Walls Around the Boys' Club

Variety points out* the long tradition:

When animation guru John Lasseter was ousted from his post at Pixar last year, trailed by a series of allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct, it seemed like a wake-up call for an animation industry that was slowly coming around to its own #MeToo moment. Yet Lasseter’s controversial hiring by Skydance Animation just months later highlighted the challenges of reshaping an industry that many women say has systematically worked against them. ...

Women hold just 27% of creative leadership roles in the animation biz, according to Women in Animation. In the past two decades, just two studio animated features have been helmed by female directors. ...

Twenty-seven percent is an improvement over where women were a doen years ago. Then, they were in t he 15% range.

As in live-action, women have long drawn short straws when it came to key creative positions. In the thirties, to be a woman in animation meant they were cell painters, inkers, maybe checkers. Walt Disney Productions sent out form letters informing aspiring female artists not to bother going after an animation, storyboard or layout position, because WDP would only consider them for a job in ink-and-paint.

Way it was.

And over the years, the culture didn't change very much. Women made up half the Animation Guild's membership, but the jobs they filled were inking, painting, and checking positions. In the 1970s and 1980s, a huge amount of ink-and-paint work was shipped overseas, and the percentage of women union members plunged.

In the 21st century, more women fought their way into creative positions, but it was a long, slow battle. Disney Television Animation was sometimes known to have questionable "Gag" cartoons posted in hallways. The culture, Neanderthal since the thirties, continued that way. (One animation exec half-jokingly told a male director: "You're a lawsuit waitning to happen.")

The culture began to change five years ago. Women pushed back against harassment and busy hands. Directors and executives who had been involnerable for years found themselves unemployed -- Les Moonves at CBS was pushed overboard, Weinstein lost his company. John Lasseter, whose bad behavior was an open secret for years, was cut loose by Disney. Various TV animation directors with records of abuse, found themselves unemployed.

Now, of course, John Lasseter has been named head of animation at Skydance, and his hiring hasn't been met with rapturous applause, especially among women. Some of the walls around the animation boys' club have come down, but parts of the ramparts still remain.

* Variety highlighted the current thinking and culture in animation a couple of weeks ago.

Add On: And now, Disney has contributed to a new Women in Animation global parity program. ...