Popular Culture Review Vol. 4, No. 1, January 1993 | Page 72

70 Popular Culture Review concocts a potion containing olive oil and peanut butter, annong other ingredients. Before long. Cliff has Theo chanting nonsensically over the mixture, and the scene culminates with Q iff smearing Theo's face with the "potion." Theo takes this rather humiliating experience amazingly well; plus, he learns a lesson about keeping his girlfriend. An earlier episode about Cliff’s birthday features Denise's attempt to write a song for her school show. The first version of the song is a typically bleak example of teen-age self-absorption, with recurring images of darkness and loneliness. Q iff ridicules the song, refusing completely to grant any legitin\acy to the emotions expressed. It is impossible, the scene implies, for a Huxtable to be unhappy! Realizing her "mistake," Denise authors a second song about her two best friends—her parents. If "The Cosby Show" consciously presented itself as a parental manual (and quotes from Cosby and Poussaint would indicate that it did), it is reasonable to wonder how actual preteens and teenagers would react to the Heathcliff Huxtable method of fatherhood. Nevertheless, Cliff is widely perceived as "the personification of what fatherhood is supposed to mean at its conventional best" (Downing 60), while Clair is presented as somehow less-than-perfect (yet well above-average). This is evident immediately in the opening musical sequences, which accord Clair the same position and status as her children. Clair typically yells more often, loses her temper more frequently, and is occasionally tempted to administer unreasonable or harsh punishments on the children. C liffs role is conunonly to calm Clair, to restrain her, and to reason with her; A more serious example of misbehavior on the part of a young Huxtable occurs when Vanessa and three girlfriends drive to a concert in Baltimore without their parents' f)ermission. Q iff and Clair uncover this ruse, and when Vanessa returns home, Clair embarks on an extended tirade during which she literally screams in her daughter's face, ordering Vanessa to "shut up" until the girl is in tears. Cliff, on the other hand, remains calm and quiet. During the scene the audience laughs with Cliff when he makes several humorous re marks, and almost continuously at Clair's demeanor and lack of control. Chrerall, Clair’s method of disciplining always seems more firm, more serious, and more angry than her husband's, and it is never as funny as Cliffs is. (It is undoubtedly more realistic, however.) Qair's actions often betray certain gender stereotypes; she nags Cliff