It’s been almost eight years since Bill Cosby was hit with dozens of sexual misconduct allegations, and three since he went to jail. (He’s since been released.) But though his actions have been relentlessly reported on, we as a society have never had a serious conversation about how to deal with his unique legacy. It seems that is exactly what we’re getting with W. Kamau Bell’s forthcoming docuseries We Need to Talk About Cosby.
The trailer dropped on Monday, along with the news that it will arrive on Showtime on Jan. 30, on week after it debuts at the Sundance Film Festival. Over four segments, Bell will examine someone who was more than a popular comic. Cosby changed the culture, turning a show about a comfortable, upper middle class African-American family into one of TV’s biggest smashes.
“I am a child of Bill Cosby,” Bell says in the trailer. “I’m a Black man, a stand-up comic, born in the ‘70s. Bill Cosby had been one of my heroes. But this…”, he says over images of him having his mug shot taken, “…this was f*cked up.” He adds, “What do we do about everything we knew about Bill Cosby and what we know now?”
In a statement, Bell acknowledges the difficulty of wrestling with someone who did so much to advance Black voices in mainstream with someone who was accused of various forms of misconduct by over 60 women, some incidents dating back some six decades.
You can watch the trailer for We Need to Talk About Cosby above. It will debut at Sundance on Jan. 22 and premiere on Showtime on Jan. 30.
