W. Kamau Bell ‘We Need to Talk About Cosby’ Showtime Documentary Interview
Written by SOURCE on January 30, 2022
For almost two decades, W. Kamau Bell has spent his career making audiences laugh as a stand-up comedian, and think introspectively as host of CNN’s United Shades of America. Now, with his Sundance 2022 debut, Bell tackles the subject of Bill Cosby in his highly anticipated and much talked about documentary, We Need to Talk About Cosby.
I’ll be honest: As a Black woman, this documentary was hard to watch because of the detailed accounts from some of Cosby’s survivors about their assaults. Hearing the violence against these women was infuriating and I felt so much empathy for these women who decided to share their stories so bravely. As I watched, I started to ask myself as I am sure others will, why is a man tackling this documentary? Why at the center of this body of art that so vulnerably uplifts these women up, do we now need to talk about Cosby? So, I decided to ask W. Kamau Bell about all of these things and more. To give him the space as the director to address those who still believe Cosby is innocent, to name and celebrate the women who helped create a safe space for this documentary to be made and exist, and to share whether or not the question he set out to answer changed course over the development of the film.
I saw this documentary as much more than a feature about Bill Cosby, but more about the exposure of toxic masculinity, violent attacks against and hatred towards women, that is led by the stories of these incredibly brave survivors. Apart from the women that came forward, what other women behind the scenes were key in not only helping you create this film but also instrumental in creating a safe space and cultivating environments of safety while gathering all of these interviews?
First of all, let me say this is the best question that has been asked in my several days of doing press, so I’m excited to answer. Initially, the idea for the documentary came from just a general meeting that I had with two Boardwalk Pictures executives. The first creative meeting that officially kicked it off was with Geraldine L. Porras, who’s a Latina woman I first met on United Shades of America. My part in her career was to advocate for her promotion so she could go from being a field producer to being a co-Executive Producer, which meant she would get to take a trophy home if we won an Emmy, which she did. She was always somebody who I saw in the businesses who had more in her than this industry would allow her to show. So I wanted to be a part of helping pull her through. On this project and every project, she’s also somebody who can tell me, “Nope, Kamau, you messed up there. Do that again.” In addition to Porras, there was Kelly Rafferty, who works with me at WKB Industries and has a Ph.D. She’s incredibly brilliant and has an academic background, just like my wife, Melissa Hudson Bell. My wife wasn’t in the room, but she’s been in all of these discussions. Then there’s Jamilah King, a Black woman journalist who is at Buzzfeed. The first creative meeting was me and three badass women. One of whom was Black, one of whom was a woman of color, and one of whom was white, which really covers many aspects of the Bill Cosby story. And we sat in a room together and just laid it all out. The editor who worked on this the most is a woman named Jennifer Brooks. Our showrunner is a woman named Katie A. King, our archival producer who made sure we could use all the pieces of archival that we did, is a woman named Emily Cofrancesco. And many of our associate editors are also women, I would say the project is primarily staffed by women. Lastly, one of Boardwalk’s head executives, Sarina Roma, was extremely helpful with this project. So the day-to-day work of this project, there were certainly men there, but the leaders of the work were me and a bunch of badass women.
I love to hear that because I know people will be watching and wondering, who are the women involved since we are telling stories of women. As the one spearheading this project, what was your greatest hesitation about putting together this documentary? And in that initial meeting that you had with Boardwalk Pictures, were you able to immediately express those concerns?
To be totally transparent, the two guys who run Boardwalk are two white guys and they also grew up under the Bill Cosby umbrella. But I made it clear to them that there’s a race component here that I would and will have to deal with. And also I was like, “We can ask a bunch of people, I don’t know who will say yes to being in this doc.” And they were like, “Why not?” But now they understand why in a more profound way, especially when white comedians didn’t want to be in it. Everyone who worked on this doc came with a certain knowledge base and learned a lot through the work of putting this together and have all been transformed by it. The key elements that helped transform us were the interviews with the survivors. Those interviews in the film, we left them longer than you would normally see them in a project like this but in reality, some of them were well over two hours. So, even if we didn’t use most of it, which you couldn’t, we were still learning and evolving as people as we watched them tell these stories.
So, that actually was a perfect lead-in for my next question, because when you hear these accounts, they are quite harrowing. And for me, it is exceptionally challenging to watch content like this, just because it is so heavy. So for you, how did this project fundamentally change you? And how did it change your view of how you personally do accountability and allyship in your own life? Particularly when it comes to protecting the women you do know, and the ones that you don’t.
It was so important to me as a director to make sure to not only include longer versions of these women’s stories but also other people who are experts in areas other than their relationships with Bill Cosby. For example, Victoria Valentino, the first time you see her onscreen is as an expert about Playboy because she was a playmate and worked at the Playboy clubs. So it’s about her experience there. And you might not even know that she was a survivor until she drops the hammer on that. And it’s also important to include Lise Lotte-Lublin talking about Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids before you hear her talking about her experience with Bill Cosby. I really want to give them more of a frame than just about their moments with Bill Cosby. The key thing that I want people to take away from this is that while the documentary is specifically about showbiz, this applies to all of America. We have to create new systems of accountability so that we can limit harm and respond to harm better. Because I think a lot of Bill Cosby’s story is about people seeing something that looks a little bit strange, but they’ve been acculturated to put their head down, especially if they’re lower on the list of who’s important on the show or project. And then somewhere some people are prioritizing making money over safety. And that’s the thing that they are doing because that’s what’s important to them is the money. So to me, in the same way, we didn’t use to have seat belts and stop signs and now we do, we also have to make safety a priority in other ways in society. We have to prioritize ways to limit harm and also to respond better when, specifically, in this case, women say they’ve been sexually assaulted or raped. That they’re invited to tell their story instead of afraid to because they’ve seen women get blamed and shamed as Lili Bernard says in the doc. And so for me personally, it’s about making sure that the work I do and the systems and the ways in which I interact with people are safe. That I don’t ever put somebody in a position where they feel vulnerable. That it is clear I’m not trying to play a power move, and there’s not something they need to be worried about. It’s about a man who has a certain level of power in this business to act responsibly, accordingly and actively work to create more safety in my own workgroup.
I like the care and intentionality you’re not cultivating in your personal and professional life. So, that leads me to ask, when you first set out on this journey, what was the question you were most looking to address throughout this documentary? And do you feel like by the end of it that stayed the same or did it shift at all for you?
It started out simply like, can we, and should we separate the art and the artist? And then by the end, it shifted very profoundly. By the end, it was like, if I’m to truly learn the lessons that Bill Cosby was teaching me when I was a child, then I’m supposed to make this documentary. When I was a child, Bill Cosby told me to be smart, to care about my community, to support my community, to elevate Black voices, to be a force for good, and use my privilege for good in this world if I achieve a certain level of success. Well, that lesson means this doc is about trying to make the world a better place through the content that is in it.
And to those people who are going to watch and either still question, or simply won’t believe that he is guilty even after all of the women who have bravely come forward, after the overwhelming evidence, what do you say?
I have empathy for those people because I’ve been that person at some point where it’s like you don’t want to believe. And also we are trained as Black folks not to trust the law, which I understand. I’m one of those Black folks who if I hear a Black man was shot by the cops, I need to know all the information, just understand why that happened. At a certain point though, if you’re refusing to take new information in or you’re holding onto wrong information … I have to believe that there are more people in this country who want to create a safer, more just, more equitable America for everybody. And specifically around these issues that affect women overwhelmingly. And if you don’t want to engage in that and you don’t want to create that world, then I don’t know what to do with you really. I’ve learned a long time ago, you can’t win everybody. You just have to try to win the most people you can, and I believe I will win most of the people who watch this.
So after this, what is next? What’s another project that you want to do that will shift the conversation and help to change the world?
Despite all this, I’m still working on my day job, United Shades of America on CNN. The whole time I was making this doc, I was still working on that. And one of the good things about the pandemic, which there aren’t many, was that I couldn’t go do the show. I could focus on the doc for a while because we were all in lockdown at that point. To answer your question, I’m still trying to have the same conversations I’ve always had. Later in the spring, there will be seven new episodes of United Shades of America coming out. I also want to take on more big projects like this but they don’t always have to be this divisive. The thing that is most important is education and enlightenment and telling stories that are not told. I have a couple of the things that I’m already working on that are at this point, palate cleansers. Because this was a lot. One of the good things to come out of this is I said to my best friend, “Well, I guess I won’t be famous for talking to the Ku Klux Klan anymore.” But I’m actually in early talks to do a feature doc about a prominent Black person that is not in any way problematic the way that Bill Cosby’s problematic. So, I am looking forward to telling more stories beyond those about predators and perpetrators.
And my last question is, what is something that you had to cut from this documentary that really left the lasting impression that you really wish you could have kept in this actual story?
Oh my God, so many things, it’s hard to even wade through them. Bill Cosby getting out of prison really upset the direction of the fourth episode in a big way. His release meant that we couldn’t really focus as much on the activism and the lives of the women post-Bill Cosby going to prison and all the work they had done. We did focus on it, we did talk about the statute of limitations laws, but not as much as we wanted. Also, there were so many conversations about rape culture that was actually a painful cut. We talked about the “good victim” narrative that the media wants, how problematic that is, and how those people often don’t get justice either. This ridiculous idea is that if a woman says she was sexually assaulted, she better be a white woman on the way to Bible study on a Sunday, wearing a turtleneck and corduroy pants. And I’m joking a little bit but it’s this extreme idea, in the eyes of White supremacy, that she has to be an unimpeachable victim. But then on top of that, it better have been a stranger that jumped out of the bushes and not somebody she knows in her life or a powerful, rich, and successful man.
