Never saw the show and don't even wanna start but all these allegations coming up more than a decade after the show went off the air isn't going to do any one any good.
Hard disagree. In fact, that's something Maureen Ryan addresses directly:
Why dredge all this up years later? Because working on Lost harmed a lot of people, and some are still dealing with the aftereffects of that personal and professional damage. “It’s the sort of place where the voices still ring in your head, even now,” [writer-producer Melinda] Hsu Taylor said. “You don’t know you’re in an abusive relationship until you’re no longer in an abusive relationship,” said Seamus. In a separate interview, Gretchen said almost the same thing, word for word.
Another reason to go into all this is because, well, Lost is still around. Thanks to the streaming revolution, the shows of the golden age are available with a click or two. Complicating and adding necessary context to the show’s influential legacy is important. Plus, the tendency to engage in hero worship of “geniuses” is very much alive and well. If we don’t question the more damaging aspects of our conception of genius, we are doomed to repeat the past ad nauseam. And we’ll get shittier entertainment.
“This sort of environment doesn’t only poison the dynamic behind the scenes, it shows up onscreen in the attitudes of the characters, their dialogue, and the stories themselves,” said [writer Javier] Grillo-Marxuach. “It’s no surprise to me that the main Latinx character in the show was frequently portrayed as feckless, ignorant, and gluttonous—and therefore the butt of countless fat jokes. It’s very easy, especially 20 years after the fact, to think, Well, it can’t have been that bad or someone would have done something. Let me say it loud and clear: It was that bad, and no one did anything because retribution was a constant and looming presence.”
What remains a foundational pillar of the industry is the fact that those responsible for huge hits often get enormous passes regarding their actions, attitudes, and management styles. Very few people who are put in positions of power get the training or oversight they need to make the workplace a positive—or at least non-miserable—experience for everyone involved. If some powerful people want to act like despots and cruel dictators, no one will stop them, despite the fact that being a decent and accountable human being in this industry is “not all that hard,” Owusu-Breen observed.
“Simple decency and managerial experience,” Grillo-Marxuach said, “are not mutually dependent.”
I read through the Vanity Fair article. I'm not really surprised by what went on at the time, because I believe that that type of culture probably existed in a lot of productions. What bothered me most is the Lindelof does not seem to even acknowledge his errors back then. He can't even say he was sorry, but he's learned. That's a pretty big deal, and I am going to guess that he'll receive some backlash for that. I feel badly for the non-white actors in the production and will be thinking about this article when I go back for a rewatch, which I've been thinking about doing.
Having finished the Vanity Fair article, I have to say Lindelof comes off even worse than he did in the IGN summarization. Either way, I agree that it's pretty disappointing that he doesn't apologize for his errors. He acknowledges them to an extent but he still tries to excuse them and passes some of them off as not recalling them (in a manner that's become, unfortunately, classic). Like I said before, I appreciate that he does sound regretful about that such environment existed but I know that's not remotely enough.
I'm grateful that Ryan doesn't let him off the hook by any means and calls out the classic reactions to these kind of behaviors, grateful because I was flying too close to letting him off the hook even a little. She's right on her point that "the tendency to engage in hero worship of “geniuses” is very much alive and well" and I'm very much guilty of that.
Either way, Cuse comes the worst of the two and he sounds much more defensive in his responses, without any kind of self-reflection.
I don't think we should ever sweep terrible things people did in the past under the rug.
I read the Vanity Fair article (TBH I skimmed in places cos I was reading on my phone and it's quite long) and the stuff that went on was awful.
Hard to believe this is the same Lindelof who made the superb Watchmen. I wonder if this was a case of him (even unconsciously) trying to make up for the past, or more cynically just making a show that embraced diversity and addressed racism because people finally realised there was a market for more diverse fare?
Watchmen in particular kept popping in my mind while reading the anecdotes about his behavior and the toxic environment in general. I do think there had to be some level of growth since
LOST while doing
The Leftovers (which also came to mind often) and then
Watchmen. I don't think you're wrong to think cynically about his thinking in the later shows.
I'll be curious to see how Lindelof addresses these issues in the future and how his career is effected. It's awful that we even think in those terms but they exist nonetheless.
I'm also curious to see how, if any, writers and actors from
The Leftovers and
Watchmen respond. It's not their place to come rushing to his defense, but I wonder if there will be any further confirmation of continued behavior or whether it was something he directly addressed after his experiences on
LOST.
I will always be a fan of LOST, but I'm not that surprised by the article. I've always suspected such behavior for years. Especially after watching Season 2. Only I had thought the network suits at ABC had also played roles in the toxicity behind the scenes. I'm almost certain similar toxicity had existed with other shows and movies, and still exists to this day.
I hate to say this, but I'm not surprised either. I am shocked by the extent of the toxicity but I think even then there may have been some awareness of it. Awareness that was deliberately ignored.
I definitely recall Harold Perrineau's bad experiences and the following pushback against him. I may have even been part of that pushback, wanting to ignore even the smallest of slights against the show, even when they were obvious.
I especially recall the Michelle Rodriguez firing and that was something that was often discussed at the time. That whole situation always felt icky. I'm surprised that particular incident was only briefly talked about in this article, only coming up for one paragraph. I wonder if that might be because she didn't want to talk about it, although it something that some of Ryan's sources recalled.
It is hard to believe. And at the same time, when I was reading the article the Lindleof who was described was similar to the Linleof Alan Moore described. When I heard that, I dismissed Moore's comments because I thought it was him being "Alan Moore-ish". Now I'm not so sure.
Do you recall what Moore said or have a link handy? I'm not one to believe Moore on anything, but I also admit that's my own heavy bias against him, along with my own bias towards Lindelof.
