Deconstructing Good Times and The Cosby Show

Abstract

As countless critics of The Cosby Show (1984-1992) would have us believe, the Huxtable family, as portrayed and envisioned by educator and comedian Bill Cosby, is not the traditional representation of Black family life. For many critics, as well as some Cosby show defenders, the experience depicted by the fictional Huxtable family was the unique experience of too few African Americans at the time; the suggestion is that the family is very wealthy. Contrary to the moral majority, its critics and defenders, I am not from the upper or middle classes like the Huxtable family; however, I identified with The Cosby Show more than with its predecessors, like Good Times (1974-1979). African Americans are no different than any other American group, and therefore, as writer and novelist Wendy Alexia Rountree suggests in her article “‘Faking the Funk’: A Journey Towards Authentic Blackness,” we “should be allowed to develop individual identities that are not considered in conflict with our ethnic group identity but as a legitimate part of it.” Consequently, as someone who identifies with The Cosby Show; who is an autistic, working-class Black female from the projects of East Harlem with two Ivy League degrees; and for whom cowboy boots are her footwear of choice, I say, take Good Times and The Cosby Show if you must, but leave me my Black experience.