Ahh yes, the interview that was actually a microcosm of the actual problem at hand.
It’s been a few weeks since the infamous New York Times roundtable interview with the cast of Arrested Development went public, and while the dust has settled for some, there’s one star of the show who still feels perturbed by the way the entire situation played out and was subsequently handled.
Alia Shawkat (best known as Maeby Fünke) recently spoke out about the incident during a chat with Broadly.
She says she regrets not saying more in defence of Jessica Walter, as the veteran actress began to cry while recalling a bout of verbal abuse she received from Jeffrey Tambor during the show’s production.
Here’s audio of Jessica Walter CRYING, standing up for herself after all the men in the AD cast try to gaslight her into thinking Tambor’s harassment isn’t THAT bad. This is horrific. pic.twitter.com/innJv8LIYF
— Kevin T. Porter (@KevinTPorter) May 23, 2018
While plenty of people noted Shawkat’s lack of input during the NYT interview, many were more focused on the male cast’s behaviour than on wondering why Shawkat had so little to say.
Was it because she was cut off by Jason Bateman while trying to defend Walter? Yes.
Was it because she was horrendously intimidated by a horde of older men? Of course.
Was it because she felt outnumbered as one of only two women in the interview? Absolutely.
Shawkat told Broadly she felt blindsided by the intense conversation, which was dominated by her male co-stars Bateman, Will Arnett, Tony Hale, David Cross, and Tambor himself.
“Once Jeffrey answered [with] his rote response, the other men in the room started to be a lot more verbal than they had before,” she said. “They started going on about how they support Jeffrey, and they love him, and he’s a great actor—all these things that I agree with; I care about Jeffrey and I think he’s a great actor. But what continued to go on was, in my opinion, too much.”
In trying to reckon with the toxic male behaviour in the room, Shawkat’s fall-back response was to stay quiet.
“… all of a sudden, I started to feel hot inside. Because I was like, OK, if they say all this, then I now have to say, ‘But, this is a bigger issue.’”
Shawkat waited for an opportunity to jump back into the conversation, but things had already begun to spiral out of hand.
“I finally got a word in edgewise, and [that’s when] Jessica got very emotional and started crying. Once that happened, I realized we were having a public and private conversation at the same time, which is very unnatural… The minute Jessica started crying, my instinct was just to go up to her and hug her and be like, ‘This interview’s over.’”
Shawkat (who also cried once the interview was done) was worried she didn’t do enough to defend Walter.
But here’s the problem – it’s not her job, at least not hers alone, to defend the only other woman in the room in this situation.
Those who should feel responsible and ashamed of their behaviour are the individuals who defended Tambor and continued to monopolise the conversation as Walter sat crying and Shawkat sat dumbfounded.
Having their voices heard was more important to the men of the cast than comforting or acknowledging either of their female castmates – women they’ve been working with for 15 years.
Unfortunately, in that particular situation, there was nothing Shawkat could have done.
When you work with a predominantly male cast who first met you when you were 14 years old, maybe that changes the dynamic even further than the standard gender power balance.
To these men, Shawkat may still be just a little girl, and Walter just an old woman.
Both women were left to fight a losing battle because no amount of defending or educating would have helped in what was clearly a toxic environment, where verbal abuse was not only tolerated at the time but excused after the fact.
What Shawkat has expressed – the guilt, the shame, and the regret – is something every single woman has felt on an extremely real level throughout their lives, because we are groomed to be polite, quiet, and accomodating no matter what.
Shawkat struggled to have her voice heard. She struggled to feel like she could even utter a word during that interview – so just imagine for a second what that behaviour must actually be like on set?
Women’s voices are silenced every minute of every day, and instead of wasting any more time demanding or listening to rote statements of contrition from men who are only apologising because they’ve been called out, why don’t we refocus our attention on the system that allows these men to make these comments in the first place?
Because when that goes unquestioned at the very moment it happens, that’s what conditions women to believe they’re better off just staying quiet.
Oh, and while I’m at it, shame on those behind the scenes who didn’t sit down with the Arrested Development cast prior to the NYT chat to discuss a safe, equal, and unified strategy when it came to dealing with those inevitable Tambor questions.