The responses have been breathtaking in their speed and decisiveness. Another powerful man in media or entertainment is accused of being a sexual predator. He admits it, or not. He comes under investigation, or quits, or is fired. And all at once, his work — no matter how much people liked it before — turns radioactive.

On Tuesday, the “Charlie Rose” show, long patronized by the public-television-watching cognoscenti, was shelved after allegations that its urbane host was a chronic harasser of young women. The program joins a long list of projects — the Kevin Spacey series “House of Cards,” the film and television work of Louis C. K., and the groundbreaking Amazon show “Transparent,” among others — that have been canceled outright, removed from circulation or thrown into disarray by accusations against the men most associated with their success.

But as more and more once-important figures are banished from sight, at least for the time being, what should become of their work?

“Yes, the art suffers,” said the actor Colman Domingo. Last year his movie “The Birth of a Nation” collapsed at the box office after revelations that its writer-director, Nate Parker, had been accused of raping a woman nearly 20 years earlier. (Mr. Parker was acquitted; the woman later killed herself.) Mr. Domingo has also worked — very happily, he said — with Louis C. K. When it comes to canceling or removing projects, he said, “I have no idea yet if this is the appropriate response.”