Public posturing isn't enough. Bear in mind that Robert Iger was WELL AWARE of this stuff but said and did nothing until it was exposed. Until there is a cleansing of the culture within Pixar, damned if I'll ever watch another Pixar film.
Also bear in mind that Bob Iger has a direct report who is in charge of all HR issues for the entire Walt Disney Company.
Jayne Parker, Chief Human Resources Officer, Walt Disney Company has worked for Disney for 30 years. She reports only to Bob Iger, and every HR executive in the Company around the globe reports to her. She is based in Burbank, and would have known full well about Lassetter's sexist shenanigans, or at the very least his instances of public drunkenness at official corporate events. Anyone who watched the D23 Expo videos last summer know Lassetter was a public drunk, that's no surprise to us.
It's Jayne's job to make sure all HR policies are being followed, especially by top senior execs like Lassetter. She quite clearly failed here. If you are going to crucify Iger, you need to put his top HR exec on the same cross.
Jayne Parker. Basically, she sucks at her job obviously.
All that said, I went and read the Variety article that was salaciously linked as the "first to speak". And I have to say I was underwhelmed. Too much of Ms. Smolcic's tale reads as a mediocre employee upset at her mediocre annual reviews and mediocre career advancement.
"When I received a perplexing performance review after finishing my fourth production, it felt I’d never be equally recognized as a valuable asset by the company. The lengthy negative column listed things like, “designs too many options; seems like she’s trying too hard; asks too many questions.”
Is it possible those criticisms on her performance review were valid?
And her examples of sexism and harassment in the workplace were very vague and underwhelming when taken at face value. Stuff like...
"But Lasseter didn’t need an intimate setting to make female employees uncomfortable. He would give me, and countless other women, lecherous up-and-down looks (or unwanted hugs and touches) almost every time we crossed his path on campus. These tactless encounters made it clear that we were sex objects to him. 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."
Okay. Taking her for her word, the "lecherous" looks is one thing. But Lassetter MC'ing the PG-13 rated company Halloween party where people dress up in costumes and parade around on stage? It sounds like Ms. Smolcic has absolutely no sense of humor, or ability to laugh at herself and her peers. Or at best, she simply couldn't come up with a good Halloween costume. What were the other ladies dressed up like? We'll never know, but it sounds like adults being adults and knowing how to take a joke. Whatever, as vague as these examples are we can only take Ms. Smolcic for her word, but quite frankly I was expecting more when I heard this article was going to be "Stomach Churning".
And again I say, did Ms. Smolcic ever report any of this to HR? If this truly drove her from her dream job, I would imagine she must have made at least a couple of official HR reports.
Or at the very least on her last day fire off an email to Jayne Parker, whose only job it is to create a safe and equitable workplace at Pixar.