The Huxtables In The Cosby Show

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The Huxtables used tough love to encourage them to watch the choices they make. Before I begin with a particular episode of The Cosby Show, I just have to say how the Huxtables handled their middle daughter Vanessa with her traveling to Baltimore, Maryland and not telling her parents. I know my mother would have been very mad with me, because I did not tell her where I was going. As well as lying to her about what I was going to be doing. I know I would definitely get into a lot of trouble with my mother if I ever did such a thing like what Vanessa did. I would not even want to face my mom, if I had lied to her and disobeyed her rules and blatantly disrespect her. Vanessa decided to ran away to Baltimore, Maryland with her friends to see a …show more content…

Members of the pep squad at her school came over and she showed them the $11,000 dollar painting her parents bought. Vanessa really wanted these girls to like her, so she told them how much her parents spent on the painting. Mrs. Huxtable told Vanessa what it really means to be rich. According to the video, “Vanessa’s Rich”, Clair says, “Rich is when your money works for you, not when you work for the money, and we work hard for the money. But I mean it’s okay, we’re proud of what we have and we’re happy to share it with our children.” She also says to Vanessa, “And Vanessa I hate to be the one to tell you this, but yes you are rich. Not because of things, but because you have a family who loves you.” (YOUTUBE VIDEO CITATION) She really wanted to show Vanessa how there is more to her than what she has materialistically. Vanessa learned from her mother, money doesn’t make you who you are, it’s the values you have within yourself, and your personality which attracts people to you. In this particular scene Vanessa’s friends believes Vanessa displays hegemony. Deanna D. Sellnow explains, “…hegemony is the privileging of a dominated group’s ideology over that of other groups.” (2014, P. 117) From judging how the Huxtables raise their children, Vanessa doesn’t believe she is, “above” anyone else at the school she goes too. The girls who Vanessa goes to school with are the ones who have the issue, not Vanessa. The Huxtables teach their children many valuable lessons, and the show as a whole showcased African-Americans in a different light than how some African-Americans are viewed. Clair Huxtable showed how African-American are not always loud, ghetto, have no sense of home training, or not even modest. Instead she showed how African-American women can be classy, the head of the household, smart, successful, and be well dressed. Clair took the

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