Keke Palmer’s recent remark that “The Cosby Show” character Clair Huxtable was “uppity” got some people on the internet up in arms.
During an appearance on SiriusXM on Thursday, the actor addressed the backlash she’s received, explaining that she made her original remarks in fun.
“This was just a joke, y’all, damn,” she said with a laugh.
But Palmer then thoughtfully explained that while she was being lighthearted when she made the quip on “The Terrell Show” earlier this month, there was a deeper explanation behind the comment.
She said she believes that Clair, a lawyer and mother in a upper middle-class family, was created to “combat” other stereotypical Black female characters on screen, but that it ended up making the character, played by Phylicia Rashad, sometimes feel “unrelatable.”
Palmer said she thinks Clair’s character was intended to contrast with other TV characters, such as Florida Evans on the 1970s sitcom “Good Times.” Florida was primarily a stay-at-home mother whose family struggled to make ends meet. She was played by Esther Rolle, who died in 1998.
“I think Florida Evans was necessary at the time that she was created as well,” Palmer said. “My point ultimately was that I think both Florida and Clair were ― if Florida’s on the left, Clair is on the right. They’re both extreme in what they are representing, which sometimes can feel unrelatable.”
“When you’re trying to combat something so much, you sometimes end up being one thing,” she said, adding that the character Vivian Banks from “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” ― played first by Janet Hubert, then later by Daphne Maxwell Reid ― was more nuanced and relatable to her.
“I’m happy that we obviously had characters like Clair Huxtable and had characters like Florida Evans ... We needed everything,” Palmer said. “But I’m also happy that we’re in a time that we’ve continued to add more color to the Black women we see on television.”
Palmer caused some debate on Twitter after she called Clair Huxtable “uppity” during her June 1 appearance on “The Terrell Show.”
“Girl, say what you saying!” Palmer said with a laugh, after she mocked the character’s demeanor. “Clair was too much.”
While some Twitter users found Palmer’s original comments fun and harmless, others disagreed with her stance on the “Cosby Show” matriarch.
“Keke, we like you and all but not too much on the best tv show mother ever,” one person wrote at the time. “We don’t play about [Clair Huxtable].”
Palmer doesn’t just have opinions about iconic TV characters. She sat down with Vice President Kamala Harris this week for an episode of her podcast, “Baby, This Is Keke Palmer,” to discuss a variety of topics, including health care and maternal mortality.