‘We Need to Talk About Cosby’ Unpacks a Toxic Legend: TV Review
variety.comDaniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticDeep into W. Kamau Bell’s new four-part documentary, “We Need to Talk About Cosby,” panelists are asked to describe who Bill Cosby is, as if to a person who had never heard of him before.
Does one lead with his phenomenal career successes as a comedian and actor? Or the crimes of which he’s been credibly accused — and for which he was convicted in 2018, before that conviction was overturned on a technicality in 2021?It’s a familiar question, one of separating the art from the artist — so familiar, indeed, that Bell literally asking, in voice-over, “Can you separate the art from the artist?” five minutes before the documentary ends feels a little trite.
But what has come before does an elegant job of setting forth why the entanglement of fame and wrongdoing is especially pernicious in Cosby’s case.
In this series, a part of the Sundance Film Festival’s virtual programming Saturday before launching on Showtime Jan. 30, Bell marshalls incisive commentary and archival video.
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