Chris Jepson: Is Bill Cosby the Jerry Sandusky of American entertainment?

“The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

How representative is the actor/comedian Bill Cosby of our times, of our institutions? Cosby has been a public figure since the 1960s, when he played opposite Robert Culp in the TV series “I Spy,” which ran from 1965 to 1968. Cosby won three consecutive Emmy Awards for Lead Actor. From 1984 to 1992 Cosby produced and starred in “The Cosby Show.” It was the number one show in America for five years from 1985 through 1989. Cosby has been a revered public figure for over six decades.

Is Cosby’s public persona believable? Is he the straight-shooting gentleman, the aw-shucks I’m just your cantankerously-cranky but comically lovable neighbor next door, your politically active, straight-talking uncle who speaks for justice, fair play and equality? Is that Bill Cosby? Or, is he a rapacious sexual predator and serial rapist?

Is Bill Cosby the Jerry Sandusky of American Entertainment, a soon-to-be, formerly-beloved public figure who is now totally discredited as a lying hypocrite? Just as Sandusky was once the beloved public-persona-father-figure of Penn State. Did Cosby while presenting a public face of wholesomeness, family values and honor in reality drug and rape so many victims over so many decades, harming and humiliating such a staggering number of women as to be unimaginable?

Is Bill Cosby representative, literally or as a metaphor, of American institutional decline? Once credible and believable but now discerned as corrupted, unreliable or incapable?

Review the polling numbers (of trust) for the U.S. Congress, the presidency, political parties, our electoral system, government period, the Catholic Church, any male hierarchical religion, Wall Street, America’s banking system, newspapers and television, the Pentagon, the CIA and FBI, the pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart, corporations in general, the IRS, our regulatory agencies and most damning to me, America’s leadership class. We’ve tracked such polling numbers for decades. Public distrust and disillusionment with America’s institutions (the establishment) has never been universally lower.

Leonard Cohen, the Canadian singer-songwriter crafted a song titled “Everybody Knows” with lyrics that go, “Everybody knows that the boat is leaking, Everybody knows that the captain lied, Everybody got this broken feeling, Like their father or their dog just died.” A lot of Americans feel as if it’s their uncle dying. As in, Uncle Sam.

The reasons (blame, explanations, justifications, etc.) why America has arrived at this place are many. Regardless, it is wrenching to see so much human potential for good dissipated – lost through disillusionment with our institutions as well as with each other as Americans.

I regularly observe folks condemn the loss of morality and/or faith in a personal god. Rather, I would argue, let us condemn as vehemently the loss of faith in each other, that as free men and women we must continually pursue a more just and inclusive society, an America that inspires and harnesses the “better” impulses (potential) of all of its citizens.

That Bill Cosby is not as he seems is no more an indictment of all entertainers – men for that matter – than the corrupt and petty George Washington Bridge Scandal (See: Governor Christie administration) is universally representative of democracy and government.

Cosby may sadly trot out his wife as a supporting minor character in his ongoing tragedy but we’re still counting the silverware and, most sadly, the many new avowals of his wickedness.