Interview: “Sometimes We Can’t See Ourselves As What We Are”: Director Naoko Yamada On Why She Made ‘The Colors Within’

Large swaths of people on social media are calling out the the Disney Company’s values and ethics (or lack thereof), and its inconsistent code of conduct for employees.

Last Friday, the Walt Disney Company fired Guardians of the Galaxy franchise director James Gunn over a series of offensive tweets that he had posted in recent years about topics like pedophilia and rape.

“The offensive attitudes and statements discovered on James’ Twitter feed are indefensible and inconsistent with our studio’s values, and we have severed our business relationship with him,” said Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn in a statement.

Though Gunn was fired within a day of a Fox News story about his offensive tweets, the Walt Disney Company continues to currently employ John Lasseter, eight months after he apologized for “missteps” that made his employees “feel disrespected or uncomfortable.”

Subsequent interviews with Pixar and Disney employees revealed that Lasseter’s “missteps” were far more serious and continued on for far longer than any sensible company should have tolerated. It was further revealed that Disney Company executives were well aware of Lasseter’s behavior, and even assigned him handlers at corporate events to prevent him from physically harassing and touching women.

Allegations of Lasseter’s behavior include physical touching and rubbing of women below the waist during meetings and other studio gatherings, making inappropriate sexual remarks to female employees, and planting unwanted kisses on the lips and mouths of women. As more details have continued to emerge about the toxic work environment at Pixar, it’s become clear that Lasseter behaved the way he did because his immediate superiors – Ed Catmull and Jim Morris – created an environment that was “designed to protect male leads at all costs.”

The hypocrisy of the Walt Disney Company in firing one person over tweets, while keeping employed (and making executive producer of Incredibles 2) another person with numerous accusations of physically assaulting women, is causing a lot of people online to speak out and question the failure of leadership at the company.

Here’s a look at what some of the people are saying:

(Photos at top: James Gunn pic via personal Twitter; John Lasseter pic via Shutterstock.com)

Latest News from Cartoon Brew