A group of women in the animation industry got together on Full Frontal With Samantha Bee to share their own animated #MeToo story.
Animators Megan Nicole Dong, Ashlyn Anstee, Katie Rice, Cheyenne Curtis, and Paula Spence recounted the formation of a Facebook group for women in animation that emerged after the Harvey Weinstein exposé. Curtis bravely shared a story, and while she did not name the individual in question, other women came forward, and the group quickly realized that the man was Loud House creator Chris Savino.
After a story on Savino by Cartoon Brew broke, Nickelodeon fired him, but unease still lingered among women in the animation industry.
“There was just this huge anxiety that he was just going to get hired somewhere else,” said Anstee.
Despite many roadblocks, the group banded together and pored over their union constitution to find specific language they could use — there wasn’t anything about sexual harassment — and brought Savino to court with charges of misconduct.
Fortunately, unlike some other incidents of sexual harassment cases coming to light in the past two years, this story has a satisfying ending: Savino was given a one-year suspension from the Animator’s Guild, and a letter detailing his disloyalty to the guild went around to the animation studios.
“You mess with someone’s friends,” said Rice, “and they’ll fuck you up.”
