While legendary entertainer Bill Cosby is best known for his work as a comedian and star of The Cosby Show (1984-1992), he has also devoted much of his adult life to serving as an advocate for children's education.
Cosby will be honored for his work at tomorrow's Eliot-Pearson Awards for Excellence in Children's Media. The event, to be held at 10 a.m. in Distler Performance Hall, will also recognize Harvard Medical School Professor of Psychiatry Alvin Poussaint, who worked as a production consultant for "The Cosby Show.
Cosby spoke with the Daily before the award ceremony to discuss his career in children's entertainment.
Amsie Hecht: What sparked your interest in children's entertainment?
Bill Cosby: Education and the chance through the entertainment industry to give my point of view about education and what the television set can do to aid teachers and parents and children … [and] the offer from the [former] Dean of the School of Education at the UMass Amherst, Dwight Allen, who offered me an opportunity to earn a master's degree and an Ed.D [doctorate in education], at the university, showing that the television set could in fact influence teachers, parents and children.
So with that offer, it began a spark in my life, a desire to highlight education using the television set, using movies and artwork and book[s]. Also money. I was already doing funny things in my monologues, but then offers came in the world of entertainment, such as ‘How would you like to animate your stories of Fat Albert and The Cosby Kids?' I said, ‘I would like to.' So through production, we began to put these stories on CBS and they put them on in the morning. … I started out as a comedian telling stories, which went to radio, television, movies and books.
AH: Why have you worked to keep the media landscape free of stereotypes?
BC: Well, obviously it is a call on what I feel is incorrect behavior. It's a call that is perpetuated by what I accepted as a child when I was being taught by older people and the examples given in school and so many things that I saw as I experienced life. I felt I could make corrections through the different shows, through the books I was writing and through the monologues.
AH: How did you go about keeping your work free of these stereotypes?
BC: I always called upon a person who had a doctorate in behavioral science. Dr. Gordon Berry [professor emeritus in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles], for instance, guided me through the Fat Albert series by reading the scripts and making corrections that he believed might be harmful and then adding corrections that he thought might be helpful to the scripts …
AH: How did acquiring your doctorate in education change the way you work as an entertainer?
BC: It heightened my thoughts. It gave me a feeling that what I was doing was very, very important. To be included in the world I wanted to be in anyway before I entered show business …
AH: Did you ever feel resistance from the networks or a push to be more marketable?
BC: No.
AH: What made The Cosby Show so successful?
BC: I think that in some ways, people, in seeing the Huxtables, felt that they were learning things while enjoying the actors and the characters they were playing. I think that giving parents different choices of how to behave while raising their children and still making the stories funny and the characters human and wonderful, we were able to have many people realize that it wasn't necessary to execute physical violence on a child or even verbal yelling.
AH: What do you think of most of the media that is on television and in movies today?
BC: I am not a person who sits and says, ‘That's not like what I did…'
AH: What work are you doing these days?
BC: Nothing much. Just some good work on stage. Writing monologues. I see in the future perhaps an attempt to continue to work and make changes in TV. I don't know how. I just feel that some of these things need to be changed. We need new thoughts and difference.
When I watch TV, commercials as well, I see good stories in commercials and they make me laugh, and then I see violence in some commercials. I see some people doing things that I think give children unusual thoughts of behavior that [are] not good, but I also know that people are laughing. I think that radio, TV, music and monologues give people a feeling that certain things are just not real — it's not real, it's on TV or it's in the song, and it's not real. … But the problem for me [is that] many times that kind of behavior causes someone to react [violently] to something that would be funny if it was kept in the TV set ...
I think that we as educated people moving into the world of entertainment are asked to leave behind the most beautiful parts of our education, and that is writing and using words and situations and subjects and producing feelings of love [and] respect. Many things are done very, very quickly to produce anger [and] sensationalism, and we are just not working in an educated way.
AH: Can you tell me a little bit about your relationship with Alvin Poussaint, the Harvard professor with whom you are sharing the award?
BC: Alvin is a psychiatrist. Alvin reads the scripts and looks at the behaviors of characters. He then takes in the situation. He makes notes much like your professors after grading your papers. And then we take what Alvin has said and we get on the phone with him to make sure what he is suggesting we understand and are going to put these things in.
AH: Finally, how do you feel about the award you will be receiving from the Eliot-Pearson School?
BC: I am very honored with the award. I am also very honored that my friend is there at the same time. … I will walk out of Tufts once again with something wonderful presented to me. First my honorary degree, and now this award.
