We Need To Talk About Cosby, the latest docuseries consisting of four parts, is scheduled to kick off its onscreen journey at Sundance Film Festival 2022. Showtime has unveiled a new trailer revealing the key art of the series.
The documentary series will traverse into the plenteous career of Bill Cosby until his life dealt a blow of disgrace after a slew of sexual harassment cases, rape accusations, and drug-induced sexual attacks.
The new trailer, backed by interviews and archive videos, attempts to highlight the significance of Cosby’s efforts for Black culture in America during the 20th century. An eminent actor, comedian, and humanitarian, Cosby inspired thousands of juvenile Black artists attempting to fight for their opportunities in Hollywood.
Such a celebrated and impressive background made the avowal of Cosby’s involvement in numerous sex crime allegations even more appalling. Cosby would be termed as “America’s Dad,” based on his enriched career, but the iconic artist’s legacy has been plagued by several sex crimes he purportedly committed.
In 2018, Cosby was convicted of a violent sexual attack offence and consequently punished with 10 years of imprisonment. However, he was later acquitted by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and was released three years earlier in 2021.
While Cosby’s conviction was vindicated by an appeals court of Pennsylvania last year, on the basis of the argument of his legal camp that Cosby wasn’t provided a free and fair trial, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court discovered that Kevin Steele, a District Attorney who apprehend Cosby in 2015, was constrained to fulfil the promise of his precursor not to incriminate Cosby with any felon when the actor agreed to appear for an incriminating declaration in the civil case of Constand.
The court labelled the arrest and consequent conviction of Cosby “an affront to fundamental fairness, particularly when it results in a criminal prosecution that was forgone for more than a decade” and contended that “fair play and decency” obligated the District Attorney to heed the agreement of his predecessor.
However, Steele is moving the Supreme Court to appeal against that decision.
The legal prosecution of Cosby never provided a proper closure to his professed victims, after being towed for years in court. However, the new documentary attempts to enlighten the career of Cosby to reveal how the proof of his offences was persistently sidelined and disbanded as just a backscattering of his witty humour.
The docuseries invites people to watch the archive videos from a different point of view, to highlight how the public unawareness regarding alleged crimes of Cosby is also the outcome of how virulent masculinity and disgraced rape culture elucidate the social values of the masses, encouraging the abuse of women on the hands of men in influential positions.
The synopsis for the series reads:
The series explores the complex story of Cosby’s life and work, weighing his actions against his indisputable global influence through interviews with comedians, cultural commentators, journalists and women who share their most personal, harrowing encounters with Cosby. Through archival footage, Cosby reveals who he may have been all along – the antithesis of the principled, public figure who became a hero, not only to African American people but to all people.
A co-production of Boardwalk Pictures and WKB Industries for Showtime, We Need to Talk About Cosby is executive produced by Andrew Fried, Bell, Katie A. King, Jordan Wynn, Dane Lillegard, and Sarina Roma. King is also the creator of the series, and Geraldine Porras takes on the duties of co-executive producer.
The docuseries is directed by W. Kamau Bell, an Emmy-winner for United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell.
The director grew up venerating Cosby, giving the documentary a more personal touch, as the director unravels how the comedian’s impulse for power could potentially be the same motivation that forced him to reputedly abuse several women.
Up to date, Cosby has been blamed by around 60 women in total for being sexually assaulted, having raped, and drugging them. The time span of these alleged sexual assaults spread from 1965 to 2008, and the places are ten U.S. states and one province of Canada.
You can watch the trailer of the new docuseries We Need To Talk About Cosby, which just came out yesterday on January 19, 2022.
The trailer shows host Kamau Bell taking interviews and having conversations that trigger candid dialogues with fellow actors, comedians, and some of the Cosby accusers. They are shown talking about the degrees of Cosby’s heritage that what were the factors and how they allowed him to purportedly assault limitless women sexually with no fear of consequences.
“Do not edit this: A lot of people knew,” the dialogue is what the trailer starts with, said by an actress named Eden Tirl in the interview, the actress who in the past accused Cosby of making an attempt to assault her. “Because you can’t do what he did unless you have other people supporting what you’re doing.”
The trailer of We Need To Talk About Cosby is full of many self-accused chronicle clips of Cosby, some in interviews and others on The Cosby Show.
These clips come along with a starter introduction in the voice of Bell: “Bill Cosby had been one of my heroes. I’m a Black man, a stand-up comic, born in the Seventies. This was complicated. How do we talk about Bill Cosby?”
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The series documenting Cosby is set to release on Showtime, Sunday 30 January at 10:00 P.M., the docuseries will be exploring the facts on how Cosby made the shift in his life and went from being a cultural hero and leader to a man with such dishonour.
The documentary will also cover the aspects of him being a suspect of rape, drug-assisted sexual abuse, and being accused of sexual violation by more than sixty women in over 60 years of his life. On 22 January the docuseries is also going to be shown at Sundance Film Festival.
Cosby got acquitted by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court as a result of his appeal. The court reversed a sexual assault conviction of 2018 and the actor was freed from state prison last summer after over two years behind the bars.
Despite an illustrious career and being a celebrated Hollywood, Cobsy allegedly engaged in several disgraced sexual assault and harassment cases. It’s hard to imagine that a hero to several young Black artists and an inspiration overall, would indulge in such shameful acts.
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Jane Davies
