A new book about corruption in Hollywood details alleged racism and toxicity on the set of the popular show “Lost.”
Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood was released in early June. It’s written by Maureen Ryan, a veteran entertainment reporter and critic. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the book interviews entertainment industry professionals who worked on “Saturday Night Live” as well as “Lost.”
Ryan’s book focuses specifically on the workplace culture in the “Lost” writers’ room. Several of the show’s writers spoke to Ryan on the record, including Monica Owusu-Breen, Deadline reports. Owusu-Breen, who worked on the third season told Ryan the working environment was rife with bullying and inappropriate comments about race.
“All I wanted to do was write some really cool episodes of a cool show. That was an impossibility on that staff,” Owusu-Breen said in the book, according to Deadline. “There was no way to navigate that situation. Part of it was they really didn’t like their characters of color. When you have to go home and cry for an hour before you can see your kids because you have to excise all the stress you’ve been holding in, you’re not going to write anything good after that.”
The show book specifically says that executive producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof were a part of cultivating that toxic environment.
Lost was accused of pigeonholing characters into racial stereotypes. Harold Perrineau, who played Michael Dawson, described the issue in an excerpt from the book released by Vanity Fair.
“It became pretty clear that I was the Black guy. Daniel [Dae Kim] was the Asian guy. And then you had Jack and Kate and Sawyer,” Perrineau said, according to the excerpt.
The book said that the only Asian writer was called “Korean.” Racist comments were also made during non-work related conversations.
“When someone on staff was adopting an Asian child, one person said to another writer that ‘no grandparent wants a slanty-eyed grandchild,'” an excerpt from the book states.
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