your favorite rapper, whereas
Speaker 1: a maga hat sometimes and you're like a So I
Speaker 1: think we are used to separating the art from the artist.
Speaker 1: It just becomes a problem when you want other people
Speaker 1: to draw the same lines that you draw. So if
Speaker 1: somebody says I don't want to listen to Eric Clapton
Speaker 1: because he did a racism and he's a COVID conspiracy theorist,
Speaker 1: he go, that's dumb. This music is good. That's where
Speaker 1: the problem lies. But having said all that, so I
Speaker 1: can recognize that Bill Cosby himself is one of the
Speaker 1: great achievements in modern stand up comedy, or it's one
Speaker 1: of the great achievements in the history of stand up comedy,
Speaker 1: and it was super inspirational for me as a young comedian.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that he's a good person, is what
Speaker 1: I've learned, and it doesn't mean that I can't also
Speaker 1: confront these allegations that I believe this documentary is trying
Speaker 1: to inspire conversation that has been happening behind closed doors
Speaker 1: but not out in public, And it seems like you're
Speaker 1: trying to inspire people to have these conversations in front
Speaker 1: of people on the record. I think I'm also trying
Speaker 1: to inspire people to have conversations across maybe lines that
Speaker 1: they wouldn't normally have those conversations, and not just have
Speaker 1: them in secret with their trusted friends in the group chat.
Speaker 1: When I came to this, it was about can you
Speaker 1: separate the art from the artist? Then once he got
Speaker 1: out of prison, it became like, what can we learn
Speaker 1: from all this that can make the next generation safer
Speaker 1: and not the next generation, the next potential victim of
Speaker 1: sexual assault or rape who's out there in the world
Speaker 1: right now, put them in a better position to have safety,
Speaker 1: justice and healing. And right now sexual assault and rape
Speaker 1: is still underreported. You know many victim sexual assault, you'd
Speaker 1: be like, why didn't you tell anybody? They did tell people,
Speaker 1: those people told them not to tell anybody else, And
Speaker 1: that person didn't have to be as famous as Bill Cosby.
Speaker 1: It could be some just the dude in your neighborhood
Speaker 1: and they went, why didn't you go to the cops.
Speaker 1: I did go to the cops, and the cops said
Speaker 1: it was just he said, she said. So It's like,
Speaker 1: right now, our system has failed full stop. Our justice
Speaker 1: system fails full stop regularly, but in this area they're
Speaker 1: failing in a more dramatic and clear way, and only
Speaker 1: we don't only don't talk about it because we don't
Speaker 1: prioritize women's voices in this society. And then we specifically
Speaker 1: don't prioritize Black women's voices and Native women's voices, and
Speaker 1: Latino women's voices and Asia women's voices. What do you
Speaker 1: think is preventing us from having these uncomfortable back end
Speaker 1: force in public? The power structure of this country is
Speaker 1: still prioritizes sort of white male supremacies, not sort of
Speaker 1: the power structure of this country prioritizes white male supremacy.
Speaker 1: For me, one of the things about this specifically in
Speaker 1: show business is that the more diverse the power brokers become,
Speaker 1: and the more the powerbrokers aren't just straight white men
Speaker 1: or men are along the gender spectrum and non binary.
Speaker 1: The more that there's different, the more there's more Muslims
Speaker 1: than not just Christians or Jews, and more that there's
Speaker 1: like a diversity of people. I believe that individual's voices
Speaker 1: are more prioritized. That doesn't solve everything, but that's a
Speaker 1: part of it. And then I think it becomes responsible
Speaker 1: for those of us in power to make sure we
Speaker 1: are running a set. And this is what we try
Speaker 1: to do in United Shades, where I don't care if
Speaker 1: you're the lowest person on the call sheet that if
Speaker 1: something happens, you have the ability to tell somebody, even
Speaker 1: if that person who did it is me, that you
Speaker 1: don't feel like you're going to be fired. And then
Speaker 1: it becomes my responsibility to make sure that everybody knows
Speaker 1: that I'm leading by example. It's funny you say that,
Speaker 1: because one thing that I couldn't shake while watching, and
Speaker 1: it's something you're getting at here, which is in order
Speaker 1: for people to have open conversations, you need people in
Speaker 1: positions of power to come to the table and talk.
Speaker 1: And yet the very gatekeepers that many of women who
Speaker 1: have been assaulted are afraid won't believe them. Like Cosby's friends, colleagues,
Speaker 1: comedians that were peers, or even comedians inspired by the
Speaker 1: work he did, they're absent from the film and large,
Speaker 1: and instead you feature veteran reporters, distinguished professors, and of
Speaker 1: course the women who have bravely come forth after being
Speaker 1: abused by Cosby himself. And I wondered, how did you
Speaker 1: reckon with that absence. What do you make of it? Oh,
Speaker 1: I was more naive than I thought when I thought
Speaker 1: that this was like an easier conversation now that Cosby
Speaker 1: was in prison. So I thought, once couss in prison,
Speaker 1: his story is basically over. He's probably going to spend
Speaker 1: the rest of his life there or pass away in
Speaker 1: prison because he's very, very old. I thought we'd be
Speaker 1: able to have a more wide open conversation, but it
Speaker 1: just showed how his power still emanated through show business.
Speaker 1: And the thing I understood because I had some conversations
Speaker 1: with people who said, no, I'm going to disappoint somebody
Speaker 1: who is in my audience or in my life, no
Speaker 1: matter what I say, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 1: So much this is about representation and black people in
Speaker 1: this country. We have enough people in our communities who
Speaker 1: could be role models in international icons, but we don't
Speaker 1: all get equal access to become role models international icons
Speaker 1: because of again system of white supremacy. So to some
Speaker 1: black people, Cosby's too valuable for us to lose. And
Speaker 1: what I'm saying in this film is like, we don't
Speaker 1: got to lose all of it if we confront all
Speaker 1: of it, if we deal with all of it. Like
Speaker 1: I said, some of the knows were like over a
Speaker 1: course of an hour. And I told him, I was like, look,
Speaker 1: as soon as you tell me no, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to hard sell you. So as soon as I get
Speaker 1: to know, I'm done, and you won't hear from me
Speaker 1: until I say, just so you know this film was
Speaker 1: coming out. This is the thing part about this that
Speaker 1: I think is interesting. Trevor Noah said no. And I'm
Speaker 1: only saying that because he said he said no. He
Speaker 1: then had me on the show to talk about it,
Speaker 1: which to me is like, you're engaging with the conversation. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's like it puts too much pressure on the
Speaker 1: film to hold the entire span of the conversation. I
Speaker 1: really think the film can be table setting for the bigger,
Speaker 1: productive conversations that people then can choose to engage with
Speaker 1: the way they want to engage with it. I get
Speaker 1: how Third Railey this conversation is for black people. And
Speaker 1: as much as I'm like, man, I really thought and
Speaker 1: I wished and I hoped, when I look at the work,
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, we really pulled something off that I
Speaker 1: think it was ever done before. And I think there's
Speaker 1: something cool about the fact that it isn't rely on
Speaker 1: It's not like a poster where it's just a list
Speaker 1: of a list talent who maybe only had one sound
Speaker 1: bite that was worth it, which sometimes happens in documentaries.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you the question that you posted
Speaker 1: people at the end of the film. He said, if
Speaker 1: an alien from another planet was to come to you
Speaker 1: and say, who is Bill Cosby? How would Kamal Bell
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two answer that Kernomayo has her answer
Speaker 1: And I'm sort of that's the answer that felt the
Speaker 1: most solid to me, which is why it was at
Speaker 1: the end, and then I talk after that, so I
Speaker 1: feel like I would say to the alien, Look, if
Speaker 1: you're going to understand America, there's two things you need
Speaker 1: to understand America's history and present day of racism, as
Speaker 1: specifically racism against black people. And you need to understand
Speaker 1: how America doesn't listen to women's voices and doesn't prioritize
Speaker 1: women's voices. And it's worse if you're not a white woman,
Speaker 1: if you're a woman of color or a black woman,
Speaker 1: an Indigenous woman, and Latina woman, Asian woman. So those
Speaker 1: are two things you need to understand to understand America,
Speaker 1: and one good way to understand those two things is
Speaker 1: to learn the story of Bill Cosby. We'll be right
Speaker 1: back after a quick break. Part of the story of
Speaker 1: Bill Consby, which I didn't know all of and I'm
Speaker 1: reluctant to go vaguely positive here give credit, but I
Speaker 1: think it's important to do this. Yeah, could you speak
Speaker 1: to his work with stunts? That was the key story
Speaker 1: that before I ever thought I could direct something like this,
Speaker 1: where I was like, if we don't tell this story,
Speaker 1: we're losing our history. So in the wake of all
Speaker 1: the women coming forward, I read an article, I think
Speaker 1: in Deadline that said a filmmaker named Nonie Robinson was
Speaker 1: working on a documentary about Bill Cosby's effect on the
Speaker 1: stunt industry, and it's part of the documentary she'd interviewed
Speaker 1: Bill Cosby for two hours, but now with all the
Speaker 1: accusations coming out, she was going to cut that from
Speaker 1: the documentary and didn't know what she was going to
Speaker 1: do with the documentary. Nobody's doc apparently is still in production,
Speaker 1: is going to come out someday. So I think at last,
Speaker 1: I think it's called breaking bones, breaking barriers and so
Speaker 1: one of the first people we reached out to was
Speaker 1: her for the film. The story is is that Bill
Speaker 1: Cosby was on the set of I Spy. I Spy
Speaker 1: was the first TV show in Hollywood history where a
Speaker 1: black man and a white man were co leads of
Speaker 1: the show, and that on the show, Bill Cosby had
Speaker 1: equal status. He wasn't playing like Robert Culp's man servant
Speaker 1: or valet. He was like they were equal status agents
Speaker 1: some sort of like spies, international spies. And apparently early
Speaker 1: on the first season that show, so he's making Hollywood history.
Speaker 1: He sees a stunt man getting painted a white stunt
Speaker 1: man getting painted black, not brown black, and he asked,
Speaker 1: what's happening and they say, oh, that guy's here to
Speaker 1: do your stunt. And that's how we do it. We
Speaker 1: paint them black so they can do your stunt. And
Speaker 1: let's remember this is color television. And yet they're painting
Speaker 1: this guy black. Bill Cosby apparently says something effective like,
Speaker 1: if you're going to do that, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: work on the show anymore. You need to find me
Speaker 1: a black stunt man. And this is his first TV show,
Speaker 1: He's made Hollywood history. It would be easy for him
Speaker 1: to go, Okay, thanks for telling me. But he took
Speaker 1: a stand right then, and they went and found him
Speaker 1: very quickly, found him a black man of a similar
Speaker 1: heightened build and complexions, Bill Cosby, and that guy became
Speaker 1: Bill Cosby stunt man for like his whole career. Black
Speaker 1: people's stunt industry say, that's the moment that the stunt
Speaker 1: industry got integrated, that moment from that act. So it's
Speaker 1: not like a bunch of people are doing a bunch
Speaker 1: of things. It's that moment from Bill Cosby. And when
Speaker 1: I read that article in Deadline, I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: if this documentary doesn't come out or we don't tell
Speaker 1: this story, we're losing our history. We can't afford, especially
Speaker 1: in these times of critical Hiss theory being attacked all
Speaker 1: over the country in schools saying we wanted only that
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to say slavery is bad when you
Speaker 1: teach slavery. We can't afford to lose our history. Even
Speaker 1: if it's hard to tell that story. That was one
Speaker 1: of the first stories that made go sort of like,
Speaker 1: if I was going to do a doc I would
Speaker 1: tell that story. His work with black colleges again, another
Speaker 1: example of this that I don't know if people know
Speaker 1: entirely about. Yeah, so he very quickly once Bill Cosby
Speaker 1: starts making lots of money, he starts to, as they say,
Speaker 1: give it all away and not just like sort of
Speaker 1: like low level y. One of the things he does
Speaker 1: is he gives Spellman Alack a HBCU that is a
Speaker 1: Black women's college, twenty million dollars, which at the time
Speaker 1: was the largest donation to any HBCU ever. Maybe still
Speaker 1: and so again this is Bill Cosby trying to make
Speaker 1: the world a better place, specifically for black women because
Speaker 1: it's as Spellman. But then the way you look at that,
Speaker 1: you go or was he buying himself coverage. It's it's
Speaker 1: not a math equation where he can go this plus
Speaker 1: this equals this. It's like, no, it all exists. You
Speaker 1: can't just dismiss that. Now Spellman has since given the
Speaker 1: endowment the money back, so and a lot of colleges
Speaker 1: I think have done that. But yeah, it's just another
Speaker 1: act of like how complicated the story is to tell.
Speaker 1: And just by the fact that on the Cosby Show
Speaker 1: he wore college sweatshirts and HBCU sweatshirts and then he
Speaker 1: created the spin off A Different World about a fictional HBCU.
Speaker 1: A lot of black people of a certain generation around
Speaker 1: my hday, I went to an HBCU because of Bill
Speaker 1: Cosby talking about HBCUs all the time, or because of
Speaker 1: a Different World. Every white person of a certain h
Speaker 1: knows the Cosby show. They didn't all watch A Different World,
Speaker 1: even though was also a huge hit show, but black people,
Speaker 1: that show takes up a very special place in our
Speaker 1: hearts of a certain age. So I think we certainly
Speaker 1: could have done more there, because I think Debbie Allen,
Speaker 1: who was the show warner who really transformed A Different
Speaker 1: World into the show that people love. We mentioned her,
Speaker 1: but there's more we could have done there. You know,
Speaker 1: some stuff we just couldn't do because we didn't have
Speaker 1: access to people from his life. So some people said
Speaker 1: they have noticed that we didn't talk about his upbringing,
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, because we didn't have anybody from
Speaker 1: his life who would talk to us about it, and
Speaker 1: the only people were written about it are people who
Speaker 1: now we can't trust because they were ignoring a lot
Speaker 1: of the other things. So I think it's like, it
Speaker 1: was very clear to me that this documentary was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is really about when America meets Bill Cosby, not
Speaker 1: when Bill Cosby was born. Now, of course, Bill Cosby
Speaker 1: is currently out of jail, and when your documentary came out,
Speaker 1: he happened to respond to it through his representative Andrew Wyatt.
Speaker 1: Here's a quote from his statement. Mister Cosby has spent
Speaker 1: more than fifty years standing with the excluded, made it
Speaker 1: possible for some to be in standing with the disenfranchised,
Speaker 1: and standing with those men and women who were denied
Speaker 1: respectful work because of race and gender. W Kamal Bell
Speaker 1: is a pr hack and Bill Cosby continues to be
Speaker 1: the target of numerous media that have for too many
Speaker 1: years distorted and omitted truth intentionally. You know, this thing
Speaker 1: could have been ten hours long, so anything that it's
Speaker 1: not in it is for a lot of it's like
Speaker 1: we didn't have time to get it in there. He's
Speaker 1: always said I didn't do any of this, not like
Speaker 1: this is misunderstood, or I did some of this, or
Speaker 1: this part is true, but this part isn't true. He
Speaker 1: has said I didn't do any of it, and I
Speaker 1: just don't I and many other people there's no way
Speaker 1: to believe that he didn't do any of this, and
Speaker 1: then the question becomes, well, how much needs to be
Speaker 1: true for it to be true enough? And so for me,
Speaker 1: it's like after having sat down with these women, after
Speaker 1: having read the deposition, the unsealed deposition, where he says
Speaker 1: I entered the area between permission and rejection, which to
Speaker 1: me is like, well, you just said you did it.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to look at this any other way,
Speaker 1: but certainly that's that whole statement is in line with
Speaker 1: how Bill Cosby and these people have talked about this
Speaker 1: the whole time. And you know, to think of the
Speaker 1: list of the things that Bill Cosby could have called
Speaker 1: me a pr hack, seems pretty like I can take
Speaker 1: that that was not so bad. It was my birthday
Speaker 1: when that thing came out, so it's just a weird
Speaker 1: day overall. Like that's some memorable birthdays in my life.
Speaker 1: That one might be the most memorable. Moving forward in
Speaker 1: Time magazine, you have this quote. You're right, this is
Speaker 1: bigger than Bill Cosby. America has a reputation for not
Speaker 1: listening to women who have been sexually assaulted. America has
Speaker 1: a history of allowing powerful men to take women as
Speaker 1: the spoils of their power. America has done an awful
Speaker 1: job of dealing with racism and rape. I sincerely hope
Speaker 1: that we can do a better job of dealing with
Speaker 1: those issues. In the Bill Cosby conversation, I believe there
Speaker 1: is one more thing to learn from him, whether he
Speaker 1: wants us to or not. What do you think that is?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, if we take Bill Cosby at
Speaker 1: his word, especially back in the early seventies when he
Speaker 1: was on fat Albern, The Cosby Kids in Picture Pages,
Speaker 1: and even on The Cosby Show, he said he wanted
Speaker 1: us to be good people. He said he wanted us
Speaker 1: to make good choices. He said he didn't want us
Speaker 1: to go to prison. He said he wanted us to
Speaker 1: not lie. So, if I'm to take him at those
Speaker 1: lessons he taught me then talking about what we now
Speaker 1: know to be true about Bill Cosby, would now believe
Speaker 1: is a part of that before we go. Since you
Speaker 1: started this project four years ago, I know you've had
Speaker 1: moments where you've said to yourself, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I can keep going. I don't know if I want
Speaker 1: to keep going. But now that the series is out,
Speaker 1: are you glad you did it? I'm really proud of
Speaker 1: the work that's in here. I'm really proud of the
Speaker 1: work that me and the team put together and the
Speaker 1: way in which people, for the most part, are engaging
Speaker 1: with the work. I feel like means that we'd accomplished
Speaker 1: something that we were trying to accomplish. And getting people
Speaker 1: to have these conversations. And also whatever difficulties I have
Speaker 1: and whatever pushback I'm getting, it doesn't compare to any
Speaker 1: of the survivors who have decided to put them in
Speaker 1: this again, and they have been really great to me
Speaker 1: and say, here's what you're about to go through. Get
Speaker 1: ready for this. So I don't know how to be
Speaker 1: any other way. I've known you for five six years
Speaker 1: now as a human, as a father, as a husband.
Speaker 1: Are you all right? It's funny this is a question
Speaker 1: that I'm mean. It's not in every interview I do,
Speaker 1: but it's in interviews like this where either I know
Speaker 1: the person interviewing me has known me for a while,
Speaker 1: or from people who just know to ask that question.
Speaker 1: So I would say overwhelmingly the answer is yes, But
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that I don't need to get all writer.
Speaker 1: So like I would say that like if this doc
Speaker 1: and ever been made. I'm still a person who is
Speaker 1: living through a pandemic. I'm still a person who is
Speaker 1: struggling with who went through the Trump era, and then
Speaker 1: there was a racial reckoning, and now that racial reckoning
Speaker 1: is being a race to say I'm a black man
Speaker 1: who's supposed to talk about racism. I'm still a person
Speaker 1: who whose day job meant that I was flying in
Speaker 1: the midst of COVID pre vaccine making television. It was
Speaker 1: stressed out about it. And I'm still a person lives
Speaker 1: in northern California who remembers the day that we got
Speaker 1: out of bed and the sky was red because of
Speaker 1: the fires. And I feel like that day doesn't get
Speaker 1: enough credit when we talk about things of the last
Speaker 1: couple of years that have altered us forever. So I
Speaker 1: feel permanently altered by the last two years in so
Speaker 1: many ways for so many people. And I know that
Speaker 1: I'm at one of the most privileged ends of that
Speaker 1: unrelenting thing, because I'm not a frontline healthcare worker or
Speaker 1: an essential worker in a grocery store. So I also
Speaker 1: know that I don't normally talk about this stuff because
Speaker 1: I don't want to sound like the privileged to Hollywood
Speaker 1: asshole who's like it is hard to make entertainment. But yeah,
Speaker 1: this project was super personal and super deep and it
Speaker 1: changed me. And I always knew it was going to
Speaker 1: come with repercussions, and I just sort of sit here
Speaker 1: and you know, must like Forest Whittaker from a movie
Speaker 1: Ghost Dog, I imagine my worst defeat and hopefully that
Speaker 1: helps me attained victory. To be fair, you're not a
Speaker 1: Hollywood asshole. You're a Bay Area asshole. You know, I
Speaker 1: know it's even worse asshole. Yes, it's a higher level.
Speaker 1: It's all true, and yet it did take its toll.
Speaker 1: And I'm rateful that you do have your wife, Melissa,
Speaker 1: your two kids, and you're an incredible team that made
Speaker 1: this possible. I'm glad you have the infrastructure to do
Speaker 1: it because you know, we are living in a time,
Speaker 1: as you say, of history being erased. And I think
Speaker 1: ultimately this documentary is about preserving and representing that history,
Speaker 1: even when it is uncomfortable to face. For sure, and
Speaker 1: as black people, that's been our job since we arrived
Speaker 1: on these shores, to go, wait a minute, that's not true,
Speaker 1: that's not what's happening. Maybe some of the people can
Speaker 1: help out. Now, Yeah, Well, it's also like you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people do help out, but I'm saying
Speaker 1: specifically we're used to having this role. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: think it's a role that many that many people who
Speaker 1: are not white have, and white people sometimes you guys
Speaker 1: jump on and help, and then sometimes you think, I
Speaker 1: helped last week, Why don't need to help anymore? I
Speaker 1: helped last week. I'm not talking about I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about you. You You want to go do you like the
Speaker 1: rest you speak? So? Well, it's the half Mexican part.
Speaker 1: There you go. That's what I always forget that. Yes,
Speaker 1: I was trying to pay you compliment and then it
Speaker 1: just it just went the way it always goes with you.
Speaker 1: I'm like Neo with the compliments. I dodge them. You
Speaker 1: do dodge them. But I'm gonna say it anyway, I'm
Speaker 1: glad you made this film. It's challenging and uncomfortable in ways.
Speaker 1: I think we need to be challenged if we're going
Speaker 1: to move forward in these conversations. So as always, good
Speaker 1: to see you and w Kammbell, thank you for the time.
Speaker 1: Thanks him, and that's our show. Special thanks to Kelly Rafferty,
Speaker 1: the Team, Showtime, and of course w Kamal Bell. You
Speaker 1: can watch all four episodes of We Need to Talk
Speaker 1: About Cosby Now on Showtime. To learn more about Kamal
Speaker 1: and his work, visit our website at talk easypod dot com.
Speaker 1: There you'll find links to our previous conversations with Kamal,
Speaker 1: along with other talks with people like Questlove Werner, Hrntzog,
Speaker 1: Janick Sobravo, Hassan Minhaj, Carol Burnett, Steven Soderberg, Larry Wilmore,
Speaker 1: and Glorious dynem To hear those and more Pushkin podcasts
Speaker 1: listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever
Speaker 1: you like to listen. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram,
Speaker 1: at talk easypod. If you want to send in an
Speaker 1: email or a voice memo for our upcoming mailbag episode,
Speaker 1: you can send that to mail at talk easypod dot com.
Speaker 1: That's mail at talk easypod dot com. It's also in
Speaker 1: the description of this episode on your phone for that
Speaker 1: mailbag episode. Any comment, you have, a reflection, any question, really,
Speaker 1: anything you'd like to share with us or hear more about.
Speaker 1: We're open to anything. I've loved the contributions thus far
Speaker 1: and looking forward to hearing more from you. If you
Speaker 1: want to support talk Easy by purchasing one of our
Speaker 1: monks they Come and Cream or Navy, or our vinyl
Speaker 1: record with fran Lebowitz, you can do so at talk
Speaker 1: easypod dot com slash shop. If you want to support
Speaker 1: the show in other ways, I say it every week,
Speaker 1: but the best thing you can do is share this
Speaker 1: show with the friend. The second best thing you can
Speaker 1: do is rate the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever
Speaker 1: you listen. Reviewing the program Omnise platforms is still the
Speaker 1: best way for new listeners to find Talk Easy. As always,
Speaker 1: the show would not be possible without our incredible team.
Speaker 1: Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer
Speaker 1: is Jannick Si Bravo. Our associate producer is Caitlin Tryden.
Speaker 1: Today's talk was edited by Caitlin Dryden and mixed by
Speaker 1: Andrew Vastola. Our music is by Dylan Peck. Illustrations Mike
Speaker 1: Christia Chenoy, Video and graphics by Ian Chang, Derek aberzach
Speaker 1: Ian Jones, Ethan Seneca and Laila Register. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Patrice Lee, Kaylin Ung and shiloh'fagan. I'd also like to
Speaker 1: thank the team at Pushkin Industries, Justin Richmond, Heather Fame,
Speaker 1: Miila Belle, Maggie Taylor, Nicolemrano, Maya Knig, Carl Migliori, Jason Gambrel,
Speaker 1: Jacob Weisberg, and Malcolm Gladmow. I'm sanforgo, so thank you
Speaker 1: for listening to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here
Speaker 1: on Sunday with the one and only Stacey Abers. Until then,
Speaker 1: stay safe and solo.