Comeback trail begins for actor
Tambor is in Arrested Development’s new season — and that’s a good thing
There was something grimly humorous about the treatment of Jeffrey Tambor during the promotional tour for The Death of Stalin, Armando Iannucci’s farce about the end of the Stalinist terrors.
Tambor plays Georgy Malenkov in the darkly comic treatise on bureaucratic evil that revolves around the efforts of Stalin’s cronies to determine who will replace him as the head of the Politburo. It would be difficult to overpraise Tambor’s work in the film: Initially withdrawn and a bit cowardly, he grows into his role as the presumptive head of the Soviet Union, turning imperious and caustic as the movie progresses. The film closes with a series of stills in which we see actors airbrushed out, a reminder of the very real way Stalinists tried to control the present by destroying the past.
When news broke that Tambor had been fired from Transparent — Amazon’s Emmy-winning series in which he played a transgender woman transitioning late in life — over accusations of sexual harassment, art imitated life in the most absurd way. Tambor was airbrushed from the movie’s poster, replacing him with actress Andrea Riseborough.
The absurdity of a movie about Stalinism deploying Stalinist tactics to disappear undesirable elements played into the hands of those in the #MeToo movement, initially lauded for taking down notorious predators including Harvey Weinstein, had morphed into a Stalinist moment, one in which accusations equalled guilt.
Removing an actor from a poster isn’t the most dramatic esthetic response Hollywood has had to the #MeToo moment. Kevin Spacey, accused of sexually assaulting minors, was literally cut from a film and replaced by Christopher Plummer and removed from House of Cards before filming on its forthcoming season started.
But director Iannucci said taking Tambor out of the picture wasn’t in the cards, noting “it was great to work with him.”
Tambor is also in the new season of Arrested Development, debuting May 29, and prominently featured in the trailer announcing the return of the show. The forthcoming months will likely be somewhat awkward for Tambor, but he’ll keep working.
And that’s for the best. There are people who have been exposed in the wave of #MeToo stories who may not deserve to work in the industry again, people who have been accused of using their position and their power to extract sexual favours and destroy those who do not go along. Weinstein deserves everything that’s happened to him, as does Spacey. The allegations against Brett Ratner are damning and likely preclude him from being a Hollywood power player ever again.
Matt Lauer isn’t going to be a newsreader in the near future. Charlie Rose will spend his remaining days in exile. Bill Cosby may spend his in prison.
But Tambor’s alleged activities come nowhere near the level of the men above. His was a far more marginal case.
He likely mistreated an assistant and is accused of making inappropriate contact with, and comments to, a co-star. And Tambor has long been targeted by a coterie of activists unhappy a cisgender man was playing the role of a transgender woman. He has paid a steep price, losing a plum gig.
He has been punished professionally, castigated personally. But he doesn’t deserve the professional death penalty.
Tambor’s punishment and slowmotion rehabilitation may be a useful step forward in shaping the workplace sentencing guidelines for a wide variety of #MeToo cases in an industry trying to figure out how to navigate the range of sexual harassment claims unleashed in recent months.