What I've Learned from The Cosby Show

2024 is a mirror image of 1989

---

Coming soon for paid subscribers: a review of Lionel Shriver’s new novel, Mania, which is a brilliant, intense, pitch-perfect, scathing satire of the trans insanity that has gripped the western world.

---

About a month ago, someone told me that I could probably get a better grasp on what good parenting looks like if I watched The Cosby Show. I had told this person that I was nervous about the limitations of my imagination with regard to my novel, as my protagonist has good parents, and I did not. His suggestion was to watch the whole show and see the progression from teenage to adulthood for the older kids, and kindergarten to adolescence for the youngest child, and observe the way the parents changed as the kids grew.

It was a brilliant suggestion. I’ve been watching it, and learning. Their balance of unconditional love and high expectations, of authority/discipline and nurturing/care, is really fascinating to me. I am especially impressed by the emphasis on stable marriages—both Clair and Cliff are shown to come from families with parents who are still married after many decades—and on education. Nothing is more important to Cliff and Clair than their kids learning how to do something valuable in the world that will secure their ability to be self-reliant and upwardly mobile.

What’s just as fascinating is the extent to which our culture has changed.

Context for anyone who doesn’t know the show: the parents are Cliff Huxtable, an obstetrician, and Clair Huxtable, an attorney. Their five children are Sondra, Denise, Theo, Vanessa, and Rudy.

In season 5, episode 15, “Mrs. Huxtable Goes to Kindergarten,” which aired in January 1989, Clair is invited to appear on a cable access show called “Retrospective.” It features three pompous white men discussing history and current events. They are caricatures of old-fashioned professors, oozing arrogance and speaking in affected accents—not-quite-British pronunciation that’s meant to communicate how very sophisticated they are.

The discussion gets lively and Clair disagrees with their consensus. She has recently read an expert’s new book, relevant to their topic, and is able to confidently assert her points by citing the page in this source that bolsters her argument. The panelists are gravely offended at being proven wrong, and declare that she, the new panelist, “isn’t going to work out.”

The ensuing discussion—in which they want her to shut up until it’s time to talk about “the black topics”—makes it clear to her that she was invited to come on because of her skin color, not her mind.

When she asks, in horror, if that’s why they asked her to be on the show, she is told: “No. You’re also here to speak for women.”

Disgusted, she replies, “Yes, I am a woman who is black. I am also an attorney, a mother of five, and somewhat knowledgeable about history, which is why I thought I was invited to appear.”

But it wasn’t. And she is, justifiably, angry at this. She has been reduced to her immutable characteristics rather than respected for her formidable intelligence. When the producers beg her to become a regular panelist, recognizing the potential for dramatic conflict, she turns them down. She explains her decision to her husband: “Getting up at 4:30 in the morning to prove who I am to three men who are basking in the non-existent rays of their own intelligence is not my idea of a fun time.”

I watched this episode with my jaw hanging open.

In 2024, the idea that one would have a panel and fail to invite a black woman specifically to represent people who share her immutable characteristics—who “look like her”—is the offensive thing.

What was beneath the dignity of an educated, intelligent woman in 1989 is a mandatory virtue-signal, a requirement to not be branded a bigot, in 2024.

We are truly moving backwards, and at warp speed.