Remembering "Theo" (Malcolm-Jamal Warner)

Hello {{ first name | friends}},

The news of Malcolm-Jamal Warner's death hit me hard, not just because he was a young Black man, well younger than me any way, but also because of what he represented. All of us have actors and shows that represent our childhood, that gave us something to relate to or aspire to, and The Cosby Show* ** was one of those shows for young, Black people of a certain generation, and perhaps even for their children.

This was the first show I had seen where the families looked like other families I knew. Never mind that I was growing up in the Caribbean, and this show was set in the USA. It featured professional parents and with values similar to those that I saw around me. It featured families. It included aspects of Black culture and life, and the children in the show were people around my own age. As I said, I could see myself and others like me reflected on the screen, and that was important.

To know why it was so important, you would have to look back at some of the other roles that passed for representation on the Hollywood screen. I'll just give one example. Countless people I know who are racialised as white love Gone with the Wind, set in the Deep South in the US Civil War and Reconstruction period.

I don't, not just because of the generational trauma it represents, but also because of the original of the mammy stereotype, played ably by Hattie McDaniel. That's not the kind of representation that brings me joy, and it's worse still because she couldn't even attend the premier of the film because of segregation.

As a child and teen, portrayals like that represented part of my history, but they weren't part of my present. The Cosby Show was one of several programmes that changed that.

Throughout the history of entertainment, there have been Black people breaking barriers and fighting the odds with a range of obstacles against them. The thing about or Theo and the rest of the Huxtable family is that they were blessedly normal. He was a cheeky chappie that we all loved, and I tuned in weekly to watch him and the rest of the cast do their thing. It was a staple in the "Black folx on TV" era which some of us remember. (For those who don't know, at one point it was like spotting a rare bird in the wild to see Black characters, and characters you could relate to were even rarer.)

It wasn't until later that I learned about all the other roles he'd played which will be familiar to my African American siblings. But I recently rediscovered him in The Resident, and though I sometimes found his character's bombast excessive in the early seasons, the fact that there was a little Theo in there made me warm to him.

These days, despite a very white media establishment, we have many more good representations to choose from. We have Shonda Rhimes, Ava DuVernay, Tyler Perry and many others creating richness, depth and adding some literal colour to our screens. And we still need the positive representations they create as an antidote to some of the other persistently negative tropes.

But I still remember when the Huxtable family on screen was something we could see, something we could be, and something that was not out of reach or out of our experience. Theo was a key part of that.

Rest in eternal power, Malcolm-Jamal Warner.

Thanks for reading,

Sharon

P.S. Your action point: go check out some of the creators mentioned here and diversify your media input - you're welcome!

*I absolutely do not condone the predatory behaviour by its creator Bill Cosby.

** There is also a discussion to be had about the differences in the treatment of Black and white suspects/offenders for any crime you can think of in public opinion, media coverage, and sentencing.

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I am an anti-racism educator and activist, the author of “I’m Tired of Racism”, and co-host of The Introvert Sisters podcast.

© Sharon Hurley Hall, 2025. All Rights Reserved. This newsletter is published on beehiiv (affiliate link).