Saturday, March 28, 2020

Spotlight: Alex Gleason From Vegan On A Desert Island


For this month's interview we sat down with Alex Gleason, creator and developer of Vegan on a Desert Island, an upcoming libre action/puzzle RPG. The game follows the story of Rachel, a vegan girl who shipwrecks on an island, and becomes embroiled in a quest to uphold her own conflicted values against the interests of the island's many talking animals.

A newcomer on the scene, we spoke with Alex on what inspired him to create this project, along with his views on activism, software freedom, game development, and of course, life.

FG: Tell us a bit about yourself and your project to begin with.

Alex: My name is Alex Gleason and I'm making a game called Vegan on a Desert Island (VOADI). It's a puzzle-adventure game with emphasis on art, music, and storytelling. The game is about Rachel's journey, which I modeled after some events in my life involving animal rights activism I organized in real life, including all its conflict and turmoil. It's a linear story meant to be experienced once and leave a lasting impression.

FG: At a first glance, a vegan stranded on a desert island seems like an unusual concept to make a game about. Could you elaborate on how your experience in activism motivated you to create this project?

Alex: In conversations about veganism people often ask if we'd eat animals under dire circumstances, such as being stranded on a desert island. It's a ridiculous question that deserves a ridiculous answer, which is why I decided to develop VOADI.

The true answer is coconuts. In The Real Castaway, a woman in real life was stranded on an island for 9 months and survived entirely off of coconuts. To answer to the deeper question, it's the same question as if you'd be fine eating another human on a desert island. I believe that animals are people and there is fundamentally no difference. It's impossible to know what you'd really do, but it's not a black-and-white situation. It's okay to not have all the answers.

While developing the game I started to feel like a "vegan on a desert island" in a different way. The animal rights organization I founded collapsed on me. They took my home and crushed my dreams. I was the villain in their story and they were the villains in mine. This inspired me to create a more meaningful story in VOADI, reflecting what happened to me.

I redefined the character of Greybeard from being a classic evil-doer to an ambiguous villain. You're never sure whether he's really good or bad. Good vs evil is a false dichotomy that doesn't exist in real life and I wanted to reflect that in VOADI.

FG: Why did you decide to translate this particular experience of yours into a video game?

Alex: Unlike books or movies, video games force you to experience something yourself. I want players to take a step in my shoes for a minute. The downside is that I cannot guarantee they will actually enjoy it. Successful games make people feel happy, but a lot of VOADI is about misery. Some gameplay elements are even intentionally antagonizing to the player. I think this is balanced a bit by CosmicGem's cheery music and Siltocyn's meticulous pixel art. At the very least, I hope players will always be wondering what's coming next.

The game conflates serious ethical topics with ironic humor

FG: What you just mentioned highlights a certain tendency in the video games industry to reward and empower players in a way they will feel good about themselves, which is a bit contradictory to the idea of art as a form of self-expression. Based on that, do you think there's enough interest or room for dissemination for this type of project?

Alex: VOADI is not a game for everyone, but a few people will deeply resonate with it. If that happens I'll consider the project a success.

FG: For such a personal background, so far the game has been presented as having a cheeky and humorous façade, with an ironic twist to it. Could you elaborate on the role of humor and how it has shaped the game so far?

Alex: I think humor itself is antagonistic. It's about subverting expectations, meaning there is a conflict between what your mind expects and what's really there. "Vegan on a desert island" is a ridiculous premise met with a sarcastic answer. The game is funny precisely because it's antagonistic. Part of that antagonism is in the way the game is presented: a cutesy colorful game about talking animals where very serious things happen.

FG: The project itself has been openly publicized as being a Free Software and Creative Commons endeavor. How did you first became familiar with both of these movements and how have they affected the development of VOADI?

Alex: Software freedom is a boycott, much like veganism. There's a lot of overlap between the communities because it's people who understand the concept of sacrificing something for the greater good. I still use copyleft licenses for all my works. It's a deep conviction I'll never change, and you can be sure everything we put out there will free culture approved.

Linux was a groundbreaking discovery because it defied everything I knew about people's incentives to create things. I thought software freedom didn't go far enough. Later I discovered Nina Paley, a copyright abolitionist, and her view that "copying is not theft" really resonated me. She is a personal hero of mine and an inspiration. In some ways I am quite literally following in her footsteps.

In terms of project impact, being Free software helped VOADI garner more widespread support. Daniel Molina is an amazing volunteer who joined the project to advance software freedom for gaming. I've received support from the sidelines as well, with people donating money and others doing small but important tasks like updating wiki pages and mirroring assets. It's pretty incredible how much people will help you without being asked if you put yourself out there and are willing to give back.


FG: Eventually this has taken you to present your project at LibrePlanet last March. How did that come to be?

Alex: I've been a member of the LibrePlanet community for years but never gave a talk. Last March the stars aligned. I didn't intend to give the talk originally, but I felt empowered by the people there. Lightning talks seem like a low-pressure way to showcase something you've been working on, and VOADI was received very well! Lightning talks at LibrePlanet are open to anyone on a first-come-first-serve basis after the conference starts. All you have to do is add your name to a list.

FG: Switching to more technical matters: You have been using the Solarus engine as a main development platform. How did you first hear about it and how has it helped making VOADI a reality?

Alex: Solarus has a map editor GUI making it a great tool for beginners. The Solarus community is vibrant and generous, always eager to help. It was developed by Christopho as a reimplementation of the game engine from Zelda: A Link to the Past, a game I was already very familiar with. I highly suggest Solarus to anyone new to the free gaming scene, looking to create their own games!

I used to love Zelda, especially the Game Boy Color titles. Nintendo is notorious for cease-and-desisting fan created works, which I think is unjust and counterproductive to a healthy society. I struggle to enjoy the games from my childhood because I'm too distracted by the fact that society would punish someone for deriving or extending works that they care deeply about. I see Solarus as a stepping stone towards creating a new ecosystem of free games that can hopefully touch people's hearts in a way that they'll want to extend and remix the game, and they'll be allowed to do so.

FG: VOADI notoriously bases most of its graphics style on a Creative Commons tileset (Zoria), but it also features original additions of its own, as well as original music. How did you go about sourcing an adequate free tileset, along with finding artists to fill in for the remaining necessities of the artwork pipeline?

Alex: Zoria tileset was found on OpenGameArt. I had been trying to make my own tileset, but knew I couldn't match that level of quality on my own.

Later I commissioned our tileset artist, Siltocyn, through an ad I posted on the /r/gameDevClassifieds subreddit. CosmicGem, our chiptune musician, was found through Fiverr. This has worked out really well for VOADI. It's amazing how much you can do with a small amount of money.

In both cases we switched to free platforms (email and Matrix) for communication. Reddit was the most effective at garnering attention for our gigs.

Originally I planned to make all contributors sign a waiver similar to the Apache contributor agreement, transferring their copyright to me. But the freelancers wanted to maintain their privacy (they didn't want to sign their name and address). So instead now there's a policy where all contributors must put the license on the deliverable file itself, or distribute it in a ZIP with the license.

For graphics we created these stamps that say stuff like "Siltocyn CC BY-SA 4.0" in a tiny font in the corner of the files

A glimpse into the development process

FG: When are you planning to release the game, and in which formats will it be released?

Alex: I'm planning for a 2020 release for Linux, MacOS, and Windows. We'll consider more platforms depending on the reception (although anyone will be free to port it if they have the skills).

I'm planning to distribute the game on some proprietary platforms like Steam, Humble Bundle, etc. Those versions will have a price associated with it. I think of it as a "proprietary tax." Users in the free world will play the game gratis.

I'm also planning for a limited physical release on CD, which I'll cobble together at home using LightScribe disks, booklets I print myself, and used jewel cases from eBay. I mostly just want something to hold in my hands.

FG: Any tips for other Free Software or independent developers out there?

Alex:
  1. Put yourself out there.
  2. Good art and music goes a long way.
  3. Start it and don't stop.

FG: Alright, thank you very much for your time Alex.

Alex: Thanks so much for the opportunity!

Vegan on a Desert Island is set to be released in 2020. The project's code is licensed under the GPLv3, and al of the art assets are being released under CC-BY-Sa 4.0. If you would like to contribute to the project you can join development talks at VOADI's Riot channel or check their repository at Gitlab. You can also donate via the project's Patreon or Liberapay.

All of the images on this article are courtesy of Vegan on a Desert Island, released under CC-BY-SA 4.0.

Got any comments? Post them on our forum thread.

FIFA 17 Free Download


Powered by Frostbite, FIFA 17 transforms the way you play, compete and emotionally connect with the game.

FIFA 17 immerses you in authentic football experiences by leveraging the sophistication of a new game engine, while introducing you to football players full of depth and emotion, and taking you to brand new worlds accessible only in the game. Complete innovation in the way players think and move, physically interact with opponents, and execute in attack lets you own every moment on the pitch.

GAMEPLAY AND SCREENSHOTS :

DOWNLOAD GAME:

♢ Click or choose only one button below to download this game.
♢ View detailed instructions for downloading and installing the game here.
♢ Use 7-Zip to extract RAR, ZIP and ISO files. Install PowerISO to mount ISO files.


FIFA 17 Free Download
http://pasted.co/af29b5ae

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THIS GAME
➤ Download the game by clicking on the button link provided above.
➤ Download the game on the host site and turn off your Antivirus or Windows Defender to avoid errors.
➤ Once the download has been finished or completed, locate or go to that file.
➤ To open .iso file, use PowerISO and run the setup as admin then install the game on your PC.
➤ Once the installation process is complete, run the game's exe as admin and you can now play the game.
➤ Congratulations! You can now play this game for free on your PC.
➤ Note: If you like this video game, please buy it and support the developers of this game.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
(Your PC must at least have the equivalent or higher specs in order to run this game.)


Minimum:
• OS: Windows 7/8.1/10 – 64-Bit
• CPU: Intel Core i3-2100 @ 3.1GHz or AMD Phenom II X4 965 @ 3.4 GHz
• RAM: 8GB
• Hard Drive Space Required: 30.0 GB
• Minimum Supported Video Cards: NVIDIA GTX 460 or AMD Radeon R7 260
• DirectX: 11.0

Recommended:
• OS: Windows 7/8.1/10 – 64-Bit
• CPU: Intel i5-3550K @ 3.40GHz or AMD FX 8150 @ 3.6GHz
• RAM: 8GB
• Hard Drive Space Required: 30.0 GB
• Minimum Supported Video Cards: NVIDIA GTX 660 or AMD Radeon R9 270
• DirectX: 11.0
Supported Language: English, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Portuguese-Brazil, Simplified Chinese language are available.
If you have any questions or encountered broken links, please do not hesitate to comment below. :D

Ten Ideas From Reiner Knizia About Playtesting

Reiner Knizia is one of the biggest names in game design around the world. The German game designer is a mathematician and has his name associated to more than 700 games launched in many different countries. I had the honor to talk personally to Knizia in 2011, at DIGRA's conference in Hilversun (Netherlands) and I watched a great keynote about the game designing process in the same event.



On that occasion, I gave Knizia my board game, YN, and had the opportunity to talk a little bit with him (a great achievement for my game designer career).



I follow Knizia in social media and I'm always taking notes about the knowledge on game design he shares on those platforms. In this post, I will reproduce 10 ideas Knizia showed recently on Twitter about playtesting (one of the most fundamental topics in the game designing process). Below, I listed the 10 points. Follow him by clicking here.

Playtesting 1. Those who do not play do not live. Those who do not playtest do not design.

Playtesting 2. Designs always work perfectly in your mind. The first playtest is the (often cruel) moment of truth.

Playtesting 3. Regardless of how much experience you have, you cannot develop a game on the drawing board – only at the playing table.

Playtesting 4. Game design is a classic iterative process of playing and improving – nowadays popularised as "design thinking".

Playtesting 5. When your playtesters do not like your design, (usually) your design is to blame – not your playtesters.

Playtesting 6. I recognise good playtesters by my (frequent) urge to strangle them.

Playtesting 7. For your design to appeal to one group, test with one group. For your design to have broad appeal, test with many groups.

Playtesting 8. You can make (most) designs interesting through your play-talk - but when published, your design needs to speak for itself.

Playtesting 9. Blind playtesting, without you taking part, is as useful as other people going on a rollercoaster and reporting their experience.

Playtesting 10. When you have playtested your design to perfection, let it rest some time, then play again. – Expect to be surprised!

#GoGamers

Monday, March 23, 2020

Podcast Episode 31 - Playing The Ultima CRPG Setting In OD&D


In this episode, I take a break from AD&D and talk about a different gaming love - how I combined OD&D and the Ultima CRPG setting from the early 80s into a great homebrew RPG game!


Anchor Episode link: https://anchor.fm/the-dungeon-masters-handb/episodes/Podcast-Episode-31---Playing-the-Ultima-CRPG-setting-in-ODD-ebdm03

Show Notes

Links to my Ultima/OD&D Game "Siege Perilous"
Players Rulebook: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwiMsojGKI2KUldjYjRGRXhNWjg
Game Referee's Guide: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwiMsojGKI2KT29LTWdWdms4TW8

Inspirations and Sources
Swords & Wizardry White Box (this page has links to all free PDF versions of Swords & Wizardry): http://snw.smolderingwizard.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4
Skathros's Swords & Wizardry Companion: http://swcompanion.wikidot.com/
Minimal Space Combat by Timothy Swenson: http://www.oocities.org/svenqhj/MSCbook.pdf
Ultima Codex Wiki: http://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/Main_Page

What do you think?! 

Leave me a voice message and let me know what you think or ask questions if you have them! (312) 625-8281‬ (US/Canada) You can also leave a message on Anchor: anchor.fm/the-dungeon-masters-handbook/message  or email me at chgowiz@gmail.com.

Find episode posts and other D&D content on my blog: chgowiz-games.blogspot.com 

Credits

Intro music: Dragonaut by Bradley The Buyer (bit.ly/2ASpAlF)
Outro music: Dream by Wild Shores (bit.ly/2jbJehK)
All music used with permission.

Thursday, March 19, 2020

The Experience

I once spent nine days as a guest at a Taiwanese Buddhist nunnery. Their hospitality was incredible and what stuck in my mind was the most amazing food I've ever eaten. They made Chinese meat dishes out of plant protein, most likely because the nuns were brought up on a traditional, Chinese omnivorous diet, and this food met their vegetarian religious restrictions without compromise. It was so good, I questioned it's meatlessness, being a vegetarian at the time.

After a week of this amazing food, I mentioned on the way back from our conference, that I could really go for a pizza, especially because there was a Pizza Hut next to the nunnery in busy downtown Taipei. No matter how good something is, you often long for the tastes of home. You know you'll get that consistent experience, even if it's not great. Consistent beats great sometimes. An older scholar overheard me and slammed me for being so disrespectful as to want pizza when our hosts had been so gracious with their amazing food. When we returned to the nunnery for dinner, awaiting us was glorious Pizza Hut pizza. The heart wants what it wants.

When it comes to hobby game stores, consistency of experience is wickedly hard. You can train your staff to greet customers, provide stellar customer service, create intricate systems to maintain product and service, but in the back room it's another story. In our Game Center, your consistency of experience is kind of in your own hands.

I could pay employees to run games of a particular style and quality, but the games they run would be limited to the customer desire to pay for that experience. Other than convention fees, which they seem to have no problem with, nobody wants to pay $10 cash money for me to run Dungeons & Dragons. $10, times six players, is $60 for a 4-hour session paying someone $15/hour. That's just their labor, not profit or materials, or prep time. This is a traditionally free experience that can cross over into "nominal" fee territory, but a real fee will never really capture the value being provided.  That may change with the mainstreamization of gaming, and someone will certainly point out the "professional" dungeon masters, but it's rare.

So we run the Event Center a bit like a concert hall in which we attempt to host high quality concerts, but with no guarantee the experience will be great. We are concert hall people, not the performers. I've been to great concerts and I've been to concerts where the performers were drunk off their asses, but in neither case did I credit or blame the venue. But in the game trade that's exactly what happens. Sexist comment? Bad DM? Poor hygiene? It will all be a black mark against the store, even though there's not a whole lot we can do about it, other than craft policies, brief organizers, and strictly enforce rules. We are facilitators. We use volunteers. The only other option is the thing doesn't happen.

This chaos is also our strength, our protective armor. The inability to provide a consistent experience, but to only provide a neutral venue is unacceptable to anyone with deep pockets who wants in on this. What happens if something really terrible (actionable by law) occurs? How do we make sure the D&D session doesn't have something inappropriate? How do we actually monetize this space that costs us $6,000 a month? Really, that's what we pay. About $50 a seat per month.

The reality of most D&D sessions is there are a lot of slightly boring ones and then one amazing one, which you tend to remember without remembering the boring ones. D&D especially is a constant playtest, as most people don't run the same adventure twice. Imagine sitting through a bunch of boring movies to get to the great one. That's how it tended to be before the Internet, but people want blockbusters every time nowadays, and they can get them by picking and choosing. All of this inconsistency is why there are no national chains of game stores. Managing the managers and the organizers would be like herding cats. You would have to have a whole department called Program Development to plan and test event structures. Publishers can't even pull this off well with their one game. Plus, as mentioned, the customers would never pay, at least not so far.

Anyway, this is something that keeps me up at night. Labor, as minimum wage here approaches $15 an hour, can no longer be the solution to bespoke experiences. We are fast approaching hard limits that are testing the demands of customers with the reality of what is possible in small business. It may just be the little store, with the passionate owner working for close to zero dollars, will be the one providing the consistently amazing experiences that big stores could only dream of. The rest of us are wondering if we should get a liquor license or hire some circus performers.

GameFly Experience (Monday Musings 77)

Addendum:
I returned Sekiro and by the next day, GameFly already shipped out a new game! I'm very happy thus far with my GameFly experience.

I decided to take advantage of GameFly's free month trial, and place Sekiro at the top of the list. Given that Sekiro was recently released, and GameFly noting that there's "low availability", I was surprised to see the game shipped out the day after I signed up for the trial! I signed up Monday, shipped Tuesday, and received Friday.

Given the popularity of Sekiro, I thought I had to wait a couple of weeks, at least, to receive the game, so I was pleasantly surprised to see "shipped" when I checked the status the next day. However, I'm not sure how quickly you can receive a game that has just been released that day. Would I have received Sekiro four days after its release date?

Looking through the list of GameFly games, I was impressed that they not only have the triple A titles, but also some niche ones including the Atelier series, that appear to come out yearly. I enjoyed Atelier Sophie, but not to the point where I want to buy future Atelier series at the $60 price point. 

You can keep the game for as long as you want, and once you finish the game, upon receipt, they mail you the next game.

Games in my queue are newly released Days Gone, Dragon Quest XI (as I was considering buying the game), soon to be released A Plague Tale: Innocence, and Red Dead Redemption 2. I'm curious to see for myself if I'd enjoy RDR2, and GameFly gives me the opportunity to do so free, as opposed to having buy the game and not enjoying it. 

As difficult as Sekiro is, even if it takes me 2 months to complete, the rental is nevertheless cheaper than buying the game full price. However, it does appear to be a game I'd like to buy on sale, once the Bundled edition comes out (From software always releases DLCs), so I can return Sekiro and hopefully get Days Gone (also "low availability").

Indeed, a strat that you can use, is to write down a list of all the game titles you're considering purchasing, sample these games, spending a few hours to see if this game is up your alley, and then return quickly to receive the next game. If a game appears to be a must own, then you can buy it without buyer's remorse. 

If you're a slow gamer like me and you like to take months on a game, then GameFly may not be a good option, since it costs $15.95/month for one game out at a time, or $22.95/month for two games out at a time.

So far, I've had positive experience with GameFly, albeit it's only been 1 week's experience. If you have a GameFly membership, please feel free to describe your experiences with them.

The How Of Happiness Review

Dwarves: The Natural Choice For An Army Painting Sprint

The last meaningful work I did on my Warmaster Dwarves was seven years ago (nearly to the day). I'd been humming and hawing about a Warmaster army for awhile now, and settled on the Dwarves when I got back from Scotland a few weeks ago. Since then I've finished the silver and gold, and laid down the first layer for the wood. I have no idea if I'll get these to a usable state before Fall In! in November, but I'm trying.

Warmaster Dwarves Warmaster Dwarf Hero Warmaster Dwarf Command Warmaster Dwarf Anvil of Doom (+2)

Sunday, March 15, 2020

Teeming With Life


Exoplanets is a fairly simple tile placement game in which players score points by placing and advancing life on the planets with the most advantageous location within the solar system. Play consists of drawing tiles that represent new planets and placing them in one of four rows that extend outward from the central "sun." Where a tile is placed helps determine what resources a player gains from placing the tile; each tile gives its own resource, and also gains one from the tile it is placed next to.

Resources are then used to add life to planets. The cost is determined by the type of planet, and these costs can be modified by "space tiles" that players pick up when placing new planets. Additionally, a space tile played in this manner will often affect other nearby planets, either in the same row or the same "orbit," the corresponding position in the other three rows. This is where the game steers away from the standard engine-building and lack of player interaction that is characteristic of most eurogames, as a well-placed space tile can often force a player to change where they're placing their life tokens.

Life tokens are gradually piled up onto a planet until one player has four, at which point they are exchanged for a species token. At this point all the other players' life tokens are removed from that planet, which adds to the games strategy -- will you try to race with the other players to see who can add life more quickly to the easier planets (the ones that require fewer resources to play on), or will you take your time to build on a more difficult planet in order to avoid the competition?

The game ends when the last energy resource is taken from the center of the board, which is normally also when the last empty spot is filled with a planet tile. At that point players score based on how much life they've put into play, with modifiers for placing life on planets with more difficult requirements.

I like this game because it's managed to put together some fairly familiar game mechanics (tile placement, resource collection, area control) in a unique way. I can't point to any other games that it has much in common with. On top of that the rules come with several variants to keep game play from getting stale, and there's an expansion that adds new space tiles, different types of central stars, and a gravity well that allows players to change around the types of energy they have to spend.

Rating: 4 (out of 5) A neat game with some unique game mechanics and simple, clear graphic design.

Thursday, March 5, 2020

Rust Memory Optimization

One of my goals this year is to learn new things that take more than a few weeks to learn. I've been learning Rust. One of the claims I saw is that Rust's borrow mechanics allow it to optimize better than C++ does. I wanted to see this in action so I ran some simple examples through godbolt. Here's some C++ code that reads from array A and writes to array B:

int test(const int* A, int* B, int i) {     int x = A[i];     B[i] = x+1;     int y = A[i];     return x+y; } 

This C++ code compiles to assembly, with -O2:

movsx   rdx, edx lea     rcx, [rdi+rdx*4] mov     eax, DWORD PTR [rcx] lea     edi, [rax+1] mov     DWORD PTR [rsi+rdx*4], edi add     eax, DWORD PTR [rcx] ret 

Note that it is loading DWORD PTR [rcx] twice and loading DWORD PTR [rsi+…] once. That means it's accessing A[i]'s memory twice and B[i] once. It knows that A hasn't changed and it knows i hasn't changed but it doesn't know that A[i] hasn't changed. It's possible that A and B overlap. That means it has to load A[i] twice, even though it's marked const.

Here's the Rust version:

pub fn test(A: &[i32], B: &mut [i32], i: usize) -> i32 {     let x = A[i];     B[i] = x+1;     let y = A[i];     return x+y; } 

and the output (some parts omitted):

push    rax mov     eax, DWORD PTR [rdi + 4*r8]lea     ecx, [rax + 1] mov     DWORD PTR [rdx + 4*r8], ecx add     eax, eax pop     rcx ret 

This code has only two DWORD PTR accesses. It knows that A is a shared reference (so there are no other writers), and B is a mutable reference (so there are no other readers). That means it can conclude that A and B can't overlap. Once it's read A[i] from memory it doesn't have to read it again. Cool!

C (but not C++) has the restrict keyword for this. You can tell the C compiler "trust me, these don't overlap", but C doesn't check. Rust checks this at compile time.

So far I'm enjoying learning Rust. It has many of the things I wanted in a language since the mid-1990s. I don't know if I'll actually use it for a real project, but that's not my goal right now. My goal is to learn some new things that challenge my brain, and Rust is doing that for me.

Bill Cosby, Extraodrinary Evidence, And The Art Versus The Artist




Nearly every weeknight of elementary school for me ended with Different Strokes, The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, and The Cosby Show. Unlike my own Father, who knew Bill Cosby primarily through his stand-up, I came to know "America's Dad" through that show, and boy, what a show it was. I found it funnier than Different Strokes, but not quite as funny as Fresh Prince. Sure, The Cosby Show was clean, like Full House, but far more humorous and believable. Cosby as Dr. Cliff Huxtable brought such a warm, charismatic presence, who could tell a rousing story or be outright loony with his facial expressions. Of course, there were other strong performances, like that of Phylicia Rashad, Malcolm Jamal-Warner, or the young Raven-Symone. Much like Fresh Prince or Different Strokes, The Cosby Show dealt with growing up, education, childhood, and even celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ray Charles. It also didn't hurt to see a black family portrayed with dignity and humanity. Indeed, The Cosby Show reruns will remain a treasured part of a childhood memories, but they may be a part that I will now always fear to revisit.


Old rape allegations against Bill Cosby have resurfaced this year, thanks to Hannibal Buress and the power of viral media. Women are telling their stories, and America is listening. I have listened and reflected. It seems so clear, regrettably clear to me, that Bill Cosby, a man I once admired, is with little doubt in my mind, a serial rapist.


Extraordinary Claims, Extraordinary Evidence

The old maxim of rationality I've heard used by Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan, is that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." If you want to claim something, like aliens control the White House, then you need to show equally extraordinary evidence. However, to claim that one has been raped, unfortunately, isn't an extraordinary, but dreadfully, quite common. So it shouldn't take much to convince us of such a claim. There are those who say that we should "err in favor of the victim", and while this is a justified belief, statistically anyways, I'd rather treat rape like any other crime, in the sense that we should maintain a neutral position until persuaded otherwise, or "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt". After all, weeding out liars from truthers isn't always as clear cut as it may seem, even when said liars are in low supply. In cases like these where there will usually be no trial, I would often argue for the slightly lower standard of a "clear and convincing evidence", in which, according to Cornell's Legal Information Institute, "a party must prove that it is substantially more likely than not that it is true," ("Clear and Convincing Evidence"). This seems a far more reasonable assertion to make than the "preponderance of evidence" standard, in which one only prove that it is more likely than not that something occurred. This seems to me a petty standard with which to damnably brand someone a criminal, let alone a rapist. We can do better than that. No doubt, it is useful in probing crimes, but not quite in condemning. That standard seems to me not much better than a guess or a coin toss, and leaves far too much ambiguity, as far as damning anyone is concerned, anyways. However, the Cosby situation is an incredible outlier, in which we can safely discard the "clear and convincing evidence" standard, or even the exceedingly low "preponderance of evidence" standard and argue that it is "unreasonable" to doubt that Cosby is a rapist. The burden of proof is on the one making the claim. We should not discard this maxim, even in cases of rape. Yet, rape, notwithstanding, can be reasonably proved within these standards if all the right questions are asked. Here, I make that argument. Just keep in mind that I'm no lawyer, so none of these are bona fide legal arguments. I am simply making educated guesses based on these incredible situations, while also trying to bring them to their most reasonable conclusions.

I first came across the allegations long before Hannibal Buress spoke up. I read them in Katie McDonough's article for Salon, "A nation ruled by creeps: Woody, Cosby, and James Taranto's demented "balance."" From there, I read Tom Scocca's article in Gawker "Who Wants to Remember Bill Cosby's Multiple Sex-Assault Accusations?", and Amanda Hess's similarly titled "Why Doesn't Anyone Care About the Sexual Assault Allegations Against Bill Cosby?" for Slate. I'll admit, when I first read these words, it reminded me of the time that I uncovered one of my Christmas presents early, and figured out that Santa Claus didn't exist (I still played along for awhile, though). I had looked into the Ark of the Covenant and seen something I clearly wished I hadn't. Ignorance is bliss. That an entire generation was raised on Bill Cosby without knowing a smidgen about these damning allegations is frightening. Heck, Cosby's biographer Mark Whittaker, tried to erase them from history in his book. A move he later apologized for doing. I wasn't completely sure at the time if they were true, but the accusations seemed credible, almost damning. At the time, it seemed more likely than not that Cosby did something wrong. What I hoped for was an investigation from the media for better clarification, but I wouldn't get one until Hannibal Buress went viral.

You should all know the basic story at this point. Comedian Hannibal Buress slammed Cosby briefly in a comedy routine that caught the eye of the Internet, a transcript of the bit is here,

"Thirteen? And it's even worse because Bill Cosby has the fucking smuggest old black man public persona that I hate. Pull your pants up, black people. I was on TV in the '80s. I can talk down to you because I had a successful sitcom. Yeah, but you raped women, Bill Cosby. So, brings you down a couple notches. I don't curse on stage. Well, yeah, you're a rapist, so, I'll take you sayin' lots of motherfuckers on Bill Cosby: Himself if you weren't a rapist. …I want to just at least make it weird for you to watch Cosby Show reruns. …I've done this bit on stage, and people don't believe. People think I'm making it up. …That shit is upsetting. If you didn't know about it, trust me. You leave here and Google 'Bill Cosby rape.' It's not funny. That shit has more results than Hannibal Buress." (YouTube.)

Since then, there has been great discussion on social media and in the news about the allegations. When I first heard of the bit, I knew exactly what Buress was talking about. Then, the women started coming forward about Bill Cosby.

So many women, in fact, have come out to accuse Cosby, that it's hard to keep track of them all. Thankfully, Filipa Ioannou, Elliott Hannon, and Ben-Mathis Liley have a complete list of all women who have publicly accused the comedian of sexual misconduct on Slate:

1. Lachele Covington---An actress who alleged that Cosby put her hand near his penis on January 25, 2000 and filed a police report. The authorities decided that no crime was committed.

2. Andrea Constand---A woman who worked at Temple University, Cosby's alma mater, claimed in 2005 that when she went to Cosby's home seeking advice, he gave her herbal pills for "anxiety" and Cosby then proceeded to sexually assault her. While a Pennsylvania prosecutor could not find enough evidence to charge, he found Constand "credible" and Cosby "evasive." Constand opted to sue Cosby in a civil suit for $150 million, which cited, the now famous, 13 Jane Does who had personal testimonies with Cosby. The Jane Does never got a chance to testify, because Constand settled for an undisclosed amount.

3. Shawn Brown---The National Enquirer reported in 2005 that Brown, who was in a consensual relationship with Cosby, was drugged and raped by him in 1973.

4. Tamara Green---A retired trial attorney and one of the Jane Does cited earlier, Green took to the Today Show in 2005 to claim that Cosby drugged and assaulted her in the 1970's.

5. Beth Ferrier---A model who had previously been in a consensual relationship with Cosby, told the Philadelphia Daily News in 2005, that Cosby drugged her coffee and sexually assaulted her. She was also a Jane Doe set to testify.

6. Barbara Bowman---An aspiring actress and model, Bowman told Philadelphia Magazine that she was one of the Jane Does set to testify in the Constand case. In 2014, after Buress went viral, she told her story to the Daily Mail and The Washington Post alleging that Cosby drugged and raped her multiple times.

7. Joan Tarshis---Also in 2014, after Bowman retold her story, Tarshis, a music industry publicist and journalist told Hollywood Elsewhere that Cosby drugged and raped her twice in 1969.

8. Linda Joy Traitz---A former waitress at Cosby owned restaurant, Traitz alleged this year that Cosby tried to force her to take pills which would help her relax and when she refused, unsuccessfully tried to rape her.

9. Janice Dickinson---Probably the most famous of the accused, TV personality and model, Dickinson told Entertainment Tonight this year that Cosby drugged and raped her in 1982. (Notice a pattern here?)

10. Therese Serignese---A Florida nurse who told The Huffington Post this year that in 1976, Cosby drugged and raped her when she was only 19.

11. Carla Ferrigno---Actress and wife of The Incredible Hulk's Lou Ferrigno, told Rumorflix this year that in 1967, Cosby forced a kiss on her while his wife, Camille, was in another room.

12. Louisa Moritz---A lawyer and actress from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Moritz told TMZ this year that Cosby forced oral sex on her in 1971 during The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

13. Renita Chaney Hill---A woman from Pittsburgh who alleged on CBS that Cosby drugged and raped her after their relationship started when she was 15.

14. Michelle Hurd---An actress from Law and Order: SVU and Gossip Girl, wrote on her Facebook page that Cosby touched her inappropriately, and implied that Cosby drugged and raped another actress she knew.

15. Angela Leslie---Another actress-model who told the New York Daily News that Cosby forced her to masturbate his hand at Las Vegas in 1992.

16. Kristina Ruehli---Another Jane Doe in the Constand case who previously worked as a secretary for Cosby's talent agency told Philadelphia Magazine that in 1965, Cosby drugged her and when she woke up, he was forcing her to do an oral sex act on him.

17. Victoria Valentino---A former Playboy Playmate told the Washington Post that in 1970, Cosby gave them her and another actress, Meg Foster, red pills. She recalled trying to pull Cosby off of Foster as he attempted to rape her, and Cosby later coerced her into an oral sex act.

18. Joyce Emmons---A former comedy club manager who told TMZ that in the 1970s, Cosby gave her a drug for a migraine and she later woke up nude next to a friend of Cosby's she had rejected earlier. When she confronted Cosby, he laughed it off, saying it was "just a Quaalude."

19. Jewel Allison---A former model who told the New York Daily News that in the late 1980's Cosby drugged her wine and raped her.

20. Donna Motsinger---A Jane Doe who told The New York Post that Cosby drugged and raped her while she was a waitress at a California jazz club in 1971. ("A Complete List of the Women Who Have Accused Bill Cosby of Sexual Assault.")

Reuters reports that Cosby was additionally accused by two new women, along with Ferrier in a news conference with lawyer Gloria Allred. One woman, Chelan, said that Cosby assaulted her when she was 17 in 1986. Another, Helen Hayes, said that Cosby groped her breast in 1973. Allred, seeking an end to the situation, asks that Cosby either end the statute of limitations, which would open him up for a lawsuit, or create a $100 million fund for his victims. Along with that, Judy Huth is suing Cosby of sexually assaulting her in 1973 when she was 15 years old (Sinha-Roy; Kesley). So 23 women have all accused Cosby of some sexual wrongdoing. Of these, only five were among the 13 Jane Does, which leaves 8 other unknowns to accuse Cosby, totaling at 32 women to accuse Cosby of sexual misconduct, and Lord knows how many more. It's his word against all of theirs. I hope that these women get their day in court and I hope that Bill Cosby rots in a prison cell.

Of course, there are still those who insist that these women could be lying or exaggerating, or that they need more evidence. Indeed, false allegations of rape do happen, as we saw with Tawana Bawley, the Duke Lacrosse scandal, and more recently, Caleb Warner, but it is a pernicious myth to say that they are a common occurrence, especially on this scale. I know it sounds trivial to explain false rape allegations at this point, but please bear with me.

For evidence, I point to the 2010 study, "False Allegations of Sexual Assault: An Analysis of Ten Years of Reported Cases" from the journal Violence Against Women, which concluded that, "Of the 136 cases of sexual assault reported over the 10-year period, 8 (5.9%) are coded as false allegations. These results, taken in the context of an examination of previous research, indicate the prevalence of false allegations is between 2% and 10%" (Lisak, et.al). Yes, I realize that this study is a small one, but considering that real rapes are highly under-reported, I see this statistic as our best rule of thumb. Even Emily Bazelon and Rachael Larimore of Slate, wrote that while the preponderance of false rape allegations are hard to calculate, they nevertheless stated that upon reading Phillip Rumney's reviews of false rape statistics that, 

"Rumney's smart debunkings leave us with a group of American, British, Canadian, and New Zealand studies that converge around a rate of 8 percent to 10 percent for false reports of rape. Not all of these studies are flawless, but together they're better than the rest of the lot." ("How Often Do Women Falsely Cry Rape?")

Regardless if these statistics are exact or not, just keep in mind, if you can, that the preponderance of false rape allegations is very low. So the chances that these women, who have nothing in common, and apparently nothing to gain, are all lying about being raped by Bill Cosby, of all people, seems rather odd to me.

Indeed, in her video "Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence--Except In Rape Claims?", feminist blogger and skeptic Rebecca Watson has said, (emphasis mine),

"For instance, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is a phrase that skeptics love to throw around. What this means is that if something has a very small likelihood of happening, you need a proportionally large amount of evidence to convince you that it may be so. The odds that John Edward is actually talking to the dead are incredibly low, so in order to believe it we ask that he provide a proportionally impressive demonstration to convince us.

But because we're talking about rape and not psychics, suddenly many skeptics abandon their belief that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and instead demand that no claims be considered extraordinary based upon their odds of happening." (Skepchick.org)

This sentiment is also echoed by another feminist blogger within the skeptic community, Greta Christina. On the Freethought Blogs, when she indicates that being able to point out a serial rapist or sexual harasser shouldn't be too difficult, because there are clear warning signs that tell us so. These include, "Multiple similar claims made against the same person from different people. Especially when these claims show a similar pattern of behavior," and "Other people corroborating behavior that falls short of harassment/assault, but is consistent with it." ("Harassment, Rape, and the Difference Between Skepticism and Denialism.") Well, at least 30 women have accused Cosby of sexual harassment, and not all of them say they were raped, but abused in some manner consistent with the various other testimonies.

I ask of you, what seems more extraordinary, Cosby's innocence or his accusers allegations?

The burden of proof is on the one making the claim. I believe that I have sufficiently done so, thus far. However, I would argue that the onus switches from the claimant, once they have sufficiently made an argument worth refuting. The testimonies of these women are so consistent, credible, and in such sheer number, that they overwhelmingly warrant a response from Cosby. If one weighs the arguments for and against Cosby, it is clear that one just makes more sense than the other. In the words of Charles Ramsay, its a "dead giveaway." Ta-Nehisi Coates bears this out clearly in his article for The Atlantic,

"A defense of Cosby requires that one believe that several women have decided to publicly accuse one of the most powerful men in recent Hollywood history of a crime they have no hope of seeing prosecuted, and for which they are seeking no damages. The alternative is to see one of the most celebrated public fathers of our time, and one of the great public scourges of black morality, revealed as a serial rapist" ("The Cosby Show").

If the words of these women aren't enough, then the smoking gun is in two interviews Cosby did for the most prestigious non-partisan news organizations in the country: National Public Radio and the Associated Press.

For a "Weekend Edition" interview on NPR with Scott Simon, Bill Cosby was asked about his loaning of 62 pieces of art to the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington D.C. The display of this art was called "Conversations: African and African-American Artworks In Dialogue." One such painting was "The Thankful Poor" painted by Henry Ossawa Tanner in 1894. It features an old man and a little boy in prayer at a dinner table. Their meal is modest. Not long after talking about this collection, Simon brings up the allegations.

"This question gives me no pleasure, Mr. Cosby, but there have been serious allegations raised about you in recent days. You're shaking your head no. I'm in the news business. I have to ask the question - do you have any response to those charges? Shaking your head no - there are people who love you who might like to hear from you about this. I want to give you the chance. All right..." ("Cosbys Start A 'Conversation' With African-American Art.")




Usually, if one is innocent of an accusation, especially one as repulsive as rape, they would deny it loudly like there's no tomorrow, or at least, I would. So Cosby's silence, in my mind, betrays in him. By saying nothing, he gave more validation to the allegations than if he responded, even briefly. His silence implies that, perhaps, there's something to these claims.

I've also thought about "The Thankful Poor" by Henry Ossawa Tanner, as well as Cosby's tendency to berate the black middle-class in America. Since this essay is primarily about rape, I won't spend too much time on Cosby and race, but seeing that it's relevant, I'll address it briefly.

Cosby's racial views are best expressed through his famous "pound cake" speech, for the NAACP that commemorated the 50th anniversary of Brown v Board of Education at Washington D.C. in May of 2004. Cosby took the event to criticize the black-middle class for their own failures. The "pound cake" part is here,

"Looking at the incarcerated, these are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake! Then we all run out and are outraged, "The cops shouldn't have shot him" What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand? (laughter and clapping). I wanted a piece of pound cake just as bad as anybody else (laughter) And I looked at it and I had no money. And something called parenting said if get caught with it you're going to embarrass your mother. Not you're going to get your butt kicked. No. You're going to embarrass your mother. You're going to embarrass your family." (Rutgers.edu)

Here's another segment referring to his now infamous "pull your pants up" rhetoric,

"Are you not paying attention, people with their hat on backwards, pants down around the crack. Isn't that a sign of something, or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up (laughter and clapping ). Isn't it a sign of something when she's got her dress all the way up to the crack…and got all kinds of needles and things going through her body. What part of Africa did this come from? (laughter). We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans, they don't know a damned thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Shaligua, Mohammed and all that crap and all of them are in jail. (When we give these kinds names to our children, we give them the strength and inspiration in the meaning of those names. What's the point of giving them strong names if there is not parenting and values backing it up)." (Rutgers University)

An interesting segment where he mocks black slang,

"Brown Versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem. We've got to take the neighborhood back (clapping). We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. (laughter) It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go, ra," I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk (laughter). Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…" You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this. Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out." (Rutgers University).

Now, are there problems in the black community? Yes, of course. Every community, black, white, yellow, etc, probably has its own issues they need to confront, but one glaring omission Cosby makes is that he refuses to acknowledge the socioeconomic impact that institutional racism has had and still does have on black communities. He ignores that the justice system is disproportionate in its targeting of blacks, which may explain why you have so many in prison, and with often longer sentences. Simply because America has made progress (and it has) doesn't mean that we're living in a "Rainbow Nation" of Mandelian heights. Cosby also makes some rather rude assumptions about these blacks simply because of the way they look and talk. Yeah, Tupac Shakur may have looked like a "thug", but he was one of the most well-read and most poetic musicians of the 90s. Every subculture, from hippies to goths, have been judged by their clothes more than by their ideas. If Cosby can't see the poetry or the rhythm in slang, then he is intellectually poorer for it. Cosby would benefit from a discussion on language with John McWhorter. Where would we be without "Huckleberry Finn", "Catcher In The Rye", and "On The Road" which used slang to drive a more relatable narrative, or the transcendent lyricism of Nujabes and Lauryn Hill, which embodied the urban, black experience? By the way, most of the people who work to fix issues in the black community are, in fact, black. Had Cosby not heard the song "Self-Destruction", or of the good work done against urban crime by "Cure Violence"?

Jabari Asim makes a good response to Cosby's remarks in The Washington Post,

"That same element can be found in Cosby's remarks. It is true that some blacks continue to engage in conduct that contradicts and undermines the aims of the civil rights movement. He has every right to take them to task. It is far less amusing that Cosby, a multimillionaire, chose to criticize "the lower economic people" when evidence of the habits he condemned -- misplaced priorities, negligent child-rearing, deteriorating morality -- can be found at every level of American society. Why single out poor people, who are least able to defend themselves?" ("Did Cosby Cross The Line?")

Now, onto "The Thankful Poor", it is painting that I think is quite poignant now. I say this for two reasons. One, it depicts, what I interpret to be, a father and son. Two, they are poor. For many people, including myself, Cosby was a father figure, but in the end, that's all he was, a figure. To me, the old man in the painting represents how we saw Cosby, and what we expected of him. In mythological terms, he was our Merlin, our Gandalf, our Obi-Wan Kenobi. Yet that old man is stuck in the painting, an ideal. Moving on to the poverty aspect of "The Thankful Poor", Cosby, apparently, has little empathy for the poor black middle class (and women while we're at it). That he can enshrine a painting examining poverty in America, and yet fail to properly engage in it in real life, shows his empathy deficit. Yes, Cosby has done philanthropy, but philanthropy is easy, and by itself won't save the poor. Cosby can appreciate this painting. He just can't understand it. Does he not know that the poor, the black poor today, still try to be grateful and still suffer?

In his Associated Press interview, Cosby verbally bullies the AP like a Mafia gangster who "has friends in high places." Here, we saw him naked, the real "Bill Cosby", a far more disgusting and vile creature than we were led to believe, a drooling Jabba The Hut, thriving in rot. Shortly after being asked about the allegations, to which his response was, well, no response, Cosby, thinking that he was off camera, began to coerce.

Cosby: "Now can I get something from you?"

AP Reporter: "What's that?"

Cosby: "That none of that will be shown?"

AP Reporter: "I can't promise that, myself, but you didn't say anything..."

Cosby: "I know I didn't say anything, but I'm asking your integrity that since I didn't want to say anything, but I did answer you in terms of 'I don't want to say anything, of what value will it have?'"

AP Reporter: "I don't think it will have..."

Cosby: (Speaking to off-camera publicist) "Mam? What'd you say?"

AP Reporter: "Sorry?"

Cosby: "What did you say?"

Off-camera publicist: "I don't think it has any value either."

Cosby: "And I would appreciate it if it was scuttled."

AP Reporter: "I hear you. I will tell that to my editors and I think that they will understand..."

Cosby: "I think if you want to consider yourself to be serious that it will not appear anywhere."

AP Reporter: "OK. I appreciate what you've asked."

Cosby: "Thank you. And we thought, by the way, because it was AP, that it wouldn't be necessary to go over that question with you."

AP Reporter: "I know. And we haven't written about this at all in the past two months, but they want, my bosses wanted me to ask..."

Cosby: "If you will just tell your boss the reason why we didn't say that upfront was because we thought that AP had the integrity to not ask."

Off camera publicist: "One other point on that: One of the three major TV writers for the AP in Los Angeles called me up and asked me - Lynn Elber - and I said we're not addressing it. So she said fine and she just closed it off."

AP Reporter: "OK."

Cosby: (to publicist) "And I think you need to get on the phone with his person immediately."

Off camera publicist: "I will, OK."

Cosby: "OK, thank you."
(My FOX Austin)

This is the moment, for me, when the loving "Cliff Huxtable" truly died, and the decaying, greedy, self-centered low-life known as "Bill Cosby", reared his ugly head. Not only did Cosby again refuse to respond to serious allegations, but he also wanted to cover up this dialogue from the world. Get your heads out of the sand, Gamergate, this is what real corruption in journalism looks like!

Look closely during the interview, far behind Cosby, and you can see "The Thankful Poor." What a contradictory scene!

For Inside Edition, body language expert Dr. Lillian Glass studied Cosby's body language in the video and observed that, (emphasis mine),

"This shows a man who is used to having a lot of power, and who is used to using his power to get whatever he wants. You see him very protective in a V position over his private parts, and this is what is being discussed in essence, his cheating behavior, or the allegations. So, when you look at what's going on with their hands you can tell a great deal about his vulnerability." ("Explosive Video: Bill Cosby Pressures AP Reporter to 'Scuttle' Interview")

And they say that rape is about power, don't they?

Given all of these factors, it would seem very implausible to deny Cosby's crimes, but still, there are those that do. Aside from the longtime fans, too starstruck for the truth, you have those who are simply hesitant to point the finger at Cosby, despite how glaringly obvious it all is. They act as if the truth is unknowable, as if all rape cases should be weighed in the exact same way. This is ridiculous. The Cosby situation is vastly different from the sexual assault allegations against Woody Allen, Julian Assange, or even the late Michael Jackson. I won't go into the details of these difficult, but serious cases, however, it seems fairly reasonable to me, that cohesive arguments could be made by either side of those issues. Believe what you will, but I think that in those cases, agnosticism isn't an unreasonable position. However, the degrees of which you hold that agnosticism can differ. It may seem more probable to some that Woody Allen is guilty of wrongdoing that Julian Assange, and vice-versa, but there still remains uncertainty significant enough to refrain from labeling the accused as "rapists."At the same time, the media should be more responsible in investigating these various claims. I would like to see a re-examination of the Michael Jackson case, myself, given the new accusations against him by Wade Robeson and James Safechuck, and while I don't think that Bill Clinton raped Juanita Broaddrick, that issue could certainly benefit from a another look.

If all this still sounds shocking, even if it makes sense to you, that's fine, it's supposed to be. That Bill Cosby and Cliff Huxtable are two different people is a scam that fooled all of America. Jim Goad of Taki's Magazine, I feel, conveys our shock well,

"It wasn't surprising, nor especially depressing, to hear that Mike Tyson was convicted of rape in 1992. After all, Tyson was known for little more than being a mentally challenged Brooklyn street thug who nearly murdered people with his fists in the ring. We expect these things from people such as Mike Tyson. But not of America's Dad." ("America's Rapist Dad")

So if you are to accept my argument that Bill Cosby is a serial rapist, then what can be done about The Cosby Show? Is it ethical to watch, or to even laugh at?



 
The Art Versus The Artist

I enjoy the art of many artists whose moral values I find, well, lacking, to say the least. Ender's Game is one of the finest science-fiction books I've ever read, but its author, Orson Scott Card, is a raging homophobe. Rosemary's Baby and The Pianist are excellent films, but their director, Roman Polanski, is, like Cosby, a rapist. Ezra Pound was a magnificent poet, but also a fascist supporter of Mussolini. All three of these talented people produced controversies that forced this conflict of art versus artist on the public.

When filmed adaptation of Ender's Game up for release in 2013, clearly among the first to capitalize on the young adult dystopian craze started by the Hunger Games, many saw reason to boycott it. I even know friends of mine who did. Regardless of how good the film was, they didn't want to contribute a cent to Orson Scott Card. Let's recall that once wrote an article in Deseret News lambasting the legality of same-sex marriage and even its acceptance as normal, he has these lovely gems to his name, (emphasis mine),

"The first and greatest threat from court decisions in California and Massachusetts, giving legal recognition to "gay marriage," is that it marks the end of democracy in America.

"Already in several states, there are textbooks for children in the earliest grades that show "gay marriages" as normal. How long do you think it will be before such textbooks become mandatory — and parents have no way to opt out of having their children taught from them?

"No matter how sexually attracted a man might be toward other men, or a woman toward other women, and no matter how close the bonds of affection and friendship might be within same-sex couples, there is no act of court or Congress that can make these relationships the same as the coupling between a man and a woman.

How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn." ("State job is not to redefine marriage.")

Pretty stupid stuff, right? A shame that Card didn't actually attempt to destroy the government. That would've been pretty funny. Gay marriage ain't so bad, eh, Card? Well, as soon as Lionsgate adapted the film for release, LGBT activists saw boycotting the Ender's Game film as a way to damage Card. The movie opened to mixed reviews and a mediocre box office return. This may, in fact, have to do with the negative reception around Card, but there were those who suggested that boycotting was the wrong move. One such person was Mack Rawden of CinemaBlend. He seemed to say that it was unfair to condemn the entire cast and crew of Ender's Game, since not a cent of the money earned would return to Card. He also argued in favor of separating art from artist,

"Movies have to be judged by their content, not by who created them. Your average film is organized and executed by hundreds of people of different races and genders who boast different sexual orientations, different religions and different political leanings. The only thing they have in common is their shared desire to make the final product as brilliant and moving as possible, and if you separate the group and start looking at each one of these creators individually and their perceived motivations, you're almost always going to find some horrific and unseemly things beneath the surface. Why? Because a high percentage of us suck." ("Why Boycotting Ender's Game Doesn't Make Sense.")

I agree with much of what Rawden says here. It's only inevitable that our cherished works of art will have contributions from idiots, but art should stand on its own, regardless of its creators. Yet, it's very easy to say that when the creator isn't an intimate player in their work. After all, Card was very detached from Ender's Game, in the story he doesn't appear. For those who subscribe to "Death of the Author" Card doesn't even exist. Yet bigotry is not as awful as rape. Enter Roman Polanski.

Polanski, as we all know, raped Samantha Geimer by use of drugs when she was 13 years old in 1977. For that crime, he has not been able to return to the United States, should he be jailed. In 2009, when going to Switzerland for the Zurich Film Festival, he was jailed over his arrest warrant at the pressure of American officials. Whoopi Goldberg defended Polanski's actions as not "rape-rape", and Hollywood followed suit. They signed a petition calling for Polanski's release, and according to TV Guide, the signatories included Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese along with 100 other filmmakers and actors. (Bryant). Here, art was not separated from artist. Is not possible to celebrate The Pianist, Chinatown, and Rosemary's Baby, while holding Polanski accountable for his crimes against women? I would think so. Like Card, Polanski doesn't exist within the universes of these films. He is detached. While both Chinatown and The Pianist came from intimate places in Polanski's lifetime, the death of Sharon Tate and escaping the Holocaust, none of them advocate rape. Besides, films are collaborative efforts. Why should Polanski get all the honor for them? Hollywood made the mistake of assuming a director is as good as his films. They left the rape victims behind.

By the way, this dilemma is not a new phenomenon. A Little Treasury In Modern Poetry records a moment when Ezra Pound won the Bollingen Prize of $1000 for his Pisan Cantos in 1949. The poetry was controversial because it reflected Pound's admiration for Mussolini's Italy, as well as his own antisemitism. The jury that awarded him was not unanimous and included W.H. Auden, T.S. Eliot, Karl Shapiro, Robert Lowell, Conrad Aiken, and Robert Penn Warren, among others. In response to the controversy, the jury released this statement:

"The fellows are aware that objections may be made to awarding a prize to a man situated as is Mr. Pound. In their view, however, the possibility of such objection did not alter the responsibility assumed by the Jury of Selection. This was to make a choice for the award among eligible books, provided anyone merited such recognition, according to the stated terms of the Bollingen Prize. To permit other considerations than that of poetic achievement to sway the decision would destroy the significance of the award and would in principle deny the validity of that objective perception of value on which civilized society must rest," (879-880)

The responses among poets, and indeed, those of that jury, were decidedly mixed. One of voted for Pound, Robert Lowell, said in his defense that,

"I thought it was the very simple problem of voting for the best book of the year; and it seemed to me that Pound's was. I thought the Pisan Cantos was the best writing Pound had ever done, though it included some of his worst. It is a very mixed book: that was the question. But the consequences of not giving the best book of the year a prize for extraneous reasons, even terrible ones in a sense---I think that's the death of art," (880).

Conversely, Karl Shapiro, who voted against Pound, did so for more personal reasons,

"I voted against Pound in the balloting for the Bollingen Prize. My first and more crucial reason was that I am a Jew and cannot honor antisemites. My second reason, I stated in a report which was circulated among the Fellows: "I voted against Pound in the belief that the poet's political and moral philosophy ultimately vitiates his poetry and lowers its standards as literary work," (880). 

At moments, I feel just stuck in the middle of these two sides in the whole "art versus artist" debate. One the one hand, I don't believe that whether or not the creator of an art was morally righteous should sink or swim its value. Yet on the other hand, it can be damaging. Joseph Conrad's apparent racism in Heart of Darkness was unhelpful to its portrayal of the Congolese. Yes, Heart of Darkness is a great novel, but racism damaged its effectiveness as art, at least, as far as Chinua Achebe was concerned.

You could argue that since the Bill Cosby persona is different than Cosby himself, that it's okay to laugh at his jokes, but is it really? Woody Allen has also insisted that his persona on film is different than who he is in real life (take that for what you will). Unlike Polanski or Card, Allen, like Cosby, does exist within his works. I suppose I feel more comfortable watching Woody Allen films, because the case against him is decidedly less definitive than against Cosby. So it's admittedly easier for me to disassociate his character from the allegations. Yet any time I want to watch The Cosby Show, I feel as if I'd be laughing at a serial rapist, giving him credit. It's a shame too, because so many other talented people contributed to that show, and now, their legacies have been sullied, obstructed even.

As much as I would like to, I can't erase Cosby's impact from history. Heck, one of his stand-up albums was preserved by the National Recording Registry. Not to mention that The Cosby Show itself was an important show for the visibility of blacks in America. Yes, the show may not have dealt with race as often as Fresh Prince, but I for one, thought it was nice to see blacks portrayed as living regular lives like whites, instead of often being shown in race polemics. Not that that's a bad thing, or anything, on the contrary, it's desperately needed, but I believe that there should also be a spectrum of black portrayals. That much being said, I think that those unfamiliar with Cosby, especially younger ones, should understand what he meant to us, and to America. They deserve to know that much, but if it's too painful for them, I get it.

By the end of the day, I don't know what the right answer is. You'll have to decide this for yourself. I really don't think I'll be able to watch or hear anything of Cosby's for a very long time. Rape is just so ugly. I guess I can live without Cosby, though. There are other comedians, like Carlin, Hicks, and Chappelle. There are also other good memories to revisit, The Goonies, Harry Potter, and Looney Tunes. Still, I'll miss Cliff Huxtable. I hardly knew ya.

Let me end by saying that the Cosby case is both extraordinary and ordinary. I say this because it is absolutely extraordinary to have such a grand number of women all accuse a rapist of the same or similar crimes, even Jian Ghomeshi had fewer. It also ordinary, however, in the sense that most rapists are serial rapists, and as such, they have a long list of victims that they've hurt. This is why we have such a great number of women who have been raped, and yet a low number of men who are rapists. Feminist blogger Jessica Valenti said provocatively in The Nation that "Rape is as American as apple pie---until we own that, nothing will change." ("America's Rape Problem: We Refuse to Admit That There Is One"). At the time, I felt that the statement was a little obtuse, but now, I admit, I was wrong. Rape has infected our schools, our military, our clergy, our prisons, our sports teams, and now, our televisions. When even "America's Dad", of all people, is a rapist, that tells us that rape is undoubtedly a part of the American experience. To deny this is to deny reality.


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