John Lasseter Accused of Sexual Assault

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Rumpelstiltskin
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Re: Lasseter Sexually Assaulted Women

Post by Rumpelstiltskin »

Considering Lasseter has a huge fortune, he could retire from animation and invest himself in something else to do until he decides to retire. There should be plenty of pet and passion projects he could explore. After all, he has mentioned before that being fired from Disney in the early 80s was the best thing that could have happened to him, even if it didn't feel that way when it happened.
There can be an upside to getting downsized, he explained. "Be open to when the door closes in front you. Look at this as a potential opportunity to try something different, to go in a different direction than you were expecting."

For Lasseter, the nudge out the door accelerated a career ascent the likes of which show business may never see again.

"It was the best thing that ever happened to me," he said.
(Either way, he is not the only guilty here. There are also all those higher up in the hierarchy that knew but didn't do anything. And if nobody had spoken out, they would have continued to ignore it.)
If Disney is wiling to forgive him is irrelevant. Like every company, stocks and money is what talks the loudest, and if Lasseter's presence means loss of money and negative impact on the stock market, they will need to find the best solution. And new blood sounds like the most logical one.

And I can't see why Disney and Pixar couldn't have their own animation boss each. If they want to use someone we already knows, why not Jennifer Lee as the head for Disney animation, while for instance Andres Stanton could be boss for Pixar?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robcain/20 ... 1724f23912
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Re: Lasseter Sexually Assaulted Women

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Disney totally knew and covered for Lasseter.
In the past several weeks, the Hollywood Reporter has created a sexual-misconduct beat and assigned seven reporters, who are fielding ten to fifteen tips a day. Masters decides which to pursue based on the criteria of egregiousness and reportorial difficulty—very egregious and very difficult she pursues assiduously. “These companies, they know,” she said. “They know that very high-level people are vulnerable. And I have no doubt they are in a state of absolute panic. With some of these people, it could hurt the company’s stock if these things get revealed. There’s a huge burden of responsibility, with implications all the way to Wall Street.” While pursuing the John Lasseter story, which she broke, she reached out to a Disney source and said, “I guess you know what I’m calling about.” He simply said, “Yes, I do.” More bombshells were coming, she assured me. “There are people on the job right now exhibiting very dubious behavior,” she said. “They know who they are.”
Source: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018 ... e-its-ways
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Re: Lasseter Sexually Assaulted Women

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The Lasseter thing isn't the first scandal. It has probably been mentioned how Catmull got his revenge on Sony:

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/business/pix ... 01362.html

As somebody mentions in the comments section:
Sure this is disappointing, but not suprising. While I was at Pixar, Ed & John held several company wide meetings to discuss the fact that employees at Pixar were paid less then other studios in the industry. They framed the conversations with "if we pay you less, you will have stronger job security here. We wont have the hires and fires that other studios often have." It was a good angle to take and one that convinced everyone there to stay in line, work for less, while Ed & John made millions off the Disney Deal and who knows how much they profited off this too, most likely Millions as well. What's really sad is that they ask for loyalty from their artists & employees to a degree that would pay them less and give them a lower quality of life, and in return for that loyalty they repay their artists and employees with dishonesty and corruption in this horrible way. It's a shame that nothing will most likely happen with this, the same way everyone swept the insider trading scandal that was going on with Ed & John during the Disney Sale. Hopefully this creates an awareness across the board for all Artsists working at any studio in this day in age to remember that this is a buisness, and most people in business don't play nice.
From the book "The Pixar Touch":
Even employees who had been with the organization since its Lucasfilm days a decade earlier—employees who had lost all their Pixar stock in the 1991 reorganization—would be starting their vesting clock at zero. In contrast, most of the options of Catmull, Lasseter, Guggenheim, and Reeves vested immediately—they could be turned into stock right away."
'I decided, 'Well, gee, I've been at this company eight years, and I'll have been here twelve years before I'm fully vested,' " one former employee remembered. " 'It doesn't sound like these guys are interested in my well-being.' A lot of this piled up and made me say, 'What am I doing? I'm sitting around here trying to make Steve Jobs richer in ways he doesn't even appreciate.'

The 1991 Disney-Pixar contract thus required that Pixar enter into agreements with the so-called “key creative Pixar talent"—defined as Catmull, Lasseter, Guggenheim, and Reeves—to secure their services. Each of the four men was now in a powerful position: no employment contract, no Disney deal. To prevail on them to sign, jobs created a profit-sharing plan for them in February 1993. Sixteen percent of Pixar's profits on a film would go into a “profit pool," to be divided equally among the four. A couple of years later, as Jobs was planning for a public offering, they were at an advantage again; Jobs' advisers told him that investors would not accept such a rich profit-sharing plan for a handful of top employees, so he would need to induce them to give it up. On April 18, I995, Jobs and the five executives agreed to replace the plan with munificent stock options. Although Levy had not been part of the profit pools, he too had the clout to insist on generous options.
The fact that there was a business rationale for the uneven treatment did little to mollify those outside the golden circle.
"Steve spent lots oftime in people's offices, and I spent lots of time in people's offices, trying to explain that this is for the greater good of mankind," Kerwin said, "and if they win, we're all going to win. Some of them were threatening to leave."
Alvy Ray Smith also wrote to Catmull, where he asked why he wasn't given any credit for the creation of Pixar: http://alvyray.com/Pixar/documents/edfromalvy_2004.pdf

One thing is if they are keeping the payment down so they can invest more in movies. It is still wrong, but more understandable. Another thing is to use it to enrich themselves. Even worse is when the whole industry is suffering from a working environment that keeps people down, both for the sake of their career and for robbing the world for great stories that will never see the light of day of that.

The reason why Lasseter's grabbing gets more attention is probably because this interests far more than just those inside the industry.

His absence could be a good thing: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robcain/20 ... 864cd43912
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Re: Lasseter Sexually Assaulted Women

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A female reporter asked the Coco filmmakers about the Lasseter allegations at the Golden Globes backstage. Needless to say, they were very evasive and awkward about it. Darla was really uncomfortable, almost fearful, talking about that while Unkrich completely changed the subject and talked about how diverse the crew of Coco was. Watch it for yourselves, here.
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Re: Lasseter Sexually Assaulted Women

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Sotiris wrote:A female reporter asked the Coco filmmakers about the Lasseter allegations at the Golden Globes backstage. Needless to say, they were very evasive and awkward about it. Darla was really uncomfortable, almost fearful, talking about that while Unkrich completely changed the subject and talked about how diverse the crew of Coco was. Watch it for yourselves, here.
I was wondering if they might refer to it during their acceptance speech but I wasn't surprised that they didn't.
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Re: Lasseter Sexually Assaulted Women

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Wow, you really see Darla saying "help" with her eyes as she looks to Lee to get her out of there asap. I feel bad these three.
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Re: Lasseter Sexually Assaulted Women

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JeanGreyForever wrote:
Sotiris wrote:A female reporter asked the Coco filmmakers about the Lasseter allegations at the Golden Globes backstage. Needless to say, they were very evasive and awkward about it. Darla was really uncomfortable, almost fearful, talking about that while Unkrich completely changed the subject and talked about how diverse the crew of Coco was. Watch it for yourselves, here.
I was wondering if they might refer to it during their acceptance speech but I wasn't surprised that they didn't.
Unkrich didn't name drop Lasseter in his acceptance speech, which I found rather telling. John Lasseter is usually the first person thanked when a Pixar film wins a Best Animated Feature prize. Even Ed Catmull wasn't mentioned. He just referred to the "Pixar executive team."
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Re: Lasseter Sexually Assaulted Women

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^Did anyone honestly expect him to thank Lasseter? He's not that stupid.
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Re: Lasseter Sexually Assaulted Women

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Lasseter being the first person thanked was similar to how everyone involved with Weinstein was practically required to say his name first. I guess Lasseter's time is up. :wink:
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Re: Lasseter Sexually Assaulted Women

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Sotiris wrote:A female reporter asked the Coco filmmakers about the Lasseter allegations at the Golden Globes backstage. Needless to say, they were very evasive and awkward about it. Darla was really uncomfortable, almost fearful, talking about that while Unkrich completely changed the subject and talked about how diverse the crew of Coco was. Watch it for yourselves, here.
I'm surprised they weren't more prepared. Didn't they think they could be asked that question?
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Re: Lasseter Sexually Assaulted Women

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I guess Ratzenberger didn't get the memo. :P

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Source: https://twitter.com/Dratzenberger/statu ... 7898364928


This is so hypocritical of Iger. As if he didn't know about Lasseter's behavior for years and chose to enable and cover for him. :roll:

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Source: https://twitter.com/RobertIger/status/9 ... 4087043077
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Re: Lasseter Sexually Assaulted Women

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GastĂłn Ugarte, set model supervisor on Coco and longtime Pixar employee, was asked about Lasseter in a new interview.
Q: Speaking of bad guys, what happened with the accusation against John Lasseter for alleged inappropriate touching?

GastĂłn Ugarte: We were all surprised. Personally, I never saw him behaving in such a manner. Lasseter and Pixar have my deepest admiration, and I'm staying there. Whatever happens, in July we start production on another movie that's still without a title.
Source: http://www.ambito.com/908876-ugarte-un- ... -rey-pixar
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Re: Lasseter Sexually Assaulted Women

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Props to that interviewer. :up: Not surprised at all to see a Pixar employee fall in line and defend him.
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Re: Lasseter Sexually Assaulted Women

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Eww, people are still defending him. Then again, it's not that different from how people still defend Trump.
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Re: Lasseter Sexually Assaulted Women

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Lee Unkrich was asked about Lasseter in a new interview.
Lasseter’s name remains one of the first to appear on screen when the credits roll and Lee Unkrich, the director of new film Coco, has admitted that Lasseter "deserved" to be credited. "John was a big part of making the movie, so as well as everyone else who worked on it deserved to be credited," he told Metro.co.uk.

And as for why he didn’t mention John’s name during his Globes acceptance speech? "We didn’t thank anybody by name at the Globes, we made a decision – it’s hard to pick and chose who to thank by name so… – we chose to thank the entire crew collectively, and the exec teams at Disney," he said.

In the past, Pixar directors have regularly directly thanked Lasseter in their speeches because of his importance with the company; Big Hero 6 co-director Don Hall called Lasseter "the best boss in the world," while Inside Out producer Jonas Rivera thanked "the amazing artists we work with at Pixar led by John Lasseter".

"It’s an ongoing process," Lee added of the steps Pixar are continuing to take following the revelations of Lasseter’s behaviour. "Everyone, in the industry and the world, we all need to take steps to ensure we have diverse voices being a part of, in our case, the films we make and we are taking steps to make sure we have more parity." Lee did not elaborate on what the steps being taken were.
Source: http://metro.co.uk/2018/01/17/pixar-hea ... e-7236505/
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Re: Lasseter Sexually Assaulted Women

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Unkrich's excuse as to why he didn't thank Lasseter is hilarious. Can't he just be honest about it? He's already removing Lasseter from his stories about Coco in the press. In a new video interview he changed the story of pitching the idea to Lasseter. "I remember the day that I pitched this to...err...the execs at Pixar and when they were on board and excited about the idea, I was really happy".
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Re: Lasseter Sexually Assaulted Women

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Disney needs to come clean here. This movement is not going away, in fact it's strengthening. The women's march is an annual thing now. Lasseter should not be allowed to return and the artist should be free to speak their minds. By avoiding the topic they're just prolonging the inevitable. If they let him come back the media is going to jump on it again and it's going to be an even bigger PR nightmare for the company.

He did some great things, but his ridiculous legendary status needs to be erased from the company's PR strategy. He was the studio head, not some kind of god....

Others can do this job without harassing women.
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Re: Lasseter Sexually Assaulted Women

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I saw a rumour that Disney was waiting until after the Oscars before saying John Lasseter had been removed from his post. Of course, that's a rumour and should be taken with a grain of salt. Although I doubt the reveal that Lasseter is no longer at Disney would affect Coco and Remember Me's chances of winning.
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Re: Lasseter Sexually Assaulted Women

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estefan wrote:I saw a rumour that Disney was waiting until after the Oscars before saying John Lasseter had been removed from his post. Of course, that's a rumour and should be taken with a grain of salt. Although I doubt the reveal that Lasseter is no longer at Disney would affect Coco and Remember Me's chances of winning.
I agree. The Disney/PIXAR machine's power grip extends beyond any one employee.
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Re: Lasseter Sexually Assaulted Women

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Has there been any word now on what actually happened way back when Lasseter was initially fired from Disney back in the 80s? Several years back the hubby and I were talking about how strange that was, for everyone to have claimed he was fired simply for being too pushy with computer animation [getting fired over wanting Disney to produce Brave Little Toaster as all CG seems rather ridiculous]. The hubby noted that was obviously an excuse for something else, and of course at that time we had no idea of what. But given that he's long been known to "party," I could easily see that he may have gotten himself in trouble over something scandal-worthy and that everyone agreed to keep it quiet if he left under other supposed circumstances.
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