Well, I guess it's time we put this one up again for all those who still think that poor little Lassseter's sins amount to nothing more than "hugging."
Dropping two particularly relevant passages here. I'll add in a trigger warning, I suppose, that the post details some instances of sexual assault.
Pixarโs Sexist Boys Club
https://byrslf.co/pixars-sexist-boys-club-9d621567fdc9
During week two of my internship, I was making tea in one of the company kitchens when the production designer Iโd been warned about approached me to introduce himself. When I told him my name, he said, โI already know who you are,โ with a sideways grin while he looked me up and down with predatory volition, insinuating that my reputation preceded me. When he said he recognized my surname and my look from his part of the world, the hair all over my body stood up on high alert. He told me he was excited to finally have a beautiful face from his motherland in the studio.
I smiled and nodded, said nice to meet you and scampered off down the hall so fast I burnt my hand with hot tea. Even though his intended compliment creeped me out, in some ways I felt relieved that I was โhis typeโ and might dodge the insults and bullying that he was known to dish out to women he didnโt find attractive. When I turned the corner to my office I peeked back down the hall. Sure enough, he was still standing exactly where Iโd left him, watching me walk away with wolf-like intensity.
Over the years, I white-knuckled my way through many unwelcome, objectifying interactions with him, with Lasseter and other men. A big part of me is disappointed in the ways I didnโt handle those encounters. There were opportunities there โ for me to push back on men who were flexing and asserting their sexual dominance over me; to establish healthy boundaries and demand that they speak to me with respect and not treat me like a sex object; to ask my supervisors (or the HR department) to help me in holding them accountable for their loose tongues and poor behaviors, and to give the man in question a chance to course-correct. More importantly, I had opportunities to protect other women from being belittled and objectified like that in the future, but I didnโt take them.
My fierce desire to land and keep a coveted job with the one of the worldโs most exclusive animation studios โ and the fact that Iโd been well trained in the not-so-admirable art form of stomaching and absorbing moments of sexual harassment throughout my lifetime โ held me back from speaking out. I also recalled how my pleas for help had backfired on me when I reported harassment at my high-school restaurant job, so I decided to follow suit with many other female Pixarians, who would privately warn one another which men to avoid, but otherwise kept their discomfort to themselves.
Pushing back on or reporting this man would have been the more dignified and principled response, but I cannot say with confidence that either path would have been the most beneficial for my budding career in animation. During my five years there, Iโd witnessed several women fall from grace after failed attempts to stand up to or question the behavior of a male lead. These women often had a hard time getting cast on subsequent projects after being branded โdifficultโ by leadership (a sentiment that was usually then echoed by her peers), and were later even laid off or demoted by the company.
But Lasseter didnโt need an intimate setting to make female employees uncomfortable. He gave out countless lecherous looks (or unwanted hugs and touches) to women he passed every day on campus. He was known for kissing on and groping women at studio events and wrap parties, even the wives and girlfriends of his subordinates.
The entire Pixar workforce witnessed the sleazy spin John brought to the studioโs annual Halloween bash. Quite a few of my female friends refused, year after year, to enter the costume contest โ even if theyโd worked for hours on a prize-worthy outfit โ because of how infamously uncomfortable the costume parade became. If Lasseter found a woman attractive when she got on stage, heโd ask her to repeatedly spin around or bombarded her with suggestive comments, turning the event into yet another lewd spectacle. These very public displays were so cringeworthy and inappropriate (to not only the women who braved the stage but also to the general audience) that the company eventually asked a lead animator to take over as the master of ceremonies.
Lasseterโs open sexism set the tone from the top, emboldening others to act like frat boys in just about any campus setting. Iโll never forget the day a director compared his latest film to โa big-titted blond who was difficult to nail downโ in front of the whole company, a joke that received gasps of disapproval.
Not surprisingly, tactless behavior towards women had a way of trickling all the way down through the ranks. About halfway through my time at the studio, I had a more intimate, disturbing physical encounter with a brazen male employee from outside my department. During an after-work celebration at one of Pixarโs employee-run bars, the coworker smacked and then grabbed my ass with a considerable amount of force while I was waiting for a volunteer bartender to make me a drink. Like a deer in headlights, I froze until my violator stumbled drunkenly away from me. The bar was loud, low-lit and filled shoulder-to-shoulder with intoxicated employees. I looked around, but no one seemed to have noticed what had just happened.
A few minutes after this encounter, I left the work party to head home, equal parts infuriated, shaken-up and perplexed. I replayed the moment in my mind over and over again. I had no doubt been caught completely off-guard, but I couldnโt wrap my head around my utter lack of response to such a deeply disturbing and violating interaction. Similar to the time that a complete stranger covertly stuck his hand under my skirt and grabbed my vagina in a packed San Francisco bar before slipping away into the crowd, a wave of strange heat had come over me immediately after his unwelcome hand made contact with my body.
I have since come to understand that this phenomenon is actually an automatic chemical response to physical aggression. Formally referred to as โtonic immobilityโ or โplaying dead mode,โ a sensation of paralysis occurs when the parasympathetic nervous system is triggered; a reaction that occurs in 7 out of 10 women who experience assault. According to studies reported on by LiveScience, this involuntary response literally puts a personโs muscles in a catatonic-like state during which they cannot move, may be unable to speak or become unresponsive.
At the time I wasnโt aware of the science behind all this, and felt confusion, shame and self-blame about not reacting to the incident in real time. Focused on what I thought were my own mistakes that night, I decided not to report the experience the following Monday. I donโt doubt that many similar incidents may have gone unreported in the studio for similar reasons.
And let us all remind ourselves that men like Lasseter have it in with reporters and other powerful people: they know what strings to pull to make themselves sound sympathetic or even victimized. We don't need to make things any easier for them. It's up to us to see through the distortion filter.