Matt Zoller Seitz at New York Mag's Vulture offers an extended rant about why he can't watch Arrested Development anymore.
I love Arrested Development, but it’s yet another once-beloved work that I can no longer watch without cringing... because one of the key people associated with it has been accused of heinous behavior...
I can’t say that the show quite is on the “See No More” list alongside House of Cards or Woody Allen’s movies, because Kevin Spacey is in most of every House of Cards episode, and Woody Allen is responsible for every frame of a Woody Allen movie, whereas Tambor’s presence only becomes oppressive when he’s onscreen as George Bluth Sr. or his twin brother Oscar Bluth. But Tambor has just enough screen time to taint any goodwill you might feel for the work...
I kept looking at Tambor’s face and thinking of the abuse that three different people had publicly accused him of, on sets not unlike the one where creator and executive producer Mitchell Hurwitz & Co. make Arrested Development.
Most sets have some basic similarities, so sure. They all have cameras.
Louis C.K.’s show Louie... now, because of the indecent-exposure allegations by Corry and others — allegations C.K. himself confirmed as true — that series has become the Voldemort of recent TV:... Meanwhile, in recent years, an entire wing of African-American cultural history has been vaporized by the Bill Cosby allegations... Predators’ careers are getting raptured, as well they should be. But unfortunately — perhaps inevitably — their work is getting raptured along with it, imploding into dust as the culture moves on to things that aren’t as problematic (or that might have skeezy stuff going on behind the scenes that we don’t know about yet).
You don't say.
If you can't watch any movies or TV shows that feature actors or directors who did bad things, you can't watch anything. Anyone famous enough has probably done something bad at some point. Especially if your bar is as low as Jeffrey Tambor yelling at people on the set of Arrested Development.
This is another example of leftist feminism resurrecting ideas from a more prudish time about the moral integrity of the performers. Purity of art though is impossible. That's the point Terry Teachout makes in Unperson. Much of our great art comes from people who behaved badly. The Victorians would at least have delved into how the poor moral character of the artist affects the audience.
Here there isn't even a claim that Tambor's misbehavior causes viewers to mistreat women. Instead it inherently taints anything he's in regardless of its message or impact.
It's unpersoning for the sake of unpersoning.
(Bonus points for recognizing the post photo and its relevance to the topic.)