Bill Cosby is, and long has been, a very funny man. On that much, most people who have heard him — which by now would probably be most of the world — would agree.
He’s also perhaps the only comedian with a Ph.D.; certainly the only one of anywhere near his prominence. In Cosby’s case, the degree is appropriate: His emphasis on education is a featured part not just of his comedy, but of his life. That focus of his act and of his career were no doubt mentioned Monday night in Washington, where Cosby, 72, was to be presented the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
Like all great humorists, Cosby has that peculiar gift of being able to look at the failures and frustrations and absurdities of human life and mine them for laughs. Even when the laughs hit close, sometimes too close, to home, Cosby’s dry wit and wry delivery leave us laughing in spite of ourselves.
Unlike many of today’s humorists, Cosby does not resort to the profane, the crude or the scatological for his laughs. In fact, it is the tendency of recent generations of comedians to turn the air blue that prompted Cosby to decline the Twain award twice before. He reportedly was turned off by the obscenities and racial slurs of the performers honoring the award’s first recipient in 1998, the notoriously raunchy Richard Pryor. “I told them flat out no because I will not be used, nor will Mark Twain be used, in that way,” he said later.
But just because Cosby has played it clean doesn’t mean he has always played it safe, or been immune from public critique.
He has been pilloried, sometimes harshly, for his blunt public criticism of social dysfunction — especially the abdication of personal responsibility, and most especially among African American men. He was tweaked in some quarters, including the socio-political comic strip “Doonesbury,” for the squeaky-clean, fairy-tale affluence of the Huxtables, Cosby’s TV family in the mega-hit sitcom of the 1980s. And there have been moments in this exemplary career when his personal life could not comfortably withstand close scrutiny.
What he consistently has been — like the inaugural Twain Award honoree whose ceremony so disgusted Cosby — is funny. For Richard Pryor, unlike some of his less talented imitators and successors, it was never just about the raunch; for Cosby it’s never been about the raunch at all.
Bill Cosby has achieved the rare and lofty status of American icon. You have to think Mark Twain would approve.
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