CBS’ Criminal Minds may have ended earlier this year, but that’s not stopping California’s Department Of Fair Employment And Housing from taking steps against what it characterizes as an “unchecked” environment of “intimidating, hostile, and offensive” behavior from Gregory St. Johns, the show’s director of photography. According to The Hollywood Reporter, California has filed an “extraordinary” suit against various studios and executive producers involved in the show, including CBS Studios, ABC Signature Studios, The Walt Disney Company, and other individual people based on accusations that the show’s executive-producing team “protected” St. Johns for years. Furthermore, the suits says that the producers on Criminal Minds not only knew about the alleged behavior but also “condoned it” by taking “no necessary steps to prevent sex-based harassment and discrimination” and by firing “anyone who resisted or who tacitly evaded St. Johns’ advances or abuse.”
The suit says that over a dozen men were fired by the show at St. Johns’ request and accuses the Walt Disney Company’s employee relations department of conducting “inadequate investigations designed to exonerate St. Johns.” It goes on to say that no action was taken until the media began reporting on the allegations against St. Johns, but even after he was fired, he still received an “enhanced severance.” You can read the full complaint in the THR article linked above, which says that the state is looking for “compensatory and punitive damages” as well as “injunctive declaratory, and equitable relief” from the many defendants.
Neither St. Johns nor Disney has publicly responded to the suit, but THR says it will update its story if/when that happens.
241 Comments
I can’t believe Criminal Minds only just finished its final season. Also Mandy Patinkin and Thomas Gibson look really weird in that picture.
Thomas Gibson isn’t in the photo, or is that part of the joke?
Definitely part of the joke, since Mandy Patinkin isn’t in the picture, either.
Yeah their replacements never really worked for me. Homeland was lucky to get Mandy, smart move. Gibson was apparently a dick, kicked a writer, maybe he was buddies with the DP.
“Gibson was apparently a dick, kicked a writer, maybe he was buddies with the DP.”
Because being a dick is the exact same as being a sexual predator.
Yea he was a dick, but very good as the cold hearted boss who had no emotion. I think he should have grabbed the blonde & done the nasty…just once!
He got fired because he kicked the writer, who literally made cms what it is
Not sure if serious…Mandy Patinkin isn’t in that photo, it’s Joe Mantegna…
I think you’re suffering from ‘Persistence of Patinkin’.He was on the show, but not in this pic.
Used to be a big fan, but the longer it was on, the more SUPER criminals they had to have. In reality, most criminals just aren’t that smart! And the jet flying across the US…& were the SUV transported everywhere, like the President’s caravan of vehicles? LoL
lmao at protecting some monster because he’s the untouchable genius behind CRIMINAL MINDS hahahaha
That while better, was a direct copy of an earlier show. What is the story with Gibson being canned? Maybe he was on to something or not. Mandy quit ostensibly due to violence, but…. Paget story is better known. Better not have Criminal Mindsed Cook. She looks better aged by the way. oops sorry.Hopefully the info will get out!
Er, he’s NOT the “genius behind Criminal Minds,” he’s the Director of Photography. He’s in charge of framing the camera and location shooting and stuff like that. I doubt he’s involved with the scripts or writing at all.
r/whoosh
Something something unsub is escalating after being triggered whatever…
quick frumpy computer girl, hack into the mainframe and tell us where they are!
LoL! Frumpy? U r being way to nice!And can she wearer a shorter skirt & more make-up?
Quixk genius, solve the entire fifteen seasons!
Amazing usage in that sequence. lol
And remember how EACH agent had to explain a sentence or two to dumb police departments or even to each other, just for purpose of telling a story to audience? Silly & trite.
Not that making violent/disturbing stuff makes you a bad person, but gee it sure is a surprise that a show so obsessed with women suffering had a DOP that’s kind of a creep.
Wow so according to you folks he is guilty. Lets just forget the trial and hang the man. Sounds like people protecting Biden are OK with white privileged sexual harrasment and that’s OK, right?
You are a fucking idiot.
Shut the fuck up.
I’m not really arguing, but that means you have to question pretty much every generic procedural on TV since they all make a habit of killing off a young, pretty woman before the opening credits.As I think about it more, you probably have a point.
I mean, even by those standards Criminal Minds was pretty fucked up. They’d have guys come along every week who’d be, like, a season-long villain on SVU. And they liked to linger on the horrible things in a way that other shows didn’t.
SVU is the type of show that has season long villains?
Oh they do Truly vile reprehensible people who do things like investigate SVU for abusing suspects or for breaking the law for the umpteenth time.
No, but you get my point.
Well, they’ll have a guy show up early in the season, pop back up for some reason at the midpoint (maybe ties to another criminal or advising the SVU team like Hannibal Lecter) then the penultimate episode ends with a phone call telling the SVU team that they escaped or Mariska Hargitay coming home to find out he kidnapped her kid or something.
I think there were some arcs that covered several episodes, but otherwise, yeah, typically not a feature of Law and Order shows.
SVU and Criminal Minds are different shows?
recent, not so great SVU has season-long villains.
i stopped watching several years ago when i realized they were using violence against women as titillation. i believe this is also why mandy pantinkin eventually left.
it seems to me you were supposed to feel anger and outrage and really be rooting for the team to hunt down the bad guy. That’s not really the same thing as titillation. On tv, men don’t make good victims because the audience doesn’t care about them or justice for them. It’s the same as in real life. We don’t support male victims of violence, virtually all services and programs are for women. A murdered woman is news, a murdered man isn’t. Tv both reflects and reinforces our biases and sympathies. In Canada we had public outcry and outrage over missing and dead indigenous women and formed a huge very public taskforce. The reality was there were four times as many missing or dead indigenous men as women. They just didn’t matter, got no press, got no outcry, got no taskforce and weren’t investigated. That is very explicit. Our government made it official policy that all domestic violence was perpetrated by men onto women, motivated primarily because they are women too(instead of the reality of complex social causes). He did this in protest to being presented with reliable evidence that nearly half of domestic violence is actually perpetrated by women, onto men and there were no shelters, counselling, validation campaigns, police education programs, nothing for half of the victims of violence because it is all directed at women with a gendered narrative that can’t be called anything except misandrist. Our Prime Minister himself responded with misandry.If you want your tv show to fly, you need women victims, because it breaks our hearts, not because it titillates us. Usually the violence that is titillating in tv and film, that violence is done to men.
So Sad, Yet So True, Cosmia. They Didn’t Even Need A Lot of Gore,…Because It Was All Left to the Imaginations of We the Audiences/Fans!! A LOT of the “Criminal Minds” Episodes Were Written So that the Audience’s Reactions Were Left to Us,…and it Could Be Even Scarier, or More Disturbing, Depending on Our Reactions!! Besides Hating What Women Have to Go Through Sometimes, I Still CANNOT WATCH Any Episodes Concerning Children Being Used, Abused, & Basically Crapped On!! Don’t Forget, Most of the Episodes Were Taken From Parts, or All, TRUE Stories/Cases From the F.B.I.’s” “B.A.U.” and/Or Modified to be More “Entertaining” for the Audience. 🙄
I stopped watching because it just got too much.
I worked on SVU long ago and I am happy to report Sam Waterson is a fire breathing progressive who demands the crew be fed better food and fed BEFORE talent. He was a gentleman to the crew and a thorn in the side of the power brokers of the show. Had that gone down on an SVU set, Waterson would have shut that shit down. Same with Angie Harmon. I know I am not supposed to like conservatives, but she was an absolute pleasure to work with and could not have shown more respect to the crew.
Yeah, we should really be a lot more unsettled by how normalized violence against women is in our entertainment media.
If we’re going to say that, pointing out women specifically just undermines any relevant point. Violence is exceedingly common against anyone or anything in most levels of the entertainment industry. But stories filled with violence have existed since the dawn of entertainment in history. Not like it’s news.I add the caveat that I’ve never seen this particular show, so if it’s somehow more heinous than other similar shows, I wouldn’t know.
And the glorification/mythologizing of the police.
And that men are always portrayed as monsters day in and day out as though these sorts of crimes were gendered, when stats bear out men and women both are perps for all the most heinous things you can think of. TV just continues to propigate and propagandize women as victims and men as violent. People watch these shows day in and out with that same narrative drilled in their heads year after year.
Pretty much the reason why Mandy Patinkin bounced early: “The biggest public mistake I ever made was that I chose to do Criminal Minds in the first place. I thought it was something very different. I never thought they were going to kill and rape all these women every night, every day, week after week, year after year. It was very destructive to my soul and my personality.” Patinkin also addressed the whole crime drama genre. “I’m not making a judgment on the taste [of people who watch crime procedurals],” he said. “But I’m concerned about the effect it has. Audiences all over the world use this programming as their bedtime story. This isn’t what you need to be dreaming about.”
There were definitely other reasons mandy left tho. He wasn’t well liked by the rest of the cast and apparently no one wanted to work with him. The same thing happened to Thomas gibson except he got fired because his attitude finally caught up to him when he punched that guy.
I had to google who Mandy Patinkin was.Wow was I way off!
He surely wouldn’t mind introducing himself to you. He’s pretty good at that.
Hello……….
I’m curious as to what he thought it was going to be. He doesn’t say so in the short interview. I mean, he signed on for a procedural that’s about serial killers and serial rapists. I’m not faulting him for his views, I just don’t get what he thought he was getting into.
My guess would be that he figured it would be a show that would explore multiple types of criminals — the title basically infers as such — and got put off when the crimes on the show amounted basically to “woman is murdered”, “woman is kidnapped and raped”, “woman is kidnapped and murdered”, “woman is murdered and raped”, and “woman is kidnapped, raped, and murdered”.
He thought they’d be breaking up ponzi schemes.
somebody find out where Dick Wolf was last night.
With his good friend, Snatch Leopard.
I’m glad you made this joke instead of me. My punchline was going to be Wiener Fox.
I mean, as my mother always said,“If the shoe fits, lace that motherfucker up”
And I am sure they do
Interesting that these shows have a mostly female fanbase then.
people who like gorn should be put under psych evaluation, and possibly committed.
people who like gorn should be put under psych evaluation
Seriously. I mean who roots for the lizardman who is so slow and ineffective that Kirk is able to manufacture a makeshift firearm?
lol @ gorn. Thanks for the chuckle this morning.
Gore – yes. GORN, on the other hand, is just good fun.
ignore me. I missed a reference.
The irony here being that Johns only seems to be accused of going after men.
did it seem like the article went out of its way to downplay that as much as possible, practically hiding the fact this was not a metoo story?
It says outright that “over a dozen men” were fired at his request, when it could have just said “people” without specifying they were men.
Except that the 12+ people all fired at St. John’s request were all men. Still a creep, but he seemed to be focusing on men.
But MEN were fired….🤔
“Not that making violent/disturbing stuff makes you a bad person, but gee it sure is a surprise that a show so obsessed with women suffering had a DOP that’s kind of a creep.”
So what is it? Does making violent make you a bad person or not?
And are all of the cast and crew and producers and writers and craft services people and the hair and makeup people and the drivers and the office PAs? Are they all evil too or are you an ass making a BS false equivalency?
He was harassing the men, not women.
If the show didn’t portray violence against women it would be dangerously ignoring the reality of crime, which is predominantly against females.When it does portray violence against women, it is misogyny.Hot take.
Sadly Cosmia, It’s True, These Disgusting Creeps Have Been Coming Out of the Woodwork More & More These Past Years!!! Blessedly, With Internet, and Social Media, They’ll Surely Be Getting Caught & Put Away Forever!!!
What does it say about he folks watching it? We going to jump to that conclusion too?
Uhhmm…the IRL victims were all men. Just FYI.
I thought from the article, it was young men he was harassing? The show always struck me as misandrist. Virtually all the perps were men, and portrayed as monsters, and often shot and killed. The odd time they would portray a woman as a perp, she was cast in a sympathetic light, her backstory was offered as support for why she turned out to be a killer, and her apprehension was always done gently with sympathetic looks from the team as though it was a tragedy that this poor woman turned out like this. No one was ever gunning down female monsters. This dichotomy was remarkably consistent. The gender proportions presented don’t line up with reality that well. If you look at statistics, women do actually commit violent crimes,domestic violence, atrocities, torture their victims, murder children(their own and others), molest children(their own and others), run sex rings, produce and peddle kiddie porn. But television keeps a myth robust that such things are a result of something to do with masculinity, and preserves a fairy tale of female virtue and victimhood.
Nothing to do with women. This dude was gay
and here i was thinking it was ironic that the production of a show called “criminal minds” was being accused of non-legal behavior.
This is weird to me, because why would so many production companies cover for a DP on a show that’s not really known for groundbreaking visuals? How hard could it be to replace a DP on a show that had its house style locked from the pilot?
I thought this show was known for groundbreaking or at least disturbing visuals. Wasn’t it rather infamous for disturbing scenes? NONE of which makes it any less weird or reprehensible how the DP was protected and covered for.
I think you are confusing Criminal Minds with MindHunter. Though the latter has influenced the former the last time I had the horrible idea of checking on a recent Criminal Minds episode.
I swear I saw a post somewhere on Gawker about the the trippy, sometimes frightening openings Criminal Minds had. I remember seeing something about a crawling woman who seemed to have a porcelain face that was cracking.
That was like the first season (or at least, like a few years back I watched some first-second season episodes and was surprised that they actually tried to be visually inventive, unlike what I was used to from the show). I don’t know if he was even on the show then, though.
Hi Ed, If You’re Talking about Mandy Patinkin, he left “Criminal Minds,” in Episode 1 or 2 of Season 3,..(“Gideon,” appeared Briefly, picking up coffee at a diner, when the waitress asked him where he was going, he Alluded to “Getting Away, Not Sure Where Yet!” (We Later Found Out, When “Gideon” Was Murdered, Why He Went Where He Went, and Did What He Did!!). Joe Mantegna, as “David Rossi,” filled Mandy’s/“Gideon’s” Spot on the Team, (S3Ep6), and Quickly Became Part of the F.B.I’s, “Behavioral Analysis Team,” and Most Especially, the “B.A.U. Family!” The team NEVER REALLY Forgot “Gideon,” and it was Explained that “Jason Gideon,” and “David Rossi,” Started What Was at the Time, (Late 1970s), the Beginnings of the “B.A.U.!!”
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It was one of those shows that looked like it was shot through a piece of blue cellophane.
My dad watches that show 24/7 and I can honestly say I have NO idea what you’re talking about lol.They hardly show anything. Even by network standards it’s pretty tame, and the visuals are lackluster at best (they LOVE using that cheesy fake choppy slow motion bullshit).I think you might be confusing Mandy Patinkin leaving the show because he felt disturbed by the content for any actual disturbing images which that show definitely never had the balls to actually show (which is probably why it even succeeded in the first place, it’s “dark” TV for people who don’t actually want to watch anything dark).
Watched the first one or two seasons, was surprised at how dark the tone of the show was, every episode. Didn’t jibe with the cheesy archetypes in the main cast. Imagery was a bit dark for a show that should really have been more comparable to something like Bones.Not nearly as dark as movies or prestige shows can be, but for the networks it broadcast on, pretty dark, and didn’t really balance out the darkness with anything light.
The tone might have been dark (and I mean…it’s a show about profiling serial killers, it should be lol), but the actual scenes really weren’t. Most of the actual murders/violence/dark stuff happen off screen unless they’re not particularly violent or gruesome, and I mean even network shows like x-files, fringe, blacklist, hannibal, etc. (there’s more, but that’s just like immediate stuff off the top of my head) all had much more disturbing on screen events.Nothing about that show was original or unique, it was a generic paint by numbers crime procedural that didn’t rock the boat in any capacity nor did it push any boundaries, and that’s why it stayed on for 15 years or whatever lol.
Hi @thenonymous, Tho I Agree w/You About the Absence of “Gore” on “C.M,” Tho It Definitely Was Not Like “CSI,” Maybe the Writers/Directirs/Producers wanted to Leave the Rest of the Gore to the “Imaginations” of We the Watchers, And/Or Fans of “C.M!?!” Many,….or Most, Really,… of the “C.M’s’” Episodes are Very Disturbing to Most (“Normal People”), But for Some Weird Reason, We Still Watch, Don’t We!?! Honestly, Tho I Think That I’ve Seen Them All, I Still Cannot Watch Episodes that Involved Children, and Abuse, Disappearances, Etc!!). Also, I Really Do Like Mandy Patinkin, (As an Actor, and A Kind Human Being, (Met Him in NYC early 2001!!), and At First I Thought, )When He Kind of Left “C.M.” In a Big of A Lurch), WOW, He’ll Definitely Find Another Job, A Broadway Show, or Whatever, But I Thought, He Should’ve Stayed,….That Is Until I Saw “Homeland,” on Showtime!!! Mandy was Perfect as; “Saul Berenson,” Just As He Was Awesome as; “Jason Gideon,” (“C.M”), and on “Chicago Hope,” as “Jeffrey Geiger,” He Makes the Characters His Own, He Becomes the Character!! In Case People Don’t Know, Mandy is an Exceptional Singer, As Well, and Certainly Not Shy!! Mandy Has Won 2 “Tony Awards,” (“Evita”- ) and has Been Nominated for Several Other STAGE PERFORMANCE Awards!! As Well As Being An “Emmy“ Winner, (“Chicago Hope”) and “Emmy” “Golden Globe,” “Screen Actor’s Guild,” and “Saturn Award”(for Both “C.H.,” and “Homeland” Nominated; (“Chicago Hope,” and “Homeland,”) MANY TIMES!! Back to “C.M.” Who Knows What Happened In THIS Disturbing Case, But IF this “Man” Did Committ These Heinous Acts, AND IF It Was Covered Up,…This. ** “Old Gentleman’s Club” Member (The Way it USED TO BE), (**As Someone Replying Here Put It), …Then THEY ALL SHOULD BE HELD RESPONSIBLE!! He/They May Not Have Been Harvey Weinstein, But IF These Alleged Crimes Did Happen, Then Let’s Put ‘Em Away!! Thanks for Reading!!
o_O; Have you even seen any episodes of Criminal Minds? The average episode of any of the CSI series had more disturbing visuals than most of the Criminal Minds series. Maybe you’re getting it confused with NBC’s Hannibal, where every episode tried to be disturbing?
You’re not thinking of Mindhunter, are you? Criminal minds always just seemed like a kind of generic procedural to me, just jazzed up a bit with some pop psychology and serial killers.
You’re thinking of Hannibal
Are you thinking of Bones? The prop designers for Bones seemed to be in a multi-season contest with themselves to see how realistic and/or stomach-churning they could get.I ended up watching a lot of Criminal Minds (my SO loves it) and I don’t recall much in the way of visual gore. Plenty of verbal descriptions of violent, disturbing, and outrageous behavior, though – that was Mandy Patinkin’s stated reason for quitting.
My move loves Bones, even to the point of getting season DVDs. If that show is gory, that surprises me. Look, apparently I don’t know what I’m talking about. Either I’m having a “Berenstain B” moment, or as EdKed pointed out below, I’m aware of a small point in the show when it was different. Either way, I’m wrong and I’m sorry.
Bone’s is only gory in that it revels in the shock value of shots of decomposing bodies, including bugs and other scavenging animals. There’s no real violence depicted for living people.
Visuals has nothing to do with events that transpire. Visuals are what you see.. There’s tons of stuff you see in a TV show or movie. You may not notice it but everything filmed needs to look a certain way.
The way it looks is partly based on what’s happening but you can disturb an audience w.o cinematography.
I haven’t watched in years, but I did watch like 6 or 7 seasons. The show WAS super disturbing, but I remember it being more in the writing and depravity of it’s killers than photography tricks. Maybe I’m wrong, though? Still, can’t imagine, once the style was set, it would be SO uniquely this guy’s vision that he couldn’t be replaced without tanking the show.
Related to/friends with someone with juice?
Obviously he kept the negatives.
It’s not about the person’s talent. It never is. CBS has a documented culture of protecting abusers under Les Moonves, and despite their words, it continues after his ouster.
And aren’t grips,stagehands and rest of the support crew and such all union? Seems weird to me you could fire a dozen union guys with no repercussions at the time.
Maybe he had some ins with the union? But yes, it does seem odd, but apparently reached its limit.
I’m a rigger, I have never experienced anything like that without the union having to step in.
It can happen, especially if the Key Grip or Gaffer are complacent. If the department head is covering for the DP then they can undercut any individual claims to the union. One show I worked on the Key Rigging Grip fired a guy on his crew he claimed was disrespectful and the guy ran to the union but nothing happened. So I assume this is all happening with the various department heads backing the DP. Maybe even the shop steward.
Technically *YES* there are unions and guilds and such involved.
However let me regale you with a tale (stripped of any identifying info as I would like to work again) of a nightmare show.
Production fired people. Like ENTIRE DEPARTMENTS at one fell swoop.
They were running out of union members and were crewing with apprentices and permittees.
People would come in Monday completely prepared to walk out again looking for a new job.
Eventually at the start of one season no one was answering their phones. They couldn’t crew entire departments from the get go and had to work deals to bring in crew from sister/affiliated unions in other jurisdictions including out of country.
And this show lasted for seasons. People kept investing in it, the network kept footing the bills….somehow.
And somehow I kept getting paid behind that weak bullshit. (The joy of being SO FAR DOWN the crew list no one knows you exist!)
To this day I suspect it wasn’t a real project but was some weird kind of underground psych experiment gone wrong crossed with a particularly dense and impenetrable money laundering operation.
PA eh?
PA-adjacent/less important (yeah that exists).
.”The safety lies in being a daily rather than a weekly hire. Daily hires tend to be listed on call sheets no name such as “5x daily to arrive as per
It is REALLY hard for even the most determined person to fire any of the 5x.
They can say “I don’t want those guys back” but…..how would they know?
Just don’t hang out near the espresso machine and you’re fine.
If that’s not a burner made for the occasion, it’s excellent name/comment synergy.
Oh absolutely a burner account. I doubt any harm would come to my job prospects at this late stage (LOL no one is working right now anyway) but it would also be impolite to air dirty laundry in a publicly identifiable way.
2-1/2 men? Lol 🤔
Oh no. No no no. That would have been worse. – they ordered more . Need them now. Byeeeee!
Sort of. I mean, that was a studio/soundstage show and a lot of people love them. Every day same place, same parking, usually the hours are slightly less insane.
But there are less places to hide. Everything is right there; ordered at the top of the season. And you’re stuck on set.
Whereas on a show that goes out on locations you have:
I gotta take the truck and do a run to
I gotta go check on the lunchroom/green room/bg holding! Byeeee!
All these cables need to be counted against inventory. I have to find the inventory sheet! Byeee!
Etc etc.
Were you a vault-dweller from Fallout: Hollywood?
Blacklist?
They probably did go to IATSE, but no union that’s ever cracked a book on sexual harassment is going to demand its members go back to work for their harasser. I won’t be surprised if this asshole has multiple union claims against him.
You’re Right, Jack!! It’s So Sad, Tho, that this “Alleged” PIG Has “Allegedly” Gotten Away With All He Has,…Especially since that Other Definitive PIG, Weinstein, Was Finally Put Away Where HE BELONGS!!! Now, Women, and Men As Well, (Possibly in This Case,), are FINALLY BEING HEARD, and BELIEVED!!
The three main goals of an entertainment union are credit, working conditions and compensation. Typically, producers can terminate without any real issue, expect possibly having to pay a bit. That said, a lot of grips, etc. are dailies and so aren’t guaranteed anything beyond that day.
Coul be a case of “contracts not renewed”.
Came here to say this. Everybody is laid off at the end of the season. Nobody is guaranteed to be asked back. It’s very easy to get rid of anybody, eventually. I worked on a show where my entire department got replaced between seasons 1 and 2 so a newly hired producer could bring in his crew from another show. We weren’t officially “fired,” we just never got a phone call.
Exactly. And that’s the big problem with harassment laws against retaliation. Those laws are mainly for ongoing jobs, but we don’t work in an industry with steady work, so not getting called back for the next season isn’t going to be considered as “retaliation.” It’s a big loophole for the film industry and works in favor of harassers and abusers.
It largely depends on the contract with the studio. If you have hundreds of people working on each show, and a large studio might have several shows going at one time, you may not immediately notice a couple dozen people getting let go over the course of a season or two as long as the studio keeps re-hiring back from the union to fulfill the empty spots, essentially keeping the contract promise of using union only. Sadly, there are more union employees than there are positions available in most instances, so the spot gets immediately refilled and both sides are “happy”. There are specific rules and safeguards against discrimination and unwarranted firings with the union, but I’m sure that can be leveraged in any direction as part of the collective bargaining that happens behind closed doors.
I’m sure they are paying them out. Probably cheaper to do that then deal with the government and public fall out.
I didn’t read that they were union guys. Probably a dozen PA and assistants – who are usually young women or males. The DP isn’t going so harass a bunch of Grips.
Yes, the people who work under a DP (typically camera, key grip and grips, as well as electricians and lamp operators) are all IATSE as well, although different local numbers. There is a ton of paperwork that is signed by everyone on their first day of work that explicitly says you can’t harass people at work that it says you will be fired if it happens. There are anonymous phone numbers people can call as well to report abuse, although no one really does unless it’s something really bad. If the people working under an asshole didn’t report it then it’s on them.
They did report it. Investigations were started and they went nowhere. Reporting is only the first step, the investigation the follows usually involves an attempt to corroborate the claim, and if one grip reports something but NONE of the other grips, including the Key and Best Boy, doesn’t back him up, then that investigation stalls because it is just his word. They can’t fire them outright, but when the season gets renewed they can just not get asked back.
I’ve worked on a film set before and at least two of our crew were keeping a log of hours and getting them signed off on by one of the managers so that they could join their respective unions. So I think you have to work so many non union hours before you are eligible for a union. It is entirely possible that there were non union workers on the show.
I think sometimes you have to work a certain amount of jobs before you get entry into those unions. If the accusers were union and the unions didn’t do anything, then that is another issue.
There’s this thing called the “old boys’ club.”Seriously, it’s the same reason anyone gets away with obvious on-the-job harassment: Someone with enough power likes them enough to protect them, and doesn’t really care that doing so means that others are suffering.
You’re assuming it’s merit based when it’s probably just powerful awful people having each other’s backs.
CBS execs: avoid our friend getting in trouble…
ABC execs: CBS guys say they have it under control…
Disney execs: please, just avoid a scandal…
Well it was on CBS which was home to such noted sexual harrassers as Les Moonves and Michael Weatherly so it tracks that CBS didn’t really care or felt any need to put a stop to it rather than just ignore it or cover it up.
… Would it matter if Kubrick was the DP? The ability to replace a DP and maintain the shot looks _should be_ on the order of an order of magnitude less important than dealing with the HR issue.
TV crews can be fiercely loyal to DPs. The DP not only has the Camera crew under his influence, but also the Gaffer/Lighting Department, abs Grip Departments. The DP, Gaffer, Key Grip, and sometimes even the Production Designer all end up being close throughout a season. And if they are all males the. They have “boys club” type of thing happening. Most UPMs and Line Producers don’t want to force out DPs for fear they’ll loose a bunch of other crew of the DO is well respected.
I have been back from Taiwan for over a year and still can’t seem to get many friends. Granted this virus thing messed things up To making friends
I just assumed he was friends with the producer the entire time I was reading, clearly they should also be fired.
on a show that’s not really known for groundbreaking visualsIt’s possible that he’s effectively directing episodes. It’s not terribly uncommon for a DP to be the defacto director when the director isn’t carrying their weight.
Here’s what you need to know:
Does the show turn a profit?
If yes, the studio is going to wipe every discretion under the rug.
How long have you and your alien armada been on this planet that you haven’t seen male solidarity before?
Right? That was my first thought, too. My second was that he had incriminating evidence of *something* on his bosses.
Hollywood seems to all be part of some big club or cult that thrives on sexual abuse, manipulation and pedophilia. They all work together to protect one-another.
But who developed that house style? St. John started as a camera operator in the first season of CM, then escalated to DP and cinematographer from season 2. That implies he was responsible, at least in part, for developing that style.
Yeah I’m thinking how can the DOP have that kind of pull on a TV show?
They protected him becsuse he was more to them than we know. He might have known something about a big wig there that the guy didnt want to get out in public….we will likely never know however generally that is the reason folks will uneeasonable protect someone.
Not hard, they just didn’t want too because he obviously was in with EP’s such as Mark Gordon.
This show airs on CBS you say? The same network with Michael Weatherly and Marv Albert? Quelle surprise.
Moon Vest
Give me your fingernails!
Agreed. Seems like a pattern there.
So weird that there would be old-timey inappropriate behavior from CBS. They have progressive programming, like that comedy about how a white man has to live next door to a black man! Or that cancelled comedy about how a mom wanted to have a job, what’s up with that?
Are you talking about Mom, that show about a mother and daughter struggling to overcome their addictions, while the daughter ultimately succeeds at her goal of obtaining a law degree? Or do you mean Two Broke Girls, the show about two down-and-out young ladies killing it?Neither of those sound progressive! At ALL! /sSeriously, if The Neighborhood strikes you as offensive, maybe you should stick to Netflix documentaries.
They also made “The Good Wife”, make “The Good Fight”, and “Picard”. Yes, a lot of the line-up is fucking garbage (I mean, “Blue Bloods”… read the room, CBS…), and literally everything made by Chuck Lorre. But even if they mostly suck and are often ripe for shitting upon, doesn’t meant that we should contribute to the issue by failing to make a note of some of the actually excellent and not-shitty programs they actually have put up.
Oh, for sure. CBS also runs The CW and I consume about 70% of their programming, so I shouldn’t run my mouth so much. They’re an easy target, but that doesn’t mean I always have to shoot at it. 🙂
But Thomas Gibson got shitcanned for getting into verbal arguments with two assistant directors.
He hit one of them. That’s what got him the boot.
He allegedly kicked one of them. Considering it apparently happened after Gibson informed the producer that there’s a contradiction on the script the producer wrote, there’s a good reason to doubt the producer here.
Gibson also got sent to anger management classes for behavior during his tenure on Criminal Minds. I’d say there were issues.
Sure did! I remember that. Think he kicked someone too.
One of the producer said Gibson kicked his shin, though since it was a producer vs an actor, who knows what actually happened. It happened after Gibson apparently told the producer(who was also a writer) that there was a contradiction in what his character said in two separate scenes, and the producer insisted the contradictory line has to be there anyway.I’m personally on Gibson’s side here.
Marv: Now they’re saying it was a groping
Let’s not forget former CEO Les Moonves.
Marv Albert is your go to example there ?
Les “Trump will ruin the country but he sure makes for great ratings hyuk hyuk” Moonves
And Charlie Rose.
Watched season one for something like five minutes as a police procedural back when it aired before moving on.Kind of ick as a show…….Planning out that sort of content day in day out for seasons…..I hate to say it takes a type, but yeah it actually does take a type.
This title made me think that all the main actors had gotten together to regularly pee on kittens or something. I mean, this is terrible too, but “everyone involved” to me means actors, directors, writers, grips, hands, folks like that, not a bunch of faceless production companies.
Ah, but then would you have clicked on it? Would they have gotten your click?
All corporations involved are gonna settle out of court. The plaintiffs want the money and the corporations don’t want to make an apology -even though that’s exactly what society needs most is for the “corporate brand(s)“ to get the attention they deserve.
CBS is notorious for letting creeps stay on. Les Moonves anyone? The guy from Bull?
You mean Dr. Phil? It’s hard to keep these assholes straight sometimes.
Indeed, Sheldon’s reign of terror continues unabated.Sheldon. More like Smelldon, amirite?
I hear Shelldon has mastered bating.
David Letterman also
people who like gore and gorn should be watched closely. this includes some of the io9 writers.
If loving this guy is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
I’m pretty sure every writer on IO9 is watched more closely than most people that walk down streets with assault rifles slung over their shoulders where everyone can see them.
you might be surprised at the overlap.
To be fair, we should absolutely be watching the gun nuts too.That said, the simple act of owning a gun isn’t troubling by itself. Weirdly enough, there actually are sane, sensible, intelligent gun owners out there – they’re just about as rare as snowcones in the Sahara.The troubling thing isn’t simple gun ownership, it’s gun culture.
By the same token, it’s one thing to be able to handle gore, but it’s quite another to intentionally seek it out and want to see it for fun.
Weirdly enough, there actually are sane, sensible, intelligent gun owners out thereThe greatest majority are, actually. You might be surprised to find out who owns a gun. They don’t advertise because of the attitude that every gun owner is compensating for a small something or other, is a wannabe LARPer living in mom’s basement, a racist redneck, or actual Nazi.
The troubling thing isn’t simple gun ownership, it’s gun culture.The primary people I want to deny the right to own a gun are the people who won’t shut up about their right to own a gun.
What? Freedom of Speech issue? I’m tired of people talking about no need for the Second Amendment but I don’t deny their right to express it. To each their own.
Can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not but sane (etc.) gun owners are not rare, they’re plentiful, you just don’t know about them because they don’t peacock around with their weapons like some of these right-wing lunatics making the news these days.
That’s true, there are some people who genuinely need to fend off rampaging bears. Or hunt seals because there’s no other source of food until the snow melts. Or invade Afghanistan. And I guess it’s legitimate for a small number of people to collect 17th century weaponry, although of course in those cases the gun should be rendered inoperable.The other 99% of gun owners, however, should probably be arrested preemptively…I mean, the first and best indicator that a given gun-owner is too irresponsible to be trusted with a gun is the fact that they own a gun (an implement with virtually no legitimate uses, that’s also extremely dangerous). That should be an immediate red flag.The same is true of bomb owners, incidentally. And people with pet alligators.
“By the same token, it’s one thing to be able to handle gore, but it’s quite another to intentionally seek it out and want to see it for fun.”
No it isn’t, you judgmental fucking cunt. Go fuck yourself.
Spoken like somebody who doesn’t have any gun-owning friends.You’re succumbing to bias; you only see the crazy folks on tv, so you assume that all gun owning people must be crazy. Most are quiet, and don’t feel a need to tell you about their guns, unless they’re talking about guns with other gun-owners (like people in any other hobby will do).Source: lots of gun owners in the military & veteran community.
I own plenty of guns, and I’m about as much of a centrist as one can get, swinging left on more things than right. But, I also don’t fetishize them with the jingoistic ferver that many people (read: conservative) do. I certainly dont think it’s weird or strange that there are sane and stable gun owners, there are certainly more than there are insane and unstable owners. Hell, I’d say there are more gun owners that aren’t part of the NRA than are, statistically speaking. But, this all comes back to the vocal-minority social media problem we all suffer through. The most extreme are the always the loudest.
i’ve never been so glad to be still in the greys.
Lol this is dumb.
People who like horror movies/TV are mentally unstable? Okay, Tipper.
No one under the age of 40 will get that reference. Lol
There’s gore and there’s gore. People have different reasons for liking weird stuff, some of those reasons more comprehensible than others. I find violent horror movies paradoxically reassuring because they take something tragic and fearful and recontextualize it as gross and kind of silly. That said, I don’t enjoy movies about sadism (or rape) because the new context is usually so nihilistic that it defeats the purpose. That said, if an adult can’t clearly explain why they like horror movies, it makes me really uneasy. Police procedurals about rape on network TV are really in a league of their own, though. Network standards allow them to be violent but not grueling or nihilistic. Instead, violence is simply incorporated into a reassuring moral fantasy where the police punish the guilty party. The format of the show is formulaic and predictable, and moral universe is balanced at the end of the story, so the audience can simply leer at the events unfolding onscreen without having to invest emotionally in what’s unfolding. These are the exact criticisms that were leveled at slasher movies in the 1980s, only in that situation the perceived target audience was young people, and it led to a slow-boiling moral panic. The audience for procedurals is older, so they don’t inspire the same response, even though they’re a much larger part of the cultural landscape.
What is gorn? Google scares me. Xplain please?
ST. who now? And director of what now? Unless he’s mobbed up or blackmailing big wigs, I can’t see three major studios protecting this guy unlike the other stories I hear with series show-runners.
Even Paget Brewster?
Especially Paget Brewster.
Even A J Cook?
So help me god, if he laid a finger on that national treasure of Canada.
Ever seen her in a tight skirt? Ooh la la.
She’s in an episode of 2 & 1/2 Men and is absolutely smoking hot. They kind of hide it in criminal minds be she is sexy as hell.
To be fair, she slept with her co-star the night after fighting with Chandler (which was his mistake) without going through proper “we were on a break” channels
It is kind of amazing how long people will cover for someone even when they’re behaving badly. Not making any excuses for anyone, but sometimes if the person in question has enough pull or is friends with the powers that be they can get away with things for a long time. There’s a long history of crew members getting away with shit, like the stunt guy who molested Eliza Dushku on “True Lies.” You just know that asshole did it to other women in the past but never got called out for it. Or the fact that big stars like Kevin Spacey pretty much got away with murder when harassing male crew members for so long. Hollywood sets can be just like any big company – if you complain and make too many waves, you run the risk of being blackballed at other places when looking for a job. It’s only recently that people have been a lot more sensitive to these issues though shit is still being swept under the rug. And DPs can have a fair amount of power on set, as compared to a PA who could be shit-canned in two seconds for crossing the line.
Here’s what I take from this: I am glad I never watch CBS. I don’t know what the fuck happened, but it looks like a bad show.
My GF is currently watching Criminal Minds from the beginning as her coronavirus escape watch. Now I have to decide whether to tell her about this and ruin it for her or let her have her (morally and aesthetically reprehensible even before this but what can you do) guilty pleasure.
“Enhanced severance” sounds like something a show like this would use as a punchline. Like, a sexual abuser gets let go from his company but still gets a massive retirement bonus, then someone kills him and cuts off his dick. And one of the characters says, “Boy, talk about enhanced severance”.
if only…
Now I miss the alternate world where Lennie Briscoe was the lead detective on SVU.
I miss Lennie Briscoe, period. Seemed one of the better characters in that series.
Funny
“Furthermore, the suits says…”accidental pluralization here
Damn, Tommy Chong’s with the FBI now?
Meanwhile, those people are still fired.
WHAT THE HELL!! Say What.
Wow, this was actually a real news story! From the headline I thought maybe California was taking action against the show and the hanging-0n actors for being a trite, overblown cop show with ridiculous fake private jet scenes.One would think by now this show and Law and Order SUV have staged every possible gruesome, sadistic plot line imaginable.
I attempted to watch the series a couple times and found it to be sick and voyeuristic in the depictions of its crimes, like they were getting off on showing sadistic behavior. Say what you want about ‘Law and Order SVU’ but at least they didn’t linger voyeuristically on shots of random women being tortured and raped.
I work in a children’s hospital, and these kinds of shows are playing as background noise in toddlers’ hospital rooms a disturbing amount of the time. It’s not even the parents watching them most of the time, it’s just that someone turned on basic cable during daylight hours, and there was a procedural playing.
How many fingers does the DA have on their right hand?
The MOST intriguing part of this article are all the comments that feign surprise by any part of this story! Some of the comments sound as if they are from experienced crew members. If that is indeed true, crew members should be WELL AWARE of the abuse of power and lack of ethics and integrity that takes place within MANY productions and on sets. This behavior is the “NORM”… not an anomaly. But “WHITE PRIVILEGE” allows “WHITE FOLKS” to both victimize and pretend it doesn’t exist at the same time, while enjoying the benefits of said “WHITE PRIVILEGE”!
Producer here… can confirm my business is a giant cesspool of bullshit of epic proportions. I’ve shut down productions for shitty behaviours. I’ve also quietly found people other jobs and ushered them out the backdoor before things got out of hand with some of the more questionable characters I have been forced to work with.I don’t know what it is about film that attracts so many dirtbags either. I’ve had a lot of varied jobs in my life, and the only other industry I’ve worked with as many misogynists and just outright predators was working as a bartender in the 90’s. I can’t fathom how these assholes keep getting jobs. I certainly avoid hiring them.
“I don’t know what it is about film that attracts so many dirtbags either.”Liberalism.
That is weird and ilogical. Come on Cali! The fuck? It could also be for money and needed and excuse to sue someone. That sounds more logical.
More than likely, he was a DP/EP, and had a stake in the show, which is why he received a healthy severance. This would not be unheard of, in the entertainment industry. Changes are happening, oh so slowly, but nevertheless. It’s still a male dominant, and an old white male at that, that believes they are God like and have total control over everyone. And we know what happens with people in power!
Ignoring the story I just want to talk about the headline. Where is there any journalism today? The headline is so misleading it is not even close to being true. They are not taking legal action against EVERYONE INVOLVED with the show (with the picture shown being the actors). Perhaps those involved with the production of the show. But that is not the same thing.
He’s also a Hillary backer and Trump hater
WAIT.wait wait wait.You’re telling me a production company protected a predator? Tell. me. MORE.unrelated: I have a theory that the longer a series goes, the more luxurious the hair of the main characters. I firmly believe this absent of actual investigation.
Definitely for the blond chick
I love Padget Brewster like a fat little baby loves the teet, but there are some later season bangs of ill repute that blow your univestigated investigation right out of the water!
Obviously this St. Johns guy had something on someone very powerful at the network or production company. Compromising photos of an exec cavorting with St Johns, or something along those lines.Maybe it’s just me living in NYC, but how did this guy screw with union members for years and not end up with his legs broken, or floating in the Pacific?
Lol if only they knew how some Key Grips acted towards their crew…
They need to hire a lovable loner of a hacker to dig in on this guy and zoom in on grainy online photos of him, then he’ll be done.
Leftist elite Hollywood being Leftist elite Hollywood. What’s new?
the unsub has stringy head hair, pointy facial hair, and definitely was really a pornographer they went down to Criminal Minds and their case was looking fie-hee-yai-yine
Wait… Criminal Minds isn’t pornography?
Murderpooooorn gimme those nice deep colors
Running red in the gutters
Makes you think all the world’s an abbatoir oh yeah
If you took all the girls I killed when I was single
And brought ‘em all together for one night
That would be my storage shed out in Long Island
Where I bang their body parts all night Murderpoooorn
a) rhyming “night” with “night” has been approved by Kanye
b) “Kodachrome” is the best song for song parodies: Yodaclooooooone, COVIDtoeeeeeees
Uh, is anyone surprised by this? I’ve seen this show close with Ayn Rand quote and then refer to her as a “philosopher.”
Philosopher is not a restricted title. Sideshow Bob’s toenail clippings can call themselves philosophers if they want. And they’d still be better at it than Ayn Rand.
Oh, Cousin Merle, REALLY!
That article made no sense to me. Maybe it needs some background or context. I see more and more journalism like this. All I could glean was that gov’ment is interfering with private business again. My guess is that the recent journalism is no longer a desirable vocation for bright people. My Thai high school students can write more clearly than this writer. My students would begin with an introductory paragraph and explain what “Criminal minds” might be.
Letting all this happen, just to continue making a shitty mid-aught’s CSI clone the same way; what a fucking dumb hill to die on.
Now only if this could happen on the political stage…
Most unions are in place these days to protect the guilty and fight for those who don’t deserve to be protected. Those who should be stood up for usually are not. I was a union Vice President of my local for 3 years. There was a wire mix up and I was able to locate the wire mixup and seperate it and bring it to my supervisors office. He then wrote me up for the wire mix up???? Handed me the write up in front of all the workforce and then argued with me in front of everyone. I filed a grievance for his harassment of me and during the initial stage of the investigation the union meets with the company to discuss the grievance and the guy I filed the grievance for harassment against was leading the meeting for the charges, sounds about right, I like my chances
So Thomas Gibson (arguably the star of the show at the time) gets fired for kicking a producer but this, which if true is at best just as bad and gets away with it?
I am sure the execs at CBS Studios, ABC Signature Studios, The Walt Disney Company are so proud of themselves. How does a creep like this keep working and firing people? As to the HR Dept at Disney what a joke! Like they are there to protect the powerful not the vulnerable.
So here we have a scumbag who has powerful friends who managed to cover for him for years for going after guys on the set yet he gets enhanced severance?? Wow he really was held accountable. also “condoned it” by taking “no necessary steps to prevent sex-based harassment and discrimination” and by firing “anyone who resisted or who tacitly evaded St. Johns’ advances or abuse.” Disney, CBS and NBC should be ashamed of themselves. As should the writer of the story. No details on what really happened nor how much his severance was nor is he still working anywhere? He would frequently grab his inner thighs, flick his nipples, and at one point grabbed his genitals. told Variety that his genitals were intentionally touched by St. Johns “no fewer than four times.” He described the DP “using the back of his hands to rub your balls, almost like a dominant thing.” He said that during the show’s second or third season he reported St. Johns’ groping to a senior staffer, who told him that it would be looked into. Now here is the rest of the story, but no surprises. I worked in Corp America in retail gas and this would never happen or at least I never saw nor heard of hit and I worked with minimum wage folks all the time. How did this stay hidden for so many years? Oh right Hollywierd.