I don't mean to be curt but...

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

The art of mullling

mull¹

məl/

verb

gerund or present participle: mulling

think about (a fact, proposal, or request) deeply and at length.

"she began to mull over the various possibilities"

synonyms:

ponder, consider, think over/about, reflect on, contemplate, turn over in one's mind, chew over, cogitate on, give some thought to

"I'll have to mull it over before making a final decision"

Origin

mid 19th century: of uncertain origin.

You know when something strikes you as annoying or fantastic or some sort of noteworthy emotion, but when you think about that thing further it just takes you to some weird mental places?

For me, today's mullings were kind of centered around the whole Bill Cosby situation that is happening. When I first heard about the issue that Bill Cosby faces with regards to the many women accusing him of various inappropriate things, I was kind of surprised but it didn't really resonate all that much for me and I didn't think about it too much further, besides the vague feeling that Cliff Huxtable could never do those things therefore Bill Cosby could never do those things. Then, honestly, I didn't think about it very much until yesterday when some show on NPR had him on for a moment NOT answering any questions that the reporter was asking. He didn't even talk at all during the "interview". The reporter described him shaking his head when asked about the accusations. I then started thinking that his reaction was so soulless. You would think and hope that if he didn't do these things he would passionately plead his case as much as he could if only to keep the hope alive in his remaining fans. Instead, he chose to remain silent, only answering questions with gestures. This was a little bizarre to me. Why not make some sort of statement, even if it was just a simple "No comment."? His silence, for me, was deafening.

Fast forward to today, when NPR could not shut up about Bill Cosby. Every show throughout the day mentioned Bill Cosby. Bill Cosby was all over social media. Bill Cosby was all over morning TV. Suddenly I felt compelled to think about this and try and understand what is happening and what it all means.

My initial reaction was to think that he is most likely guilty of doing the things that these women are saying happened. I had a hard time believing that these women just all decided to go on a mission to bring Bill Cosby down together. However conflated the accusations may or may not be I felt like at the base he was probably guilty. At this point I got kind of sad. I grew up watching that guy be an ideal dad on TV. Ideal dads don't drug and rape people. Right?

My next reaction was kind of centered around Janice Dickinson. We can all agree that she has not had the best press. It now kind of seems like any statement or comment from her is untrustworthy. Does my complete and utter knee jerk reaction to this being 'OF COURSE SHE'S LYING!' make me a bad person? I do believe that it actually does make me a bad person. What am I basing my reaction on? Public media? Do I believe that public media always tells the truth? No. Thus, does my amusement of how much she is portrayed as a hot mess blind me to her being an actual human? Yes. Huh. Her "character" in social media allowed me to automatically discount the fact that she may have been drugged and raped by somebody with more power than her. Harsh. Suddenly, Bill Cosby seemed to have had an open invitation to do whatever he wanted, because nobody would believe her anyways. That seems to be kind of a fucked up situation to be in. I mean if we are assuming this, forgoing any hard evidence of the event existing, would anybody believe that Janice Dickenson could ever be raped by anybody?

I am hopeful that these accusations are not true, but I stand by my initial reactions.