When news broke of John Lasseter stepping down from his position at the top of Pixar last November, the producer-writer-director dubbed the reasons for his leave of absence as “missteps.” He described his actions with certain employees as disrespectful and “uncomfortable.” However, no further information was given. Later, it would be speculated that these so-called “missteps” were sexual harassment claims from various female employees at Pixar.
Eventually, Lasseter returned from his six-month leave and Disney was reportedly attempting to figure out how to keep the creative head in the company. Eventually, that would not be feasible, and it was announced that Lasseter would leave his position and would be replaced. And through all of this, there has never been any confirmed instances of his inappropriate behavior, just rumblings. Until now.
In a guest column over at Variety, Cassandra Smolcic, a former employee at Pixar from 2009 to 2014, details her interactions with Lasseter, as well as various other instances of sexual harassment and the “boys club” she witnessed at the studio.
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“When I started at Pixar as an intern, I thought I’d landed my dream job. But my excitement was quickly tempered by a flood of warnings about Lasseter’s touchy-feely, boundary-crossing tendencies with female employees,” writes Smolcic. As was reported, it appears that Lasseter’s reputation for inappropriate behavior was a well-known secret at Pixar.
She continues to explain how Lasseter wasn’t the only male executive at the studio that had a reputation. She writes, “I was likewise told to steer clear of a particularly chauvinistic male lead in my department. Much like John, this man’s female targets had been reporting his vulgar, unprofessional behaviors for years, but his position and demeanor remained much the same.”
Smolcic gets into details of the open-secret of Lasseter’s behavior while talking about her experience working on “Cars 2.” “Just after starting on ‘Cars 2,’ I was told by a superior that I would be uninvited from all our weekly art department meetings because Lasseter ‘has a hard time controlling himself’ around young women,” she writes.
There was also the uncomfortable parties, which included one particular Halloween gathering. “The entire Pixar workforce witnessed the sleazy spin that John brought to Pixar’s Halloween bash. If he found a woman attractive when she got on stage, he’d ask her to spin around while he made suggestive comments, turning the event into yet another lewd spectacle,” she continues.
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But as mentioned above, Lasseter was reportedly a huge problem, but his actions filtered down to other creators at the studio, including an unnamed director. “I’ll never forget the day a director compared his latest film to ‘a big-titted blond who was difficult to nail down’ in front of the whole company, a joke that received gasps of disapproval,” Smolcic writes.
And ultimately, Smolcic left the company after years of this behavior. However, she says that not all women were lucky enough to leave on their own. According to the ex-employee, if you spoke up about the behavior or questioned your male superiors, then there would be consequences. “We’d witnessed the fallout for women who questioned male leads –– who were branded ‘difficult,’ had a hard time getting cast on subsequent projects, and were even laid off or demoted,” she writes.
The column is adapted from an essay that Smolcic wrote, which goes into a lot more detail about her time at Pixar. It’s definitely worth a read.
