In an essay on "The Cultural Vandalism of Jeffrey Tambor," Matt Zoller Seitz writes that now that his abusive behavior on Transparent and Arrested Development have come out, Tambor has "lost the power of illusion — the illusions he created with such painstaking care — and all you can see now are allegations that seem a lot more convincing than his vague apologies and promises to do better." Seitz writes that Tambor's "performance as Hank Kingsley, the sidekick on The Larry Sanders Show, was one of the great portraits of showbiz narcissism, but I can’t imagine revisiting it with the same eyes now, especially during the season where Hank’s assistant, played by Scott Thompson, sues his boss for making homophobic jokes and contributing to a culture of harassment. I can’t lose myself in the fiction anymore because I don’t see the character he’s playing — not exclusively. I see the character for a few seconds or minutes at a time, and then the façade drops and I see the accused sexual harasser and verbal abuser who was fired from his award-winning lead role on Transparent, and who, according to (Jessica) Walter, verbally abused her on the set of Arrested Development. This sort of thing seems categorically different from, say, watching a film starring an actor whose political beliefs are different from yours (though there, too, a line could be irrevocably crossed). Once you believe that a particular actor or filmmaker or screenwriter is a predator or abuser, you’re aware that the environment that produced your entertainment — the film set — was engaged in a conscious or reflexive cover-up, in the name of protecting an investment."
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TOPICS: Jeffrey Tambor, Netflix, Prime Video, Arrested Development, The Larry Sanders Show, Transparent, Jason Bateman, Jessica Walter, Thomas Sadoski, Tony Hale, Sexual Misconduct