The Long Con: Womanhood, Fatness and Normalizing Abuse
Jessica Walter’s voice was strangled with tears when she addressed Jeffrey Tambor’s outburst with her Arrested Development castmates for the New York Times.
She was quick to point out that “he never crossed the line on our show, sexually,” and preemptively insisted she needed to “let it go,” likely bracing herself for the inevitable pushback that would come when a woman spoke up about her difficult experiences with a man.
Like many women and survivors of any kind of abuse, listening to the interview was a lot to take. I felt it bodily: the turn in my stomach, the chill in my skin, the clench in my muscles, bracing for the crash. I felt it viscerally, like a method actor sourcing my own memories. The male boss who told me I was too emotional to do my job well. The white man who publicly shouted down a woman of color in a public meeting, and the other white men who gave him endless second chances. The same men who would later say they were stunned to see the wave of #MeToo posts, and who would profess shock at the casual callousness with which the men of Arrested Development brushed off Jessica Walters’ pain.
But somehow, in all that heartache, there was a foothold. The interview went viral, finding its way to women who shared it, and men who were faced with the stark truth of what had too often been…
