r/AskReddit • u/DrCompenomics • 13h ago

Who’s the best real-life example of “you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” and what happened?

4.3k Upvotes

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u/dubbzy104 12h ago

Bill Cosby. He was family friendly, had good moral values in Fat Albert and Cosby show, and was viewed as a nice sweet man who enjoyed his pudding pops

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u/Pinotb0tter 12h ago

I guess it could be argued, that he was the villain all along?

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u/isspecialist 11h ago

Yeah, I think that's part of what makes his so terrible. He was doing awful things, while pretending to be wholesome AND preaching about morality to younger comedians.

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u/Dakarius 8h ago

The hypocrisy wasn't even the worst part.

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u/graboidian 8h ago

RIP Norm!

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u/tunalic2 5h ago

That Cosby fella' was a real jerk!

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u/KakeLin 4h ago

Yeah it was the rape

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u/scruffy69 7m ago

As Norm McDonald said "People say the worst thing was the hypocrisy of it all...I say it was all the raping."

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u/Fattatties 4h ago

Makes the Eddy Murphy joke hit a little harder.

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u/scruffy69 8m ago

He was also up in Lisa Bonet's shit about appearing in Playboy. Massive hypocrite and all around POS.

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u/HermionesWetPanties 10h ago

Yeah, same with Savile. There is a difference between being an actual hero and falling and being a wolf hiding in sheep's clothing only to be outed later.

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u/youhavenosoul 9h ago

I mean…justice was actually served to Bill Cosby. UK let Saville die thinking that he got away with it and that he was a hero. “It was good while it lasted.”

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u/deadlybydsgn 8h ago

he was the villain all along?

something, something, spanish fly

The recent documentary that came out covered it pretty well. It looks like he was pretty much always creepy and chemically coercive toward women.

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u/WeirdIndividualGuy 5h ago

Yeah, I'm not sure Bill Cosby fits here since he was being rapey the entire time. Even if he died at the height of his popularity in the 90s, it would've eventually came out that he was rapey

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u/hdgdl_mofo 2h ago

exactly. His victims lived long enough to repeatedly tell their story until somebody believed them.

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u/Any-Interaction-5934 2h ago

No. He legitimately did A LOT of good for the black community. I think Dave Chapelle does a skit talking about how amazing he was and how it made him feel like he actually had a chance. He inspired so many people.

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u/isspecialist 12m ago

I'd upvote except for that "No". What do you mean no? Dude is a serial rapist AND did it a lot of good. It's more complicated than we usually like things to be.

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u/Crow-T-Robot 10h ago

This is who I thought of. If he had died in the early 2000's, he'd be remembered similar to Mr. Rodgers, someone who did enormous good. Even though he had already done horrible things, its very unlikely that the evidence would ever get looked at.

I remember he did an AMA maybe 12 years ago on here, and a few people tried to ask about some troubling things that some women had started to mention. Those all got down voted to oblivion, no one would believe anything bad about Cosby 🤔

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u/4ofclubs 4h ago

Reminds me of the weird Elon Musk cult that existed here in 2016.

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u/Voidtalon 3h ago

You mean before people learned he was an impulsive immature individual who might not be AS smart as he thinks? (I can't deny you have to be intelligent to some degree to run a company that large or twist markets THAT hard to bail yourself out of a 42bn verbal mistake).

Musk I think is a case of power and fame really REALLY going to his head, unfortunate racist backgrounds aside in 2012-2016 he really did seem to be pushing for good things so I can't really fault someone of that time thinking he was good.

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u/4ofclubs 1h ago

I mean I knew around 2016 based on comments he was making and his pathetic desperation to be liked but to each their own.

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u/TalkingCat910 37m ago

I don’t think he’s intelligent at all even despite all that.  He’s just not stupid - which given a lot of the prominent political figures these days like Trump and Hegseth makes you seem smart I guess.

He’s average.  He did some coding for PayPal back in the day, he didn’t invent anything amazing and he’s made some ill advised moves since then for his businesses.

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u/Vinon 3h ago

I remember he had some idea back in...2013 I want to say? To have some sort of fast shinkansen like train pod thing connect places. Back then I literally knew him only as "the guy with that idea", had no idea who he was apart from that, just thought the idea sounded cool.

I think many of this "cult" were probably like me. Or at least I'd like to believe that.

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u/Innisairre 2h ago

I'm the same as you. It seemed for awhile like he had some brilliant ideas that would change the world for the better and then...I guess his PR team couldn't keep up the spin? He got butthurt when some people were mean to him and decided to let his garbage side run free?

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u/4ofclubs 1h ago

Ideas he never executed on

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u/BLT_Trade_r 2h ago

I don't think so, I think that whenever he died, people would have finally outed him. In Hollywood, it was known what he did. Once he was gone, the fear of libel suits would have been mitigated.

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u/CommercialPanda5080 11h ago

It really sucks, too, because The Cosby Show was a great sitcom, one of the best ever. I can't even go back and watch it now without thinking, "Ick."

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u/MaestroRozen 4h ago

Not to mention how meaningful it was from the racial struggle viewpoint. We take it for granted now, but back in those days a show revolving around a black family and casting it into a positive light was a novel thing. A black man being "America's dad" would've been almost unthinkable of and yet there he was - not only THE role model for black kids to look up to but also providing another viewpoint for the white audience as well. Makes it that much more painful when the fallout pretty much reversed all the good that the show did. 

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u/CommercialPanda5080 1h ago edited 1h ago

That's what makes is doubly heartbreaking and crushing. He did break down a lot of barriers for black people. He made white Americans re-think their racism, acknowledge it, and change. Back in the 1980s, a sitcom actually could have that widespread cultural impact, and he sure as hell made the most of it. And yet... the women. I believe them. I know he did these things.

It's also awful because it wasn't just him who broke down those barriers. All the good work that Phylicia Rashad, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Lisa Bonet, Tempestt Bledsoe, and Keisha Knight Pulliam did on that show, a lot of us can't go back to appreciate it now because of how uncomfortable it is to even see him on a screen.

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u/Accomplished_Paint23 9h ago

same and it sucks because man did i love that show

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u/EFreethought 4h ago

To pile it on: His character on that show was an ob-gyn.

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u/CommercialPanda5080 1h ago

[Crying Eyes Out Emoji Here] Ugh why God

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u/LeatherHog 2h ago

His comedy tapes were a **staple** of our car rides, growing up

Dad freaking burned them, when it became clear the rumors were true. He was genuinely heartbroken by it

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u/CommercialPanda5080 1h ago

Same with my family and then my classmates back in school. In the early 1990s when the show went off the air, I was juggling phone calls from a half-dozen people all talking about moments in the last episode (this was back when you couldn't just go back and re-watch it 100 times on YouTube). I remember Rudy calling Kenny "Bud" in one of the last scenes, and that made a lot of us sad. She was a kid when we were a kid, and now she was leaving all that behind, too.

My mother, bless her heart, she loved him so much that she just refused to acknowledge it and told herself that it was when he was "younger." We know now that wasn't true, this was a pattern of behavior across his life, and it was made all that much worse because he held himself up as such a straight-laced guy.

One part of me is still thankful that in the 1980s he did that show. It changed so many people in really racist areas and helped to kill that old poison for so many people (I'm from an area that before the 1980s, they would lock their doors when they saw black people... he really was universally accepted even by these people as America's Dad). He didn't end racism, but he planted the seeds that needed to be planted for that to happen someday. He and a few other entertainers forced us all to look at ourselves and take those first steps forward.

And yet... the women. I know even my mother won't go back and watch the show now, it's like watching a monster, even if she felt bad about prison for him because of his age. I also won't watch it anymore, especially in scenes where Vanessa, Denise, and Rudy are older... it's just really uncomfortable to know they're in the same room with him.

We watched his old HBO shows, just before he started the Cosby show (the dentist skit, that went around school for months lol It was great). It's all really awful because he was a genuinely funny man. Why why why.

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u/LeatherHog 1h ago

Honestly, I think that's WHY it was important that the victims both came forward, and the justice system took him down. It hasn't stopped the 'boys will be boys' crap, but it's proof that even a **pillar** like Bill Cosby, can be this type of monster, and that he's NOT untouchable

But God, it's so heartbreaking. Man had **everything**, but he really needed to get even more ""power""

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u/TassoHarley 11h ago

Also enjoyed pudding his dick where it didn’t belong.

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u/Gyvon 10h ago edited 3h ago

Cosby was a piece of shit, but I will hold Bill Cliff Huxtable as a role model till the day I die.

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u/omfgbrb 6h ago

Bill Huxtable? I thought it was Heathcliff Huxtable...

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u/mpdscb 5h ago

It was Cliff, not Bill.

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u/zurdopilot 7h ago

Lol this is the problem society in general with media and public figueres i mean, once someone decide 1 person is "GOOD" we are willing to look the other way on the terrible things related to that.

You could realize there is plenty of more real people that could fil and fill that role but you are to invested into that fictional character, will you raise someone to look up on him? Is even worse than teaching kids about Santa. The wake up part would be something to see.

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u/george_cant_standyah 5h ago

This is so incredibly out of touch. Cliff Huxtable was an example on modern television that black kids had not seen in entertainment to that point because of institutional racism that prevented showing a black family in that light.

If you can't take the time to actually understand the historical cultural importance then it's probably better just to keep your ignorant trap shut.

Bill Cosby is a monster but taking away the fictional Cliff Huxtable from multiple generations because of your virtue signaling is preposterous.

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u/zurdopilot 3h ago

This is a cynical view, I grant you that, and you're missing my point. Glorious, famous, artistic figures come and go, but we as a society defend the "art" without accepting it can be used to commit heinous acts, and thus this will keep on happening. Cliff Huxtable has been out of the spotlight for ages now, and Black kids have way more decent choices for role models today. So for someone in this day and age to choose to use Cliff Huxtable as a role model for their offspring is by all means a questionable choice, mostly due to the shock that comes with realizing someone so respectable was used to facilitate the deviant sexual desires of his creator, making anything that was favorable questionable. How can we trust in good human nature if we are shown again and again that it is used against us?

What virtue signaling is that? Mine that i choose to see the monsters for what they are?

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u/george_cant_standyah 3h ago

But at this point it's not being used for any of those reasons. Bill Cosby is universally hated. Trying to tell people that grew up with Cliff Huxtable that they can't still enjoy what they grew up with during an innocent time of their lives is ludicrous.

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u/zurdopilot 3h ago

Nobody told you to stop enjoying it, you choose to defend a fictional character until you die, over the simple fact hes autor use that image to abuse and rape women. That was the point of the post, he was a hero he bocome the villian and people still choose to defend the heroic part instead of acepting that either corrupt them or was a fachade all along, so you either complicit to the one fact a willfully ignorant to the other. Willfull ignorance being the problem with society im trying to point. We rather be dumb and like a song than to think and move foward to find something else to like 🤷🏽

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u/george_cant_standyah 3h ago

See this blatant hyperbole and false dichotomy is what I’m talking about. Also you are 100 percent saying to stop enjoying it or else become complicit. It’s asinine and overly simplistic

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u/zurdopilot 2h ago

I didnt say to stop enjoying it just dont brag about it, why you think cosby didnt tell anyone what he was doing because he knew someone would call him out on hes bullshit you cannot defend something that is objectivily wrong wanna enjoy clift huxtable fine but dont come out here saying it need to be ok for us because it was a "good model" fuck clift huxtable fuck cosby and fuck all the hyperbole that comes around the fact he use good to do bad and force us to argue about what you think is enjoyable just because you cant find it in yourself to grow up and find something else to look up to. Just to compare thats just the same as all those germans did when hitler rose to power hey he was good for the nation it united them why focus on the little bit o dead in the later years ... See what i mean? Grow up as a person let go of your attachment to good done for the sake of evil go do some good yourself.

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u/george_cant_standyah 2h ago

Nobody is bragging about anything you’re just making up perspectives to argue with.

Also please re read your paragraph and realize it is the very definition of virtue signaling. I don’t even watch the cosbys but if I did it would have no bearing on what good I do and bring to the world.

Take a break from the internet.

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u/theColonelsc2 7h ago

You know what the worst part was? The hypocrisy.

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u/Capital-Exercise-364 5h ago

Bill Cosby was always a creep who rode respictability politics far further than his talent merited.

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u/chasimus 8h ago

He was even a huge part of the Safety Town program for teaching little four to five year old kids the basics of fire, police, ambulance, crossing the road, knowing your phone number and address, etc. I was a high school helper for a few years doing that

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u/TonyTheTony7 6h ago

W. Kamau Bell did a really interesting docu-series called "We Need to Talk About Cosby" that really goes deep into the impact Cosby had on Black culture and representation and how much his criminality damages the legitimate positive impact he had in the '70s and '80s

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u/simonbleu 11h ago

That doesn't fit unless you are considering perception of someone to be the same as reality, which is not

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u/jdovejr 9h ago

Meme me

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u/cheese0muncher 9h ago

He was found innocent of all charges!! Completely vindicated!!!!1111!! /s

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u/dubbzy104 9h ago

He just liked poppin that pudding

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u/clintj1975 7h ago

Jail-E-L-L-O

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u/JadedSignificance990 7h ago

There's a good documentary series about his public image and his crimes by W. Kamu Bell.

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u/Gsusruls 5h ago

On one hand, yes, if Bill Cosby had died prior to the allegations, he would have died a national treasure.

But (and I have NOT looked into this) as far as I know, he did not become a villain; he was always assaulting women and helping himself to them, taking advantage of his stardom to victimize them.

So it's a good answer for the topic, but with a twist.

(on the other hand, I am kind of glad, in a weird way, that he was outed. It gave those poor women the closure that they deserved. Likely, had he been dead, there would have been neither trial nor closure)

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u/DallasSyracuseMarvel 4h ago

Thought this would be higher up, honestly. He was my first thought.

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u/Kevin-W 4h ago

That was my first thought too.

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u/BLT_Trade_r 2h ago

The people in Hollywood knew. As with most things in show business, it's all an act.

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u/zardoz73 1h ago

It cannot be understated just how big a show "The Cosby Show" was in the 80s and how beloved Bill was.

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u/Effective-Tax4133 1h ago

pretty far down on the list but I know history or people well enough I supposed. Still, thought your response would be higher.

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u/SuzuranRose 12m ago

I used the Cosby show to teach my kid that you can't always spot bad guys and not to believe everything you see on tv.