The Cosby Show Essay

710 Words2 Pages

How The Cosby Show Addressed Issues in American Television The Cosby show was an NBC sitcom that lasted eight seasons from 1984-1992. Starring Bill Cosby, the show was centered on an upper middle-class African-American family living in Brooklyn, New York, and were known as the Huxtable family with that being their last name. The members of the family included the father Cliff (Bill), mother Clair, five children (four daughters and one son); Sondra, Denise, Theo, Vanessa, and Rudy. This show is viewed as a comedy but does a very well done job integrating the struggles and issues of the mid-1980s to early 1990s. A few good examples of issues represented are race/ethnicity, education/intelligence, and generation. Being that The Cosby …show more content…

Education starts from the top of this family as both the father Cliff and mother Clair have high education jobs as he is a doctor and she is a lawyer. Multiple daughters in the family attend Ivy League schools. On the other end of the spectrum, in season 6, episode 5, Theo, the son, is diagnosed with dyslexia. Although “dyslexia is the most common of the language based learning disabilities” (Statistics on Dyslexia” dyslexiacenterofutah.org), it still is a representation of one's struggles to succeed in a classroom. In the episode Theo answered all of the questions right that his father tested him on, but scored poorly on the test because he couldn’t understand the question when reading it to himself. The battle of old versus new in the form of which generation does it better is referenced in season 1, episode 16, “Jitterbug Break.” They reference dance as a form of art as Cliff’s daughter Denise believes that his Jitterbug dance is too “old fashioned while break dancing is the more exceptional form of dancing” (Jitterbug Break”). Cliff later teaches his daughter the Jitterbug dance and they come to a happy compromise while still staying strong on their own

Show More
Related

  • If Beale Street Could Talk Essay

    931 Words  | 2 Pages

    Can love conquer all? In If Beale Street Could Talk the author, James Baldwin, challenges this question. The story revolves around a black family living in New York on Beale Street. Clementine, who goes by Tish, is a young woman who is deeply in love with a young artists, Fonny, who has been arrested for a crime he has not committed. Tish has come to know she is pregnant, pushing both the families to do the unthinkable to to get Fonny out of jail. The couple has their love for each other long with the love of their families to overcome the ordeal. However, the family struggles against the issues of racism, justice and prejudice. With the power of love, Tish and Fonny are able to overcome the issues that society throws at them including racism, justice, and prejudices.

    Read More

  • King of All Media: The Howard Stern Journey

    799 Words  | 2 Pages

    Howard Stern is a radio personality, producer, actor, author, and is the self proclaimed “King of All Media”. Stern is widely known for “The Howard Stern Show”, which was aired on FM radio from 1986 to 2005, until it moved to Sirius XM Radio in 2006. Stern specific style of “shock jock” radio is what makes him so popular, taking him only four years to get his show nationally syndicated in 1986.

    Read More

  • E L Doctorow's Ragtime, By E. L. Doctorow

    1471 Words  | 3 Pages

    Another family is African American. They live in Harlem, which was populated only by African Americans at the time. The main character in this family that we follow, Coalhouse, is a Ragtime piano player. The next family represents the immigrants of that time. Tateh, a Jewish immigrant, arrives at Ellis Island and faces the challenges of achieving the American dream.

    Read More

  • Duck Dynasty TV Show

    1659 Words  | 4 Pages

    Duck Dynasty follows the true hegemonic narrative of the perfect nuclear family and demonstrates the staging of the modern hillbilly meets success. No Hollywood veneer of perfection for everybody to aspire to be. The status quo is not keeping up with the Jones ;but in being more humble and down to earth then the neighbors next door. The episode “Family Funny Business ep1. of Duck Dynasty introduces us to Robertson family their patriarch Phil, his wife Ms. Kay and their two sons Willie and Jase and their uncle Si.

    Read More

  • The Impact of African-American Sitcoms on America's Culture

    974 Words  | 2 Pages

    The father, Sanford, spent most of his time drunk and putting his son down. There were few, if any, family values emphasized. The only positive message conveyed was that the son and dad loved each other. One of the next popular African-American shows to appear was The Jefferson’s.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles in The Cosby Show

    1537 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Cosby Show is a wonderful sitcom about Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable, commonly known as Cliff, and his family. The show revolved around the day-to-day situations faced by Cliff and Clair Huxtable and their five children. The show goes away from the one-liners that most sitcoms boasted and focused on the humor of real life situations that often occur in an average middle class family.

    Read More

  • The Phonological Model of Dyslexia

    1723 Words  | 4 Pages

    Doctor Morgan of Sussex, England, published the first case of what is now known as dyslexia in 1896. Dr. Morgan wrote about Percy F, a 14-year-old boy who was intelligent, bright, quick with learning games, and the intellectual equal of his peers. He fell behind, however, in his inability to learn how to read. Today, as in 1896, most people associate intelligence with the ability to read, but Percy F and the experience of millions of people with dyslexia breaks down the relationship between reading and intelligence (1). But, researchers were left with the question, "What causes dyslexia if intelligence is not the marker?

    Read More

  • African Americans role of Television

    2271 Words  | 5 Pages

    portraying two comedic black men. When the show was transferred to television, two African American men were cast in the roles, acting as buffoons. The popularity of the show was overwhelming. This was the initial image of African Americans in television, which reached mainstreams Caucasian America and was the foundation for which future stereotypes were created. A new image of African American families was presented in the eighty’s with the Cosby Show. The Huxtable’s were a successful African American family with a life similar to the accepted and established Caucasian mainstream. This show was not accepted fully because it failed to represent the full cultural scope of African Americans. The current...

    Read More

  • Figuring Out My World: Alison May

    1763 Words  | 4 Pages

    Alison’s story is the perfect example of what many families must go through when faced with the possibility of having a child diagnosed with a learning disability. Alison was not diagnosed with visual and auditory dyslexia until the summer before entering college. However, while still a toddler, her symptoms had been brought to her mother’s attention by her sister’s teacher. Alison’s mother then noticed her habits in repeating words incorrectly and how Alison would need tactile clues to follow directions. At the recommendation of her kindergarten teacher, Alison was tested for learning disabilities and the results from the school psychologists were that she was acting stubborn or disobedient. Her family did not stop with the school’s diagnosis. They had private testing completed that confirmed Alison did not have a specific learning disability. The final word came from a relative that happened to be a psychologist. He insisted Alison would grow out of her difficulties. So Alison continued on with her entire elementary, middle and high school journey as a student and daughter with an undiagnosed learning disability.

    Read More

  • Wealth And Wealth

    1062 Words  | 3 Pages

    Willingham, Daniel T. "Why Does Family Wealth Affect Learning?" Ask the Cognitive Scientist: (2012): 1-7. Web. .

    Read More

  • Looking For Heroes Kathryne Colvin

    614 Words  | 2 Pages

    At the beginning of his book, Looking For Heroes, Aidan Colvin sets out on a mission to write to 100 famous or successful people with dyslexia. Some of the people Colvin ends up getting responses from are Ms. Bancroft, Dr. Delos Cosgrove, Amanda Thirsk, Diane Swank, Ben Foss, Jay Leno and many more successful people who have struggled with dyslexia. After receiving responses from many of the successful people he wrote to, Colvin discovers that the thing that is holding him back is the same thing that can make him successful too! Dyslexia may be a challenge, but it can also be a gift!

    Read More

  • Cocaine Essay

    1094 Words  | 3 Pages

    Cocaine is a dangerous drug that acts as a stimulant on the brain (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2013). It is derived from the leaves of the South American coca plant and can be found as a powder, or be produced as a rock crystal, also known as crack. Cocaine is injected or snorted and produces a high that is euphoric, and the individual has increased energy and becomes very talkative (NIDA, 2013). Because cocaine is a stimulant, it increases blood pressure, heart rate, and body temperature (NIDA, 2013). In the brain, cocaine causes dopamine to build up between synapses (NIDA, 2013). Therefore, there is not reuptake and the dopamine increases, creating this intense euphoria (NIDA, 2013). Cocaine carries a high risk of addiction, since tolerance continually increases. Heart attack, stroke, and malnourishment are other side effects (Ackerman, 2014). The emotional effects include paranoia, anxiety, and irritability (Ackerman, 2014). Cocaine is potent substance, and the effects on a pregnancy can be devastating. It is not known what amount creates the danger or birth defects, but cocaine has an effect on weight, length, premature labor, miscarriage in utero, and more effects are common after the birth and throughout the child's growth (Ackerman, 2014).

    Read More

  • Cocaine Essay

    729 Words  | 2 Pages

    Cocaine is a powerful addictive drug that affects the whole body in different ways. This drug has been around in America since 1855. In this year there were products that the average person used that had amounts of cocaine in it. The products that had cocaine in it were the beverage coke cola and medicine for numbing your gums. But before manufactures’ were using cocaine in things we use, three thousand years before the ancient Inca people use to chew coca leaves, which is one of the ingredients of making cocaine. They chewed coco leaves to get there heart racing and to speed up their breathing so they can work longer hours and because they lived where there was thin air. Also by them chewing the coco leaves it would tell their body that they aren’t hunger because they didn’t have enough food to eat. Cocaine was really popular between 1970s and 1980s in New York City. It was a large amount of people that died from this drug around this time.

    Read More

  • Social Class in the Classroom

    2183 Words  | 5 Pages

    There are approximately “20 percent of Americans in the lower class” (Long, Social Class Stratification, 18). In contrast with these 20% of Americans a long with the other 80% are a lot of differences when it comes to learning in the classroom. According to Lee Warren of Harvard University, “In many parts of the country, class differences are sharply defined by accent: people talk like the neighborhood they came from”(Class in the Classroom, 2) where as someone from a more “run-down” neighborhood might have a less sophisticated vocabulary, just because they do not speak that way on a daily basis. However, that is all stereotypical. People “wrongly anticipate the knowledge or potential of specific classes of children” and as a result “children from high-class families are sometimes viewed as being more intelligent than those from lower social classes” (Social Class-Effects 1), which is not right at all. The amount of mo...

    Read More

  • Occupational Dyslexia Case Study

    1003 Words  | 3 Pages

    People across the United States, from small rural areas to enormous urban centers, from small town farmers, to big city nurses, exhibit signs of a Developmental Dyslexia. In fact, Herb Scribner (2014) identifies it as one of the most common disabilities that American children have, and due to this fact, most people have heard of and likely know someone who exhibits symptoms of this relatively common disability. Due to the number of those affected by this disability, it is certainly one that strikes close to the heart of Americans; so what exactly is it, and what can be done by family and specifically Occupational therapists (OTs) to reduce its debilitating effects and increase the success of these children and adults?

    Read More

More about The Cosby Show Essay

Open Document