#SUNDANCE: “WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT COSBY”

By Justin Waldman

We Need to talk about Cosby explores how “America’s Dad” went on to be exposed as a monster, a sexual predator for over 40 years. It is hard to separate art from the people who create it, and the Documentary touches on that, but it is a little too soft at times for the exploration of what Bill Cosby has done, and not what he’s done. It will be premiering episodically over four weeks, which may dilute its potency, however it packs the punch that it needs to bring to the forefront.

W. Kamau Bell helms this Documentary, and as he says himself he was a child of Cosby, a black man who grew up in the ’70s, became a stand-up comedian, Cosby paved the way for a lot of people. However, the revelations that came out about Bill Cosby for years that finally garnered more attention, more women coming forward, the question had to be asked, how does one approach talking about Cosby?

The Documentary focuses on what Cosby meant for the community at large, what he became later in his career, and the monster that he truly was being revealed. Can someone’s actions and art be separated from who they are, or are they forever linked? We Need to talk about Cosby holds back a little too much, it needed to be harder on what Cosby has done and not what good he did do for the community. Monsters are monsters, there is no denying that, and he needs to pay for his crimes that spanned forty plus years. Everyone who stood by and let it happen also needs to be held accountable, because there is no way that what he was doing was unnoticed nor undocumented.

We Need to talk about Cosby is a much-needed Documentary that could have dug a bit deeper into the monster he was revealed to be, and not so much the good he did at the beginning of his career.

We need to talk about Cosby screen at Sundance as follows:

Premiere: Jan 22^nd at 12:00 pm EST

Secondary screening Jan 24^th 10 am EST (available for 24 hours)