Cosby · Keanu · Alden
Plus: When a ballet story turned homicidal
the true crime that's worth your time
We Need to Talk About Cosby screens at Sundance this week. In advance of the screening of the W. Kamau Bell docuseries, Showtime released a full trailer. If the tease is any indication, Bell is not. Messing. Around.
I’m not sure how Bell is perceived nationally — he’s a Berkeley, CA resident, and I write for a Berkeley-based news org, so my understanding of him as a figure of significance is likely skewed. But while I’ve long thought of Bell as a comic who also addresses issues of systemic race head-on, I’ve never thought of him as a true-crime guy.
But according to Showtime, that’s what this four-part series is, as much as anything: a crime story. Here’s a snip from the latest press release:
We Need to Talk About Cosby will explore the complex story of Cosby’s life and work, weighing his actions against his indisputable global influence through interviews with comedians, cultural commentators, journalists and women who share their most personal, harrowing encounters with Cosby.
Through archival footage, Cosby reveals who he may have been all along — the antithesis of the principled, public figure who became a hero, not only to African American people but to all people. The four-parter sheds new light on Cosby’s cultural contributions and impact at the height of his disgrace — accused of rape, drug-facilitated sexual assault, sexual battery and other misconduct by more than 60 women as far back as nearly 60 years.
Bell, who grew up idolizing Cosby, unpacks how Cosby’s desire for power, which propelled his professional success, could be the same driving force that motivated his alleged crimes against women. We Need to Talk About Cosby peels back complex layers, portraying the genius performer, philanthropist and role model, contrasted by the accused sexual predator that now defines him.
It offers viewers the chance to reconsider Cosby’s mark in a society where rape culture, toxic masculinity, capitalism and white supremacy are shaping how we re-evaluate sex, power and agency.
That’s a lot to pack into four episodes! And, based on that description, there might not even be room for the support Cosby has reportedly retained from high-profile (often older) folks, many of whom are in the Black community. There’s a generational aspect to this case that I have long hoped someone would explore, so if Bell’s series doesn’t tackle that, I hope someone else will.
You can see I’m using a lot of “if”s here — that’s because the network hasn’t provided screeners to critics quite yet. That’s likely because they’re pushing for an initial press boom following the Sundance premiere on January 22, and have a buzz-building campaign that runs up to the show’s Showtime release on the 30th. — EB
Are we down with Keanu Reeves in Devil in the White City? Look, I like John Wick as much as the next person (not counting the first one, which I have never seen due to pet death), and like most folks I agree that as he’s aged, Reeves has continued to seem like a Hollywood anomaly. So, my brow cock when I saw this Deadline report isn’t personal. But, just, huh?
Here’s the deal: we all know Devil in the White City, Erik Larson’s 2003 book about H. H. Holmes and the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. (Shout-out to the BE commenter who admitted that they couldn’t ever get through it — if I hadn’t been reading it for work, same. Parts of it are a real slog!) The book’s central characters are Holmes (whose life experiences involved jobs as a teacher and the city manager of Orlando, as well as as a med school dropout, bigamist, and serial killer) and prominent architect Daniel Burnham, who was the Director of Works at the fair.
So, if the Deadline story begins “Keanu Reeves is in talks to head to the World’s Fair in 1893,” that means he’s in talks to play Burnham in the Hulu series based on the book, a high-profile project that boasts Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio as executive producers.
It’s not like Reeves hasn’t played an architect before — in fact, he’s done it twice, in The Lake House, that time travel romance, and Knock Knock, a sexual/revenge/home invasion movie with a trailer so upsetting I don’t ever want to watch it, not even on an airplane. And maybe being an old-timey architect was a different deal, a job populated by laid-back, puppy-dog-eyed chill dudes.
Or maybe this will be like the time Reeves played an 1800s-era solicitor, helping a wealthy Transylvanian acquire an estate in London. That’s kind of what I’m worried about! But not that worried, if I’m being honest, as Reeves can be entertaining even when he’s a dope.
If he accepts the role, this will be his first major TV gig ever, Deadline reminds us. So, I turn it over to you, my friends. As he has matured and grown more seasoned, has Reeves developed what it takes to play a character like Daniel Burnham? Or does this casting news have you saying “whoa” (but not in a good way)? — EB
If you’re up for a downer, boy, do I have one for you! The Washington Post headline says it all: “These mass shooting survivors were called journalism heroes. Then the buyouts came.” The piece about the survivors of 2018’s mass shooting at the Annapolis Capital Gazette made its way around media circles last week, and at first I resisted it: there are only so many stories I can read about Alden Global Capital’s conscienceless destruction of local journalism (for more, see The Atlantic’s “A Secretive Hedge Fund Is Gutting Newsrooms”) before I want to move to the woods.
I’m glad I reversed course, though, as the piece, by Emily Davies and Elahe Izadi, is as much about recovery from trauma, guilt from folks who were spared, and the near-impossible burden of living in a world where few people can understand the terrifying and transformative experience you endured — and ADD TO THAT that your job is to write about terrifying and transformative experiences endured by others.
It’s a deft piece that’s more than the (still immensely worthy of coverage!) expected narrative of rich faceless assholes laying excellent reporters off. Here’s a snip:
[The reporters] received piles of gifts and donations from across the country, including free lunches and boxes of coffee. They worked hard, and together, comforted by the normalcy of calls with sources and notebooks strewn about the room. And during that time, they felt supported by Tribune — which facilitated their move to the temporary space, provided counselors and gave them flexibility to take time off when they needed it.
The reporters felt especially hopeful when, a year after the shooting, Tribune opened a new newsroom specially designed with enhanced security and bulletproof walls. But the move turned out to be a fleeting moment of stability.
In March 2020, the pandemic forced Capital Gazette journalists to leave the newsroom. They didn’t know it then, but they would never return to their new home.
You can read the full piece here. — EB
And here’s a longread for your weekend. Reporter Alice Robb set out to figure out what happened with the American National Ballet, a South Carolina dance company that hired a bunch of dancers, then abruptly shuttered in 2017. What she ended up with was a different story entirely — a case of two Trump (and gun) enthusiasts who came together and fell apart. It’s a toxic relationship story that derailed a load of promising careers in its wake, and ended in a fairly surprising death.
A snip from “Last Dance”:
As they moved their bags into their apartments, the dancers noticed that there was no studio in sight: not at the ground level and nowhere nearby. “There were all these different stories about why the building couldn’t be finished,” said McDaniel. In the meantime, they would be taking class at a small studio five miles from the apartment building. “It was super, super tiny,” remembers Manka. “There weren’t even windows.... We barely all fit on the barres.”
Most mysteriously of all, Ashley—the company’s cofounder, director, and raison d’être—was nowhere to be seen. “On the first day, Doug said she would be there at the end of the week,” said Kimberly Thompson, whose ANB contract represented an acceptance of her “more muscular physique.” But she never came. Unbeknownst to the dancers, she had moved to Florida.
As the dancers studied with local teachers and waited for the rehearsal schedule to go up, they heard ever more grandiose versions of ANB’s plans. There would be not just a ballet company, they gleaned, but also a conservatory, a line of dancewear, a media company. There was going to be a competition-style reality TV show, inviting viewers to vote on casting. Doug was quoted in the press saying that he was “Uber-izing ballet.” “He said, ‘I’m an engineer,’ ” a dancer recalled. “He wanted to engineer some pointe shoes.”
Some of the international dancers—who were still at home, waiting for their visas—started to panic. Luciano Perotto, a recent graduate of Philadelphia’s prestigious Rock School, had turned down a full-time offer from the Atlanta Ballet to dance with ANB. He sat at his computer in Buenos Aires, watching his colleagues upload photos from Charleston, and wondered when he could join them. On October 1—two weeks after he was supposed to start—he emailed the Benefields. “I found out [sic] really concerning the lack of communication with you, not being able to find the reason why my visa process was frozen and not finding any help from your part,” he wrote.
The full story, which was published in Vanity Fair in November, is an oddly shaped beast. You can really see the sudden redirect the reporting had to take as Robb learned more, and the details of the company’s devolution got more bizarre. What we end up with is an incompletely satisfying piece of journalism, I warn you! It’s one that left me yearning for a fuller exploration from Robb, a writer who understands the ballet world like few folks do but who appears to have less grounding in the crime writing field.
Read the VF story and see if you agree — is this the kind of story that might flourish if written as a book? A podcast? A dramatic feature? I’m not sure, I just know that there’s the germ of something exciting in this story that I keep thinking about, it just needs the right guidance and format to get there. — EB
[corrected 1/22/22 to reflect that the Carolinas are not the same (go Heels) — SDB]
Next week on Best Evidence: Gacy victims’ jawbones, Bible John, and why the phrase “officer-involved shootings” has made an unwelcome return.
What is this thing? This should help. Follow Best Evidence @bestevidencefyi on Twitter and Instagram. You can also call or text us any time at 919-75-CRIME.
.