THE COSBY SHOW’S AFFECT ON TELEVISION AND BLACK AMERICA

The Cosby Show has been praised for its departure from racial stereotyping of African American families on television. Many believe that the Huxtables, the family on the Cosby sitcom, don’t show characteristics traditionally similar to other black sitcoms before it. Despite the positive portrait of an African American family presented by the Huxtables, the Cosby Show still hid the fact that some African Americans in Black America still struggle.
Prior to the Cosby Show, blacks in sitcoms were basically portrayed the same way. Michael Dyson even states it himself in the article “Bill Cosby and The Politics of Race”. “With the likes of George Jefferson, J. J. “Kid Dynomite”, and Arnold or Webster, blacks were either high class variations on the theme of clown, or filling another social slot as stereotypical slum dweller, or beneficiaries of white patrons- cum-adoptive parents, whose largesse brought domestic stability and upward mobility to chosen black children.” ...