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?

[u/DrCompenomics]

[u/CommercialPanda5080]

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."

[u/MaestroRozen → u/CommercialPanda5080]

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. 

[u/CommercialPanda5080 → u/MaestroRozen]

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 but 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.

[u/Accomplished_Paint23 → u/CommercialPanda5080]

same and it sucks because man did i love that show

[u/EFreethought → u/CommercialPanda5080]

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

[u/CommercialPanda5080 → u/EFreethought]

[Crying Eyes Out Emoji Here] Ugh why God

[u/LeatherHog → u/CommercialPanda5080]

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

[u/CommercialPanda5080 → u/LeatherHog]

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.