Popular Culture Review Vol. 4, No. 1, January 1993 | Page 63

Race, Class and Gender on
"The Cosby Show"
A list of the most popular and influential cultural products of the
past decade would have to include "The Cosby Show" (now out of
production, but still popular and highly visible in syndication). The
genre of the network situation comedy has been clearly affected by
"The Cosby Show", but its influence extends beyond the arena of TV to
a multitude of areas: to questions of racial equality and race
relations; to issues of social progress; to sexism; to the implications of
a consumer society; and, perhaps most of all, to society's concern with
the family. In their text Reading Television, John Fiske and John
Hartley maintain that television reflects social values, not objective
social reality. This paper will examine the social values--not the
social reality—advanced by "The Cosby Show" through its portrayal
of race, class, family, and gender. It will respond to some of the
specific criticisms with which the program has been charged: Does
"The Cosby Show" marginalize and de-emphasize race? Do the
wealth of the Huxtables and their status as a model family interfere
with the show's positive messages? And, finally, despite outward
apjjearances to the contrary, does the show have a sexist subtext?
The extreme popularity of "The Cosby Show", combined with the
fact that the family it portrays is African-American, has drawn the
attention of a diverse group of scholars, critics, and theorists who
tend to explore the type of family the Huxtables represent (wealthy,
happy, well-adjusted, urban, intact) and the show's version of
contemporary social reality. The Huxtable family is larger than
average; parents Cliff and Clair have five children (Sondra, Denise,
Theo, Vanessa, and Rudy), some of whom, in the course of the
program, marry and have children of their own. It is a professional
family of the upper-middle-class, enjoying more wealth and
privilege than most Americans. A pronounced discrepancy exists
between the status of the Huxtables as a black family and the status
of most actual black families. For many critics, this fact, above all
others, is the most troublesome. Even those who speak favorably of
the program carefully preface their praise with insistent assertions
that it does not reflect American racial reality. John D. H. Downing
contextualizes "The Cosby Show" in terms of race relations and racial