December 23, 2019

"One would think that Mr. Murphy was given his freedom to leave the plantation, so that he could make his own decisions; but he decided to sell himself back to being a Hollywood Slave."

"[Stepin Fetchit plus cooning equals the destruction of Black Men in Hollywood.] Remember, Mr. Murphy, that Bill Cosby became legendary because he used comedy to humanize all races, religions and genders; but your attacking Mr. Cosby helps you embark on just becoming click bait," instagrammed Bill Cosby's spokesman, quoted in "Bill Cosby’s spokesman rips Eddie Murphy as ‘Hollywood Slave’ over ‘SNL’ jab" (NY Post)

The bracketed sentence is in the original Instagram but sanitized out of the NY Post story. The spokesman's quote reads like a garbled mess without that extra line. With it, I can remember Cosby's criticism of Murphy. If I hadn't dug a little deeper and seen the elided sentence, I'd have said that the statement was worse than saying nothing, because Murphy's joke was mild and contained no factual imperfections or even nastiness, and to criticize it is to make us read it again:
“If you would have told me 30 years ago that I would be this boring, stay-at-home house dad and Bill Cosby would be in jail, even I would have took that bet,” Murphy said.

“Who is America’s dad now?”
But with that extra line, I remember Cosby's old argument against black comedians continuing to use old racist stereotypes to amuse white people. And that is a good description of Murphy's old "SNL" characters, which he reprised unapologetically on last Saturday's show. (I blogged: "[The] Eddie Murphy material was full of racist stereotypes — Mr. Robinson, the criminal; Buckwheat, whose one joke is that he cannot articulate words; Gumby, the angry one; Velvet Jones, the pimp — and yet because these were reprisals of supposedly beloved characters by the show's biggest star from the distant past, they were apparently considered okay to present today.")

Here's Eddie Murphy in 1987 describing how Cosby criticized him, back when Cosby was "America's dad":




And here's Eddie Murphy — accepting the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2015 — mocking Cosby, after the sexual assault allegations had become viral:



Bill Cosby had won the Mark Twain Prize in 2009, and it was rescinded in 2018, after his conviction for sexual assault. It's interesting to see the elite audience in 2015 yukking it up about sexual assault. Murphy's routine at the time was clearly and viciously anti-Cosby, but it was not somber and serious about rape.

In that clip, you hear the name Hannibal Buress. Buress is the comedian whose 2014 standup comic routine revived the old allegations against Cosby:
Buress addressed Cosby's legacy of "talk[ing] down" to young black men about their style of dress and lifestyle. Buress criticized the actor's public moralizing by saying, "Yeah, but you raped women, Bill Cosby, so that kind of brings you down a couple notches." The audience appeared to respond to Buress's accusation with incredulity; he encouraged everyone to search for "Bill Cosby rape" when they got home....

A media firestorm ensued, with numerous publications tackling the question of how Cosby had managed to maintain, as Buress called it in his set, a "Teflon image" despite more than a decade of public sex-abuse accusations. 
And here's the Wikipedia article for Stepin Fetchit. I have blogged about him before, noting this quote from the book: "Stepin Fetchit: The Life and Times of Lincoln Perry":
He was reviled in the African-American press (and soon after, in the culture at large) as a racist caricature, the "subservient, dim-witted, craven, eye-rolling" Negro. By the 1960's, his name had become an epithet, like "Uncle Tom."

In a 1968 CBS special entitled "Of Black America," a young comic named Bill Cosby proclaimed that "the tradition of the lazy, stupid, crap-shooter, chicken-stealing idiot was popularized by an actor named Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry." The outraged Fetchit, then 66, movingly responded during a press conference: "They're making me a villain," but "if it wasn't for me there wouldn't be no Sidney Poitier or Bill Cosby or any of them."
ADDED: In 2015, Eddie Murphy declined an invitation to do his Cosby imitation on "Saturday Night Live."
Norm Macdonald tweeted... that he and the other writers had intended for Eddie Murphy, on his first appearance on the show in 30 years, to play Bill Cosby as a drink-mixing bartender during their supersized Celebrity Jeopardy sketch.... “Eddie decides the laughs are not worth it. He will not kick a man when he is down.” It was a principled decision that many would disagree with; in the end, current cast member Kenan Thompson revived his Cosby impression to notably less effect

77 comments:

tim in vermont said...

As Karl Marx said, or maybe it was Hegel, with his dialectic. “The truth lies somewhere in between.”

rhhardin said...

Don Herbert as Mr. Wizard was good. That was white stuff, free of controversy.

tim in vermont said...

"A media firestorm ensued, with numerous publications tackling the question of how Cosby had managed to maintain, as Buress called it in his set, a "Teflon image" despite more than a decade of public sex-abuse accusations. “

It was the name... BIll C.

Jeff said...

Cosby is wrong. By employing exaggerated racist stereotypes in his act, Eddie Murphy makes us laugh at ourselves for believing in such nonsense. It's defeating racism by making it ridiculous. No one comes away from an Eddie Murphy show thinking blacks are stupid; the man is a comic genius.

David Begley said...

Bill Cosby’s image as a “good” guy and the fact that he was a big star allowed him to rape a large number of women. He -and his spokesman - really should STFU.

gspencer said...

Murphy as a white mid-town, briefcase-carrying executive is still one funny video,

https://criticalmediaproject.org/eddie-murphy-white-like-me/

Rob said...

Nobody wants to be in the middle of this firefight. Feets, don’t fail me now.

MountainMan said...

I recall that Hattile McDaniel said something like this when she was criticized about building a career around roles as a maid or a mammy in the movies: “I’d rather be making $700 a week playing a maid in a movie than making $7 a week actually being one.”

rhhardin said...

Southern rednecks gave racism a bad name.

rhhardin said...

Cosby probably didn't rape lots of women. You get marks for good character for that.

Temujin said...

Not for nothing: Navy banning TikTok for security reasons

Lucid-Ideas said...

Eddie is too late. Dave Chappelle is America's dad now.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

I agree with Begley. If Cosby did what it is claimed he did then he is just doubling down on evil and should STFU.

mockturtle said...

Both Cosby and Murphy have provided laughs for millions of Americans. Why can't we leave it there?

Laslo Spatula said...

Screw the overused 'plantation' analogy.

Rather, I believe that Eddie Murphy is just not gonna work on Maggie's Farm no more.

The scolds want to fine you every time you slam the door, so: fuck them.

I am Laslo.

Laslo Spatula said...

("Maggie's farm" has been in my head a lot lately: it is LOLGF with a beat).

I am Laslo.

Automatic_Wing said...

I find it funny that Cosby is still issuing missives through PR flacks. Shouldn't he be busy making shivs out of used toilet paper like a normal prisoner?

Lurker21 said...

If you're watching Eddie for the first time, sure, he's peddling stereotypes. If you're familiar with his work, the joke is "See how funny those old Eighties stereotypes were." The implication is that we've come a long way since then, so far that we can laugh at those stereotypes and not think that we are perpetuating them.

If you're a radical, you'll say not much has changed since then, and if you're easily offended you'll find the old characters offensive, but the media's depiction of African-Americans has changed so much in forty years that most viewers will find something quaint and old-fashioned in Eddie's old material.

It helps that Eddie Murphy is Black himself. He's not going to bring back his old gay jokes. But a gay comedian might be able to get away with that.

Tom T. said...

It's unfathomable to me that Cosby thinks he can still win something in this argument. You don't have a lot of leeway to criticize other people for feeding into negative racial stereotypes after you've raped a bunch of white women.

The Vault Dweller said...

It must be exhausting to be black in America. Anything an individual black person does can be used as fodder by others who don't like what was done or probably more likely don't like that person and accuse them of being a sell-out, an Uncle Tom, or a coon. White people don't have to deal with that. The only thing that is close is the concept of 'race-traitor' but the only people who throw that term around unironically are White Supremacists, and my guess is, there are only a few thousand white people in America who would care if a white supremacist called them a race-traitor.

Jupiter said...

"But with that extra line, I remember Cosby's old argument against black comedians continuing to use old racist stereotypes to amuse white people."

It is fine to use old, racist stereotypes to amuse people, as long as they are old, racist stereotypes about white people. All black comedians do it constantly, and many white ones do it from time to time.

J. Farmer said...

I wonder what Cosyb's spokesman thinks about Tyler Perry's ouevre, which Spike Lee once described as "coonery buffoonery."

Ray - SoCal said...

Crosby is in jail, and Weinstein is still free.

Unfortunately, my guess is Crosby would still be free, if he had different politics.

I wish justice was truly blind.

Howard said...

The inner core of genuine comedy is pain and suffering. In that way it is the most Zen of all the arts.

Fernandinande said...

I remember Cosby's old argument against black comedians continuing to use old racist stereotypes to amuse white people.

And yet on one of his old records he has the black gang kids indulging in the stereotype of wearing your pants backwards.

Ann Althouse said...

"If you're familiar with his work, the joke is "See how funny those old Eighties stereotypes were." "

The stereotypes were already old when they were used in the 80s. The "joke" in the 80s was already supposed to be that the stereotypes are so old and we're already so enlightened that we can laugh at it all now. You're saying that the thing that was done BACK THEN is something that's being done FOR THE FIRST TIME NOW. That's just wrong. SNL made it safe to laugh racistly in the 80s, and they're betting on the belovedness of Eddie Murphy to do it again rather than creating original new characters that satirize the culture we live in today.

Sebastian said...

"black comedians continuing to use old racist stereotypes to amuse white people."

Amuse lefty white people. FIFY.

Cuz, per Althouse, people don't believe what they profess to believe, and to my knowledge no self-respecting righty watches SNL.

Temujin said...

Agree with Ann on this one. SNL is dipping their toe in the water of being politically incorrect by using someone from another era to do their dirty work. Murphy was from an era when it was OK to say or look in an exaggerated stereotypical way to make the comedic point. They were not the first- not by a long shot. But in the 80's they were among the most visible, catching the most eyes. Today's SNL runs scared and typically stays within the SJW approved comedy guidelines. Murphy was fronting for them as they stood behind him monitoring the reaction.

I loved Murphy then. Still do. Seeing the clips from this show reminded me how good he was and how BIG he was for a few years.

rcocean said...

Eddie Haskell was a terrible role model for kids. Jackie Gleason made fun of the working class. And Lucy made people look down on redheads.

Respectful Comedy is so much better.

rcocean said...

Murphy's joke about being America's Dad, and Crosby and him reversing roles, shows truth is often funnier than fiction. 25 years ago, he could have built a whole comedy routine on a future where he was the respectable on and Bill was in jail. But now, its just a fact.

mockturtle said...

Black people laughed at least as hard at Murphy as did white people.

mockturtle said...

A film that used sterotypes to great comedic advantage was Best in Show. You had the gay couple, the LLBean/Starbuck couple and the winning bloodhound 'redneck' owner whose stereotype was reversed at the end when he hopped aboard an El Al flight to Tel Aviv to spend time at a kibbutz.

Fernandinande said...

Opie's little brother exploits a harmful stereotype in a lowbrow attempt to entertain millions of stereotypical people.

William said...

Cosby's fetish was non consensual sex with drugged women. He got away with it for decades. In a way, he was lucky. One case of aspiration pneumonia, and it would all be over. The weird thing was not what he did but that he was able to get away with doing it for so long. Cosby, Weinstein, Epstein. It's not just what they did. It's who they did it to and the length of time they were able to do it......The women involved with Cosby were reluctant to come forward because he was such a revered figure. I think that's still true of other men in public life. I think there are a lot of stories that will never be told about JFK, John Conyers, or Bill Clinton. Weinstein and Epstein weren't particularly esteemed, but they were feared, and the media were reluctant to pursue stories about them. It was so much easier to track down stories about the double entendres in Brett Kavanaugh's yearbook.

Michael K said...

Ray - SoCal said...

Crosby is in jail, and Weinstein is still free.

Unfortunately, my guess is Crosby would still be free, if he had different politics.

I wish justice was truly blind.


Yup. if Cosby had never said anything about the black family, he would be home today.

Errol Flynn lived at the right time.

John henry said...

Bill Cosby, as Cliff Huxtable, made child abuse fun!

He should be in jail for that if nothing else. OTOH, that is not a crime (perhaps it should be) so no jail. He should be, but isn't, roundly and loudly ostracized.

Bill Cosby/Cliff Huxtable as "America's dad" is like Jeffery Epstein as "America's boyfriend"

Fuck Bill Cosby. I was a huge fan until the Huxtables. Now he should burn in Hell.

John Henry

mockturtle said...

As someone pointed out yesterday, there is so much grist for the satire mill in the current Prog culture but it lies mouldering in the bin. Climate change activists are just begging to be spoofed as are socialists, antifa, Starbucks and many others. And Nike hoisted by its own petard.

John henry said...

Blogger rhhardin said...

Southern Democrat rednecks gave racism a bad name.

FIFY

Remember Democrat National Committeman Bull Connor?

Perhaps this will refresh some memories

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OIP.tWV60fEdVffrg4PsGd9EXwAAAA&pid=Api&rs=1

John Henry

Gilbert Pinfold said...

I can walk into my front yard and look down into the valley and see Bill Cosby’s residence—it’s called Phoenix Correctional Facility, and Bill has an inmate “guide” to help him around when out of his cell, because he is now blind. I’d say Eddie has the better of the argument here.

mockturtle said...

John Henry comments: Bill Cosby, as Cliff Huxtable, made child abuse fun!

I never watched the show. Enlighten me.

Lurker21 said...

A lot of Cosby's jokes early on revolved around his fear of his father's wrath, and later they were about his own impatience with his own children. Standard comedy stuff, but in retrospect it makes you wonder.

And if I think about him at Cosby, I wonder who started him on his path to perdition. Probably somebody in the comedy clubs, but I do wonder - Bob Culp was supposed to be the cool swinger guy, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, so who knows?

Anyway, at this point saying that you're a cast regular on SNL is like saying you're up for Gunsmoke or you have a recurring role on The Honeymooners or your going to be on Ed Sullivan or Mike Douglas. It's one of those venerable institutions that have become only a sorry vestige of themselves, like [fill in blank].

Ralph L said...

non consensual sex with drugged women.

I didn't follow the trial at all, but if he got those women alone at home or hotel, wasn't it likely they would have had sex with him without the drugs?

Darkisland said...

Mockturtle,

Constant mocking of son Theo's failings.

None of those failings in the least abnormal for a teenage boy who generally behaved pretty well.

John Henry

Francisco D said...

Black people laughed at least as hard at Murphy as did white people.

From my experience in the early 70's, it was the same with Richard Pryor.

I remember listening to Pryor with my wife and her two college friends (all African-American). We were smoking pot and the women were laughing like crazy at Pryor's setups. I was somewhat embarrassed to laugh because White people are not supposed to find that stuff funny.

mockturtle said...

Is mocking really child abuse, John Henry? No wonder we're rearing a bunch of snowflakes these days.

The Crack Emcee said...

Eddie Murphy has said Bill Cosby paid attention to his career in some uniquely angry way Cosby didn't other comedians, including lots of special directions for his conduct, onstage and off, that made it seem personal. That's why Eddie said he would've take the bet about Bill's current fate:

He never got what Bill's trip was - as many blacks eventually didn't.

With even Ice Cube making kiddie movies (while Ice-T plays cops on TV) we'd think the range of our humanity should've come into focus, a long time ago, for such men. But he missed that, and the human condition, of all things:

That's how Bill Cosby played himself.

Michael K said...

Read "You'll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again," and tell me how Cosby was so evil. I maintain that his behavior was so common as to be expected by any young women trying to get into the movies. I don't say it was right or moral, just that it was so common that half the people who are damning Cosby did the same. He just got out in front on the black family and was slapped down hard.

His TV show was revolutionary in its effect in South Africa.

The Crack Emcee said...

By the way, Ann left this racist skit off her list, because it didn't star a returning character, but it was one of the show's best:

"Home for the Holidays"

The Crack Emcee said...

Michael K said...

"He just got out in front on the black family and was slapped down hard."

You believe your dogma.

I've been blacker than you a long time.

Ann Althouse said...

"By the way, Ann left this racist skit off her list..."

I agree with you that it was one of the best things in the show. It dared to look critically at black people, which we almost never see. That's quite different from digging up the old stereotypical characters. It purported to say a lot of unflattering things about actual black people who live in America today. That's equality, by the way, because a skit about white people at their holiday meal would have the same degree of race-specific negativity.

The Crack Emcee said...

Ann Althouse said...

"I agree with you that it was one of the best things in the show."

Ity brought tears to my ears.

"It dared to look critically at black people, which we almost never see."

A result of wrongheaded over-criticism. Now, everyone's walking on eggshells, so nothing can be said.

"That's quite different from digging up the old stereotypical characters."

The first person to do a documentary on Oprah's on-going crimes is a game changer.

"It purported to say a lot of unflattering things about actual black people who live in America today."

I'm all into that - as long as it's fair - and there's a lot there.

"That's equality, by the way, because a skit about white people at their holiday meal would have the same degree of race-specific negativity."

I hear that, Professor.

Ralph L said...

I wonder if that was Murphy's skit or their regular writers.

Yancey Ward said...

Eddie Murphy's Raw was shocking at the time- GenX's Lenny Bruce.

That Murphy was allowed to bring those characters back to life on SNL was a bit of a suprise to me, but it all seemed flat to me, and I was someone who watched him do it originally as a teenager (perhaps that is why it seemed flat to me). I will just point out that Murphy's charactoers as a cast member of SNL weren't shocking at the time like his standup routines were.

Murphy's movie career started with two films that I am not sure could be made today, at least not made they way they were made in 1982-83- 48 Hrs and Trading Places.

Yancey Ward said...

"I wonder if that was Murphy's skit or their regular writers."

Other than Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood, I thought the old characters were shoe-horned into SNL set pieces using lines borrowed from Murphy's previous pieces- at least it seemed that way to me.

Michael K said...

I've been blacker than you a long time.

Crazier too.

The Crack Emcee said...

Michael K said...

I've been blacker than you a long time.

"Crazier too."

Every single time I come here, somehow, Michael K is making some denigrating comment about American blacks - every single time, like he's an expert, handing in a report - and all it usually takes, to prove it's wrong, is my showing up.

But I'm the crazy one.

Merry Christmas, to you, too, Chief.

Michael K said...

Crack, you have dine a far better job than I ever could of displaying the pathology that holds American blacks back.

Francisco D said...

I've been blacker than you a long time.

Crazier too.


Nah. Crack is just perpetually butthurt.

He seems less plaintive when he uses the suppositories.

walter said...

The Vault Dweller said... Anything an individual black person does can be used as fodder by others who don't like what was done or probably more likely don't like that person and accuse them of being a sell-out, an Uncle Tom, or a coon. White people don't have to deal with that.
--
Yeah..we are only subject to the kinder, gentler "racist" label.
Simply deplorable.

The Crack Emcee said...

Michael K said...

"Crack, you have dine a far better job than I ever could of displaying the pathology that holds American blacks back."

By not liking the likes of you?

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

mockturtle said...

"Home for the Holidays"

Crack, I just watched that clip and saw nothing racist about it. Enlighten me?

Darkisland said...

Mockturtle,

It is not mocking though there was plenty of that. It was more the constant tearing down of any of son Theo's ideas or anything he did.

Nothing Theo did was ever any good. Nothing Theo ever did could possibly make Cliff Huxtable say "I'm proud of you, my son."

The pride has to be earned and correction must be applied as necessary. That is not what I am talking about.

It happens in far too many households but nobody outside the family ever sees it. What society sees is the results.

He did NOT do it to the daughter. He treated her more or less the way I think a father should treat their children.

What makes Bill Cosby especially egregious is that he did it on one of the most popular shows of the 80s. On a show where he was almost universally acclaimed as a "good father" and a "good family".

How many hundreds of thousands of kids were raised by fathers thinking "Well, it's Bill Cosby, this must be the right way to do it. Why, the media even says so!"

He had an opportunity to make a positive difference and chose to use the opportunity to make a negative difference.

Had the Huxtables been white, I suppose many blacks would have looked at him and said "White folks sure are crazy." Instead they were black. Instead of providing a positive role model, they provided a negative one.

(As a "person of color", I have standing to speak of these things. So bear that in mind if you respond, Crack. Don't you dare pull your black card out on me)

Bill Cosby is not just a comedian and actor though he is very good at both. We do not expect a Robert DeNiro or Tom Cruise to know much beyond their craft. Bill Cosby is a highly educated man with education specifically in this area. He has a Doctorate of Education in Childhood development. If anyone should know better, he should.

So fuck Bill Cosby. He had a chance to do good and he used it for evil.

And for ALL the commenters here, have you told your kids today "I love you" at least half a dozen times? If you have not, start. They may cringe a bit if they are teens but they won't be 40 years old wondering if they ever heard it. Sure, we have to demonstrate it by our actions. But we have to say it to.

I don't know if Bill Cosby ever said that to Theo. He should have. One more missed opportunity.

John Henry

Darkisland said...

Blogger The Crack Emcee said...

I've been blacker than you a long time.

How long have you been black, Crack? How many years?

I'll see your blackness and raise you one Puerto Rican/Hispanic POC.

I find the term Hispanic rather odious normally. But it is a card to play in the racial sweepstakes (even though Puerto Rican/Hispanic has nothing to do with actual race or color)

So,

BAM!

John Henry

Darkisland said...

Blogger Francisco D said...

He seems less plaintive when he uses the suppositories.

Lenny Bruce and I would recommend Webster Pharmacal's B&O suppositories. B&O stands for Belladonna and Opium. Used to be made in Puerto Rico by Alcon Laboratories when I worked there. The FDA kept driving us nuts, trying to get us to pull the product because

1) It have never undergone efficacy testing, being grandfathered

2) It has 2 active ingredients, FDA likes only one active ingredient per drug.

In the 60's Lenny Bruce used to recommend it in his act. "You're high before you get your finger out of your ass"

I am surprised it is still on the market since the FDA has been trying to ban it since at least 1979. But it is, according to Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%26O_Supprettes

We also made WANS anti-nausea suppositories. Chloral Hydrate and sodium pentobarbitol. Those might do as a substitute in a pucker.

John Henry

Howard said...

To be fair John Henry, you pass for white. I don't think crack can hide his roots as well as you can.

Darkisland said...

Blogger Howard said...

To be fair John Henry, you pass for white.

As do most "Hispanics"

John Henry

Automatic_Wing said...

Eddie Murphy's Raw was shocking at the time- GenX's Lenny Bruce.

As I recall, Delerious was what really made an impact at the time. Everyone knew the jokes in that one - what if Mr. T was a faggot, the thing about his mom hitting them with her shoes, "I got some ice cream", etc. - it was a real phenomenon.

Raw was OK but by the time it came out we had already seen pretty much everything Eddie Murphy had to offer, so it was just another thing out there. At least that's how I remember it.

Ambrose said...

I thought I read once that Stepin Fetchit had dual career. He played the black stereotype in mainstream white movies, but in films made by blacks for blacks, he was actually a very talented comic actor. Most of those films were of necessity very low budget and many (most?) have not survived.

FullMoon said...

Bill Cosby was a digital pioneer. Virginal goupies totally unaware of effect Quaaludes, extremely popular party drug at the time, would have when they put them in their mouth and swallowed them .
I suspect Bill has a small pecker and was a quick comer. Maybe creamed his jeans as soon as his finger got wet. Had to knock 'em out first to avoid embarrassment.

mockturtle said...

I took Quaalude once. Once.

Howard said...

Never tooked a quaalude. The original date rape drug.

Bill Peschel said...

On the Gilbert Gottfried podcast, they'd talk about how Cosby, during his TV days, would be allowed a long lunch so he'd have time for his special project: teaching Asian models how to be comedians.

Which is why you see so many Asian-model comedians on TV these days.

Ray - SoCal said...

I didn’t see the Christmas dinner skit as racist much, only the part you could not marry due to race.

The rest was just the usual dysfunctions so many families of all colors have.

The opening monologue with the Bill Cosby mention was brilliant.

Biff said...

I grew up in a very ethnically diverse town a few miles outside of NYC. It's been interesting seeing the reaction to Murphy's performance among my Facebook connections, approximately 1/4 of whom are African-American.

A handful of white people on my FB feed are complaining about how racist and offensive Murphy's skits were. The vast majority of folks who've commented have been saying they enjoyed it, and my friends who are African-American have been the most enthusiastic in their praise, by far.

I suppose the scolds would say that the latter are suffering from false consciousness or some such condescending Marxian bullshit.

In any case, I'm surprised how little mention has been made of the most subversive thing seen on TV in a very long time: Dave Chappelle lighting a cigarette on live TV and not caring what anyone thought about it.

Bunkypotatohead said...

Some old white lady taking offense at the jokes black make about themselves.
You might as well complain about them calling each other niggas.

William said...

Cosby is an old man. There's a good chance he will die in prison and, if not, he will certainly die in disgrace. Murphy won his argument with Cosby. Murphy should lighten up and not put that last twist of the knife in Cosby's carcass. It would reflect credit on Murphy's part to be more charitable. Cosby's real crime in Murphy's eyes was insulting his brand of humor.....Cosby is in jail because he deserves to be in jail. He deserves disgrace too. But for just that reason Murphy shouldn't pile on. Cosby has suffered punishment commensurate with his offenses. There are others in Hollywood and elsewhere who have done worse and walk free.

John henry said...

Around the time home alone 2 was made, Donald trump co-owned the Empire state building.

I don't know if he got a cameo in anything shot in the building.

Leona Helmsley owned the master lease. They had kind of a typical landlord-tenant relationship. Not good.

John Henry