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Malcolm-Jamal Warner on The Cosby Show’s Legacy: “The Show Shed Light on Previously Ignored Black Middle Class Families”

by Iesha
February 22, 2023
Reading Time: 2 mins read
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Malcolm-Jamal Warner on The Cosby Show's Legacy: "The Show Shed Light on Previously Ignored Black Middle Class Families"

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 05: (FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY) Malcolm-Jamal Warner attends the 65th GRAMMY Awards on February 05, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

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Malcolm-Jamal Warner is addressing how he feels about The Cosby Show’s impact on the industry more than 30 years after airing.

“What made it so groundbreaking was its universality,” Warner told PEOPLE in its Black History Month issue.  “NBC initially saw it as a show about an upper-middle-class Black family.  Mr. [Bill] Cosby diligently impressed upon them that the show was about an upper-middle-class family that happened to be Black.”

Warner said, “Prior to The Cosby Show, Black sitcom humor was predicated on being Black, the specificity of the ‘Black’ experience.  Though the Huxtables were clearly Black — reflected quite obviously by their dress, the Black art on the walls, the music — the family issues all were universal.  And though Cliff [Cosby] was a doctor and Claire [Phylicia Rashad] was an attorney, the family dynamic was one that practically every family — no matter the ethnicity, socio-economic status, or even family makeup — could find something to relate to.”
Several fans’ memories of the show have changed due to Bill Cosby’s legal troubles.  Cosby, 85, was given three to ten years in jail in 2018 for accusations of drugging and sexually assaulting another woman.  The actor was released in 2021 after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his sexual assault conviction.

“Regardless of how some people may feel about the show now,” says Warner, “I’m still proud of the legacy and having been a part of such an iconic show that had such a profound impact on — first and foremost, Black culture — but also American culture.”

Warner acknowledges that the program also attracted criticism but praises Cosby for having “broadened the perspective of how the world viewed Black people.”

“While one of the initial criticisms of the show was that Black people didn’t live like the Huxtables, I was getting thousands of letters on the regular saying, ‘Thank you for this show.  Our family is the Huxtables, my dad is a doctor, and my mom is a lawyer,'” Warner recalls.  “The show shed light on the previously ignored Black middle class, which has always existed.”

He continues, “And people in Cliff and Claire’s generation were often the first in their families to ever go to college, many of them becoming doctors and lawyers, like Barack and Michelle Obama.  There’s even an argument that the show laid the groundwork for having a Black President of the United States.”

From 1984 to 1992, The Cosby Show aired for eight seasons and received six Emmy Awards.  Warner and a few of Cosby’s co-stars continue to have great things to say about the show and its history despite the accusations against Cosby.

“I know I can speak for all the cast when I say The Cosby Show is something that we are all still very proud of,” Warner said.  “We share a unique experience that keeps us lovingly bonded no matter how much time goes between seeing or hearing from each other.”

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