Imperfect Conversations: I Spy at Fifty-Five

Barbara K Emanuele

Several years ago, I had a series of imperfect conversations trying to get a previous incarnation of this essay published.  I did not struggle then as I do now with my understanding that as a Caucasian the story of I Spy’s impact might not be mine to tell.  I have come to understand that for all the advancements in race relations that I Spy put forth in front of and behind the camera, it stayed silent in commenting on the prejudices Asian-Americans, Latin-Americans, and women faced, comments that could have been made as steadily and stealthily as Robert Culp and Bill Cosby commented on the relations between Caucasians and African Americans.  And I have come to a greater understanding of how the mere presence of a predator on a screen or the page might trigger all victims.  But these imperfect conversations about I Spy still need to happen, for imperfect conversations are conversations, and we learn only when we talk. 

Though every book of faith warns against worshipping false idols, Bill Cosby was always considered safe to worship because he was one of the “good guys.”  He is an educated, self-made man, with a loving wife and family.   He is also funny as all get out.   I switched tenses to describe him because he is still all of those things, though now we understand he is another character played by William H Cosby, Jr.

Now we understand this man may be one of the most dangerous psychopaths we have ever known.

We’ve known about “the Cosby thing,” as a friend put it succinctly, since 1997, but it’s social media that pushed for his rightful conviction and has started the much needed conversation on reframing our lens of sexual crimes.  There is no negating what he has done.  Countless women were victimized daily by him: at the time of the initial “seduction” when he got them to trust him, at the moment of the violent act, and every day thereafter when these women were denied their rightful justice because no one could believe that Alexander Scott / Fat Albert / Cliff Huxtable could do this. 

Because we forget that actors are not their characters no matter how well they frame their lives to appear that way.

Perhaps Cosby’s last gift to us is the conversation that has started about The Statute of Limitations in various states and how it must be modified, particularly when it comes to sexual crimes, so the victims can come forward when they have made a safe place for themselves to do so.  In the five years since I first attempted this discussion, Cosby has been convicted on multiple counts of Sexual Assault and Battery and will, more than likely, die in prison.  Perhaps the knowledge he is physically locked up will give solace to his long-suffering victims.    But Cosby’s suffering, his penitence, has yet to begin. Psychopaths cannot be hurt because they cannot feel.

But in the void of his lack of feeling are pawns who find their collective legacy being wiped out by his, and voices who deserve to be heard are silenced.

I Spy was one of the few correct and true things NBC, or any television network has ever done. The nation needed to see in a non-proselytizing manner that all men are created equal.   The series was a vision in weekly fifty-minute non-statements.  In their characters of Alexander Scott and Kelly Robinson, Cosby and Culp gave us two men literally equal in size and stature sleeping side by side in a shared hotel room, their shared hairbrush and socks resting in the nightstand between them.  They shot the breeze or the bad guys while one brushed his teeth and the other dried off in their obviously shared bathroom.  They complained about their job, or women, or both as they ate off of each other’s plates.  Nothing mattered as long as they got the job done and had fun.  The end.  This steady dose of their interactions chipped at the foundation of White Fear and gave us a blueprint to be better human beings.

The impact on the business of Television was much more obvious and immediate.

Mr. Sulu and Lt. Uhura would not have journeyed through Star Trek without Alexander Scott.

Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh would not have their Lethal Weapon without Alexander Scott.

Without I Spy and executive producer Sheldon Leonard’s desire to film the series in those exotic locations the script called for, there would have been no reason for Egyptian American Fouad Said to create many of the technical advances that made filming on the big and small screen much easier.  Said gave us the Cinemobile, the wireless mike, among many other improved or completely new devices.  Filming for TV and cinema didn’t just move forward, thousands of dollars were saved making overseas filming possible when costs would otherwise have been prohibitive.

This equipment also threatened to push out the antiquated cameras, lights, mikes, and men that had been Hollywood staples for years, and no one was happy about that.  For most of the time I Spy was filmed Said could not join the unions you would have expected him to be a highly valued member of.  That came only as the series was ending.  Not much was written about this obvious discrimination at the time, and in decades to come, both the television and film academies remain #sowhite.

And while Said struggled to break ground as a cinematographer behind the cameras, not much was done in front to reframe the discussion of how Caucasian America viewed their Arab American neighbors.  The words and deeds of Robinson and Scott only seemed to occupy a conversational space meant for the race relations between Caucasians and African-Americans.  Given who we were then and frankly are now, this is not surprising.  Americans like to have one conversation in at time, in a neat little box, without realizing that our words in a moment are the sum total of all the words and events we have known previously while anticipating the dialogues and acts to come. 

We will only talk about race but not race and class.  Or race and gender.  Or how we play one race off another, while letting the class distinctions form side scrimmages that women all around pay the ultimate price for.

Robert Culp was one of the first actors who also wrote and directed his own material and ticked off many suits in the business for doing so.  He took the first generation of anger so the second and third generations win their Emmys and Oscars.   When Alexander Scott appeared on our television screens, the words that came out of his mouth were the best Culp could make possible.  Through the keys of Culp’s typewriter, Alexander Scott became the first African-American lead actor, and embodied all that comes with that: he laughed, he cried, he loved, he lost.  He was allowed to be as deep and real and true as any man could be, and most well-written Caucasian men were on film.  Cosby ultimately won three consecutive Emmys, Emmys Culp was nominated for.  The latter didn’t mind.   Culp felt, mostly correctly, it was a win for him, for the show, for humanity.

Yes, I Spy made Mr. Sulu possible, but when George Takei appeared on the series (albeit twice briefly and not in episodes written by Culp) he was stuck in the carefully scripted roles Asian Americans were allowed to play.  When filming in Japan and China and Cambodia, there were no efforts made to expand the American eye toward the truth.  There were only myths retold in very pretty packaging.  One of  Culp’s best scripts for the series “The Warlord” tells the story of an aging solider struggling to maintain dignity as he is about to fight his last battle. Though it is set in an undisclosed area of Southeast Asia and was filmed in Cambodia, the episode did not attempt to change the discussion of our presence in the region.  “The Warlord” instead told a parable of Asian honor through the lens of Caucasian male who chose to play that role himself while wearing heavy prosthetic makeup, rather than to give the platform to an Asian actor.

And while Nichelle Nichols did not appear on I Spy, her contemporaries Cecily Tyson, Eartha Kitt, Nancy Wilson, Leslie Uggams, Gloria Foster, and Janet MacLachlan did, and while turning in remarkable performances, played roles that did nothing to put them on equal footing with their male lead actors, or to broke down stereotypes long held about the damsel in distress.   Yes, I Spy gave them a platform, and made later works like Star Trek and Julia possible by the presence of an African American in a lead role, but with the show willing to push certain established norms to the side (Culp slipping the phrase “WTF” pass the censors in the episode “Now You See Her” and a mother and daughter leaving from a back alley abortion in the background of a scene in “Suitable for Framing”) and Cosby and Culp taking back so much of each script for themselves through re-writes and ad-libbing, I can only wonder how much further the audience might have been inspired to go had the creative team at least tried to share much more of the creative space with their equally talented and capable female co-stars.

I Spy was the first great attempt at a conversation on race on television, but like all first attempts, it was imperfect.   It took a jackhammer to the concrete nonsense that Hollywood created to make itself pretty and in the chaos created real instances of true beauty. Its crew did this.  Its writers, directors, musicians, and producers did this.  Its actors and actresses did this.  It did this when the country wanted to bury its collective head in the sand and pretend all was well when it knew change had to come but was too painful to look at.  I Spy did all of this, and yet it wouldn’t be a fair or real conversation if we didn’t acknowledge what it did not do with the chances NBC was obviously willing to give them.

It is equally important to state that those imperfections when unpacked, provide fertile ground for the next round of dialogue.   We should and I am, remember and celebrate the series for what it has given us.  The reaction to Cosby’s revelations of removing it from the airwaves, trying to wipe it from our collective consciousness, does not in any way harm a predator, or advance the conversations we still need to have.    We are harming ourselves because we are only allowing ourselves perfect dialogues when we know full well advancements come from imperfect people holding imperfect conversations.