In Defense of John Lasseter

He was my hero when i was a child. i always wanted to work at pixar and meet him in person. Twas my dream job Sadly Im a dentist now And he isn’t at pixar... The dream fades away

Disney messed this up; John Lasetter is a creative genius, and Disney has gone downhill since he left.

Did any of the alleged victims tell John they didn't want such contact? If you are uncomfortable with someone's actions you have to tell them. He's basically being crucified for not being a mind reader.

On “a day with John Lasseter” it even shows him saying that every morning he gives everyone a hug and it follows him literally giving all his employees a hug each 🥺

John Lasseter does not deserve this. He is not nearly the monster Harvey Weinstein has been shown to be. Maybe he did do some inappropriate things, and some of those things, if true, I cannot defend in good conscience, but the hugging at least seems like it only happened maybe once or twice per person accusing him because hugging is just a thing he likes to do to show appreciation and gratitude for his subordinates' hard work. I wish I had bosses who were half that appreciative of the hard work I do and the sacrifices I make for my job. There's no crime in that, even if it did make a few people uncomfortable. And if it did, then he does need to apologize for violating their personal space like that, but even then, why wait until now? Why not say, "Hey, Boss, I love working for you, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't hug me." then and there? If it continued, then there's appropriate steps to take to make sure it stops. As things stand now, I have a hard enough time connecting with people on more than a friendship level, and even then can barely do that. If this keeps up, women accusing men of rape and other so-called sexual misconduct and willingly ruining their lives in the process, especially when it's not true just to get attention, I'll die alone if I have to. It's a game, and games have winners and losers, and I'm not playing this one.

Used to be that women were afraid to come forward and speak up about things men had done to them. Now it's men who are afraid to come forward to defend their fellow men against accusations, lest they be torn down and ruined for having the gall to even acknowledge the possibility of the accusations being false. And it's making men afraid to speak to, get close to, or even just look at women; that kind of fear is how you fester hatred. It's in that fear that it takes root and grows. This will lead to a generation of men who simply hate women; we're already seeing the start of it in the worse parts of the MGTOW movement. The irony, hypocrisy, and double standards of the "me too" movement is quite shocking to behold. But what do I know? I'm a conservative, Christian, heterosexual, white Male, so obviously I'm just part of the problem too, and basically the worst scumbag of a human being to ever live, right?

It’s funny. When the Lasseter accusations happened, I was already done with the MeToo movement. So I didn’t even look into the allegations. Now that I know the allegations, wow. This man did nothing sexual in nature, and very likely didn’t have sexual intentions. John shouldn’t have gotten booted for this, and as another commenter stated, the joke is on Disney. Disney animation has seriously fallen off since John left. We should also take solace in the fact that John is nowhere near finished. I’m glad that the true friends he’s made along the way have stuck with him and are making movies for Skydance’s new animation studio. This reminds me of when Dreamworks hopped onto the animation scene in the 90’s. Very excited to see what comes out of this. Competition is good.

I get that in an ideal world, no one should ever cross the hugging boundary without asking first. But we're not in an ideal world, and if someone hugs you while you don't like hugs, it's your duty to let the person know that you're unconfortable.

Innocent until clear evidence is provided

Possibly you've read a short story ("Hands") from a book called Winesburg, Ohio. It is about a teacher in Pennsylvania that was very tactile in his teaching. It wasn't sexual, but merely how he operated. The rumor mill got started and the teacher gets run out of town and ends up in Ohio. Not sure what he had done except that it had something to do with his hands, he remains a nervous wreck. At any rate "Hands" reminds me of the John Lasseter case in particular (and others as well). Yes some people are uncomfortable with hugs and the like, myself included. But if someone hugged me my discomfort does not mean that I've been criminally abused and the person should never, ever, work again. Another aspect of the "problem" is that women will often not complain when they perceive their personal space violated...and of course causes a problem because we aren't mind readers.

when i first read about Mr. Lasseter i thought he just had bad people skills and its just something he needs to work on no ones perfect

I never really took the thing with John Lasseter serious because I saw him in a documentary with Miyazaky (Japanese animation directior), he would just hug this famous director from a completely other culture no holds barred! Honestly I was laughing when I heard the news, I thougt some of his hugging victims has had enough and took the "me too"-thing as a reason to complain. I hope he has a nice sabatical.

I no longer put any stock whatsoever in sexual misconduct allegations. I believe them to all be malicious falsehoods until an investigation by trained professionals has resulted in a conclusive verdict. I firmly believe that punishing people for being accused of sexual misconduct is a gross misuse of power and speaks to the weakness of character on the part of the entity enacting the punishment. If the verdict is an inconclusive "he's probably guilty", I revert to my default "it was a malicious lie." Notice I said "he", because women don't have to worry about sexual misconduct allegations.

I'm a little skeptical on the story about John being too close to the cast of Tinkerbell. The cast of the franchise included Mae Whitman, Kristin Chenoweth, Raven-Symone, Lucy Liu, America Ferrera, and Pamela Adlon. All of these women are mature enough to know if John is being inappropriate to them. Only two, Whitman and Raven, are considered "young", but they're in their twenties, not naive teenagers. All of them are veterans of Hollywood who know the ins and outs. John, before the scandal broke, was awarded by the Walt Disney Family Museum for lifetime achievement and those attended included Idina Menzel and Kristen Bell (the voice actresses for Frozen) both of whom are outspoken feminists. If they had no gripes about John and are happy to work with him, then is John's socially awkward touchings really that big enough to warrant a moral scandal?

Great video Troy Leavitt ! It was a very rational examination of the 'facts' as we were presented them.... sadly though I feel rational thought is now sorely absent in such extreme times with social/online media.

Look how shit Pixar is today. Very easy to understand it was a political move.

I knew about John Lasseter's behavior from peers of mine that worked with him. They never really thought anything of it since he's always been a "hands on" kinda guy even with male employees. He never did anything sexual or made any sexual advances. He just liked rubbing and hugging everyone. It's how he bonded with others and built trust. His only crime is he doesn't know how to adult 😜

I was very surprised to have heard about John's allegations... It was a shocker after all the admiration we all had for him and work on making us dream through animation... I really appreciate what you have done here, a very smart take and analysis on a difficult situation... Dealing with allegations of such nature and also the extreme attitude of American society that makes man be abnormal at any moment or any time for anything... Exaggeration is now the new normal, and ruining someone's life is more accepted than procuring to find solutions or give people a chance when they make a mistake... I appreciate that you took the time to highlight the "hope" vs. only the criticism that is typical of our current society!!

John, you´ve got a friend in me. You´re mi biggest héroe. Thank you, John Lasseter.

I just don't understand why is so hard to keep your hands to your self ... specially if you are married I don't get it what is so difficult about that ....