Theo Huxtable Was More Than Just a Cocky Teen

Within the first episode of The Cosby Present, Cliff Huxtable (performed by Invoice Cosby) walks into his solely son’s messy room with a mission: getting him to care about bettering his straight-D report card. However the teenager proves troublesome to rattle.After his father makes a giant present of giving him Monopoly cash after which taking all of it away invoice by invoice for hypothetical bills, Theo (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) holds agency in his assertion that he doesn’t have to emulate his mother and father with the intention to be joyful. “If you happen to weren’t a health care provider,” he tells his father, “I wouldn’t love you much less, since you’re my dad.” Can’t the identical be true in reverse? For a second, it appears as if Theo has gotten by way of. However as an alternative, Cliff goes off, scolding his son for being “afraid to attempt, since you’re afraid that your mind goes to blow up, and it’s gonna ooze out of your ears.”The genius of the scene is that each characters are proper. Theo is afraid to attempt, however he additionally acknowledges considered one of his father’s limitations: Cliff has a really particular concept of what success seems to be like, which may burden his youngsters as they attempt to stay as much as it. It’s a testomony to Warner’s talent as a performer that even when Theo isn’t successful an argument along with his dad, he evinces a fancy vulnerability.Warner, who died final week, on the age of 54, struck a fragile steadiness whereas taking part in Theo: He’s hubristic however not smug, clueless however not buffoonish. Nailing these nuances was key. Though at present Cosby’s title is inextricable from his tarnished legacy, The Cosby Present was nonetheless groundbreaking in its portrayal of a well-educated, middle-class Black household—and Theo’s story bookends the sequence, beginning with the Monopoly lesson and ending along with his commencement from faculty. Cliff makes use of powerful love to show his son that onerous work is instrumental to prospering in life. However Warner performed Theo as the home jester, balancing the dramatic rigidity of his character’s unsure future along with his impeccable capacity to ship a one-liner. In the end, Theo’s improvement doesn’t quantity to easy “success” or “failure.” His arc comes into focus when he finds his sense of objective—partly by difficult his mother and father’ judgments and assumptions.As a high-school freshman firstly of the sequence, Theo isn’t a lot for finding out. As an alternative, he hopes to skate by on charisma alone—which hardly ever works—and aspires to land quite a lot of inconceivable dream jobs, resembling tennis professional, pilot, and mannequin. Theo’s apathy serves as a counterpoint to Cliff’s moralizing concerning the significance of schooling and household values to 1’s social mobility, which echoed Cosby’s personal. On reflection, Cliff’s fears about his son’s future foreshadowed the comic’s public excoriations of Black youth, which drew nationwide consideration within the early 2000s—primarily, his cost that they have been “going nowhere.” The harshness that typically emerges in Cliff’s strategy to parenting lands with a extra punitive thud in that context. And with Theo, we finally see that the slacker persona his father has projected onto him is just not the complete image.Learn: How Invoice Cosby’s ‘pound cake’ speech helped result in his downfallTheo’s obvious lack of motivation sometimes drives his father to theatrical extremes. In a single episode, Cliff enlists your entire household to simulate the “actual world” for his son; the train walks Theo by way of getting a job, renting an house, and surviving life’s disagreeable realities for a day. Like the sooner Monopoly gambit, it doesn’t actually work. When his mom, Clair (Phylicia Rashad), suggests afterward that he’s discovered an vital lesson, Theo clarifies for her. “I discovered that once I go into the true world,” he says, “I don’t wish to do enterprise with anybody in my household.”The episode’s punch line displays a typical parent-child dynamic: Moderately than searching for widespread floor, each side put up a wall—within the Huxtables’ case, by way of humor. The Cosby Present indulges on this repeatedly, as Theo’s mother and father invent dramatic methods to high school their son; they even go as far as to stage a mock trial to catch Theo in a lie. Their son, in the meantime, sometimes shrugs all of it off with a joke. The present’s early years usually performed the chasm between Theo’s overconfidence and the outcomes of his actions for laughs too. For instance, take a scene wherein he tries to impress his older sister Denise’s (Lisa Bonet) examine buddy: Theo adopts a baritone voice, after which Denise manhandles him out the door.As with many adolescent boys, Theo’s bravado is a masks for his still-developing id. The relatability of his “pretend it ’til you make it” perspective renders him endearing, even when he’s the butt of a joke. Nonetheless, Theo’s self-mythology suggests a latent disappointment, maybe stemming from a suspicion that he may stay out his grownup life as a daily particular person, fairly than the educated skilled his mother and father anticipate him to turn out to be.However for as usually because the present factors out the teenager’s foibles, Warner by no means lets viewers dismiss Theo outright. For some time, he animates his character’s puppyish demeanor with completely timed voice cracks and awkward physique language. But the actor slowly recalibrates as each he and Theo age, shifting the fumbling swagger towards a extra mature form of self-assurance. A few of the present’s most rewarding scenes arrive when Theo, as an older teen, earns his father’s respect by displaying up as his full self. On two separate events, Theo and his greatest good friend, who goes by the nickname “Cockroach” (Carl Anthony Payne II), write a rap for a category task. Each iterations embody catchy lyrics that exhibit an understanding of the fabric; teenagers like Theo and Cockroach can do nice work, the present suggests, after they have room to be inventive.It feels becoming, then, that Theo’s emotional turning level comes from a analysis that upends his mother and father’ skepticism about him. After he enrolls in faculty, Theo learns that he’s dyslexic, which reframes his educational challenges, flighty aspirations, and self-doubts. (Charting a transparent path ahead is tough whenever you imagine that you just aren’t good sufficient to advance.) The revelation frees Theo from the “failure” narrative that the adults in his life have pinned on him; he begins performing higher academically because of this. Extra vital, he invests his downtime in a significant, altruistic pursuit.Learn: Not sufficient has modified since Sanford and SonAs a volunteer at the area people heart, Theo lights up whereas mentoring tweens who’ve struggles just like his personal, and never simply because he’s good at it. Working with a youthful technology provides Theo a platform to attract upon his life experiences and study as he goes, affirming his newfound sense of accomplishment. When considered one of his advisers tells him he’s doing nicely however isn’t “there” but, Theo agrees—a second Warner underscores by smiling to himself as he murmurs, “However I’m rising.” The pleasure Warner brings to the trade displays simply how a lot his character has reworked from an aimless teen afraid to fail into an grownup who acknowledges that trial and error are a part of life.The Cosby Present closes with the entire household gathering. Though Cliff displays on the lengthy, laborious street his son confronted to get right here, Theo’s actual triumph is completely different, and extra vital. He’s not feigning confidence or struggling to grasp why the issues that come simply to others are so troublesome for him. He received’t turn out to be a health care provider or a lawyer. After years of effort, he’s outlined what private success means to him. A way of path is what his mother and father have needed for him all alongside. And now he’s discovered it for himself.