This is one of the stupidest addendum-stories to the Sony Hack catastrophe. I mean, the stories about the Sony Hack are dumb enough, obviously. Even if you thought your email was completely secure, why are a studio head and a major producer exchanging racist emails, you know? And it’s about those racism-tinged emails that we get this stupid story. You see, Amy Pascal is terribly sorry that you found out that she and Scott Rudin like to exchange racist emails. So she’s going to make it up to all of us. She’s already reaching out… to Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton.
After weathering one of the most embarrassing days in her career, during which her racially insensitive remarks were disseminated on the Internet, Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal is ready to begin the “healing process,” and reached out to the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
“I’m being proactive,” the executive tells The Hollywood Reporter. “And I want to accept responsibility for these stupid, callous remarks.”
Pascal said one of the first calls she made today — after a leaked email exchange between her and producer Scott Rudin became the most buzzed-about topics in town and throughout the country — was to Jackson.
“It was a very preliminary conversation, and we just talked about getting together and hoping to discuss a healing process,” Pascal said. Of being labeled a racist, she added, “I know it’s not true. And I know that doesn’t reflect who I am or what I feel or what I’ve done. That certainly doesn’t reflect this studio and what we’ve done here.”
In the wake of the leak, speculation mounted that Pascal might be forced to step down, but she says she has the full support of her parent company, Sony Corp., and her bosses in Japan. “That is completely untrue,” she said. “I still have the full support of the company.”
She also has been receiving support from the community, with Aaron Sorkin and George Clooney rallying around her. Pascal added: “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. You’re being judged on things that you said in a 10-second frame that were stupid. And that’s not my whole career and everything I’ve done. I’m concerned about that, but I’m also concerned about employees here who are being violated, and they’re scared. They didn’t do anything to deserve this. It’s very unfair.”
As for Sharpton, she said he accepted her apologies. “He was very warm,” she said. “I told him I’m coming to New York and will speak with him.”
The relationship with Rudin appears to be salvageable. Despite emails that Pascal sent to a lieutenant demanding that Rudin be released from his contract with Sony, Pascal says he is still a producer with Sony.
“I talked to Scott [since all of these emails were leaked],” she said. “Scott feels equally bad. We both feel hideously embarrassed and disappointed in ourselves. He is still a producer at Sony. Everyone is reading through these emails and trying to decipher what’s going on at the studio. I’m sure you’ve written emails that you wouldn’t want other people trying to be figuring out.”
So, no one is getting fired and no one is going to really face any consequences for anything, but they’re super-sorry, you guys. Sorry that you found out. And what is this, the ‘80s? Why would you call Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton just as soon as everyone finds out that you send racist emails?
Photos of Amy Pascal at ‘The Interview’ premiere this week, courtesy of WENN.
This is the most entertainment Sony has given me since Paul Blart: Mall Cop.
lol.
Mall Cop: A tale of triumph.
The Pitch
Kevin James is a lonely widower raising a daughter on a mall security salary. One day he observes romantic interest (Amy Smart, Amy Grant, Anne Hathaway, Anna Farris, any of the As will do) in a wig kiosk and falls instantly in love. In his efforts to win over the lady he stumbles over an evil plot to take over the mall hatched by his mall security intern (Gene Hackman, DeNiro or McKellen??). Hijinx ensue.
Abbott, you slay me!! Ha ha ha!
I’m loving every day of this Sony Leak story. LOL
Amy’s face even look insincere. Permanent Smirk!
Healing process??? Or lets just do some damage control on this as quickly as possible by making a few short phone calls? Could this be more meaningless?
Healing process, that was my favourite part. Well before my eyes fell out and rolled under my bed.
You just won the thread.
In the flesh, right here folks, a real live back-stabber! Two faced might also apply.
“Healing Process” makes it sounds like this is supposed to be some Ferguson-esque situation where the whole country needs to come together to find common ground. In reality, this is a distinctly personal f***-up by a Hollywood ivory tower dweller who now is desperate to save face and thus her career. I would expect nothing less from someone so self-absorbed.
Between the idiots from Sony, Lohan being a serious actress doing period pieces and Marky Mark being a pillar of society thus asking for a pardon …
I feel like this really is a *bitch please* kinda day…
That, or a “have mercy bless me Jesus” day.
One or the other. And since I’m grouchy right now, I think I’ll go with your expression.
Is it maybe end-of-year-craziness??? I don’t know, it feels like wherever I turn, whether at work or on the internet, people are acting crazier than usual. This whole Sony thing may be good gossip but it depresses me. I feel like now I know how the sausage is made and there are details I don’t need.
God, I’m looking forward to next year with Duchess Waity and Blake Lively giving birth and all. Happy gossip is my favorite.
That’s so true!! Everyone at my office seems to be going nuts today too – maybe it really is the end of the year craziness.
Yay for Happy Gossip! Or at least silly gossip that’s doesn’t involve people seriously hurting others or doing something terrible. Give me a Martha vs Goop cat fight vs this stuff any day …
Apparently even people working at high levels are petty and childish. Sony comes off as a remarkably unprofessional company. I’m also a little shocked at the ignorance here — no email is completely secure, and company email doesn’t even belong to the writer. These people shouldn’t have to be told that their emails are not secure.
And of course, I love people who claim that they are not racists, they just like to make racist jokes.
I fully agree that one shouldn’t write such gossipy petty emails via one’s business email account.
Nevertheless in this case a lot of the remarks were business-related albeit phrased rather petty and childish. I wonder how many emails you can’t write any more if they can just be published. So you can’t tell your colleague via email in colloquial terms at work about the attitude and habits of a client of your company?
btw.
I like to make jokes about christian religions. That doesn’t make me a racist or atheist nor a bad person.
It’s very simple: don’t write stuff about someone in an email that you wouldn’t directly say to their face. Save the harsh gossip for the watercooler.
I agree with Please to an extent. We all say that we wouldn’t do anything like this, especially if we were so high up in a company such as Sony, but we are all human and I’m sure many of us would have sent similar stupid emails. I know that I’ve unfortunately joked about races, religions, etc with my friends, and then regretted it to myself after I thought about it. We’re human…no excuse for what they said and I still think they need consequences, but let’s not be too quick to judge and just learn from it that we should watch what we say and where we say it. I guess I’m in a holiday mood lol 😃
@ Mmhmm:
Um no, no we don’t all do that. We don’t all secretly make racist jokes in private, I promise you. You and your friends are simply racists “in private.”
I think it’s time for you to have an “aha” moment and check your own behaviour from here on out rather than trying to excuse hers.
@jackie: I didn’t say we all make racist comments, I meant many of us make stupid comments if we were in similar situations/power. Now concerning what I’ve done: ive learned a lot from what I’ve joked about and have ‘grown up’ so to speak. I used to joke around a lot during my teens and early 20s. Sometimes I still say things which I instantly regret though. I know you’re not going to agree, but people can make jokes and can not be racist as a whole. I’m NOT saying that excuses racial jokes, or that it is ok, or that I support it at all. Some of my best friends are ethnically diverse, and really they’re the ones who have made me change the way I joke around and talk lightly about other people of different skin color. Now I’m just rambling lol. Either way, this woman needs consequences, but I’m sure many of us would act stupid if we were put in such high power.
@Mhhmm–
YES, cracking racist jokes does make you racist. Maybe not KKK racist. And maybe you don’t think you’re racist. But if you’re cracking the jokes, you ARE. Stop doing mental gymnastics to explain to yourself how someone can still tell those jokes and not be racist. The short answer is that you can’t. Just accept that doing racist things makes a person racist: that IS part of the consequences of the behaviour. Know it, explain it to people when necessary and demand better.
@ Mmhmmm
When you have to go to your friends’ ethnicities to prove you aren’t racist, it’s not a good sign.
It’s not a “10 second” incident. You either think that way or you don’t.
Word.
Exactly. No amount of hoop jumping or “reaching out” to “heal” will change that simple fact.
Exactly!
As usual, GNaT nails it.
Exactly. If you don’t think that way, the jokes would not even enter your mind.
I can understand that Mrs Pascal excuses for those emails because they cause damage and they were quite hurtful to a lot of people.
Those emails were PRIVATE and they were intended to remain private. Certainly it wasn’t so smart to write such gossipy emails via your business email account.
But seriously, Mrs Pascal NEVER intended to publish these emails. They were private conversations. And I fully support the idea of privacy and a “private life” as opposed to “public life” and “purposefully public statements”. There has to be a difference between public and private and this difference should be taken more seriously.
So can some of those people who published this without permit please take responsibility, too!
+1000
Email is not legally considered to be a secure form of communication, so this is not true.
The only mistake she made was to use a company email account. If it had been her private hotmail something account nobody would give a f***.
Seriously, there has to be some kind of privacy! In communist / socialist East Germany (now merged with capitalist West Germany) everything was considered to be “public”. This led to parents being arrested when their children at kindergarden age would tell what the parents talked about at home in private. That is why there has to be privacy.
And even though her published emails probably did hurt some people it is not really a giant or criminally relevant damage.
It has gotten blown out of proportion.
I don’t know what to tell you. But it’s not considered to be “secure.” Your email is not your home. You might want it to be, but it isn’t.
Also, I don’t know where people get this idea that they should be allowed to say whatever they want without repercussions. Fom the government, sure–yes you should be allowed to criticise the government. But if you throw around racist, homophobic, sexist, hateful language in any context–even in your own home– and then find out that people don’t want to deal with you because of it, well that’s just too bad for you. That’s life.
Legally Emails are like letters. Opening somebody else’s letters without permission is a crime. (Unless the intelligence services do it, apparently.) I am absolutely sure on that one. (At least in bloody good old Europe.)
Technically Emails are not safe, indeed. That doesn’t mean they should be hacked and published.
Also all these news and excitement about the publication of these emails is over the top.
I agree about the indecency of the hackers, and that everyone is entitled to a private life. But I can’t feel sorry for someone who makes racist jokes in private and is then exposed for it. I’ll save my sympathy for victims of racism, or people of color who thought she was their friend, or people of color who worked for her. She deserves to be embarrassed.
She’s a freaking co-chairman of Sony. She should have had the sense to keep it zipped. You never leave a paper trail when you’re at that level. I mean, the SMART leaders know better. Look what happened to that idiot CIA director David Petraeus, who used gmail to discuss his affair. Sony seems like a giant playpen of badly behaved toddlers.
You never know when someone could turn on you and emails are proof of what you said, rather than someone relaying a conversation. Don’t put stuff like that in writing!!
Anyone should know by now that nothing is private in cyberspace. Nothing at all.
Shouldn’t there be privacy in cyberspace?
Back when I rode a dinosaur to school and they still taught Sociology my teacher was fond of saying, “Your right to swing your fist ends with your neighbor’s nose.” So in other words, the fact that you have “rights” does not give you the “right” to do or say anything you please without consequence. If she wrote it, she thinks it. She’s only trying to save her job. And, frankly, I’m surprised that when she came face-to-face with Angelina and grabbed her elbows that A didn’t give her a big head butt.
“Back when I rode a dinosaur to school and they still taught Sociology my teacher was fond of saying, “Your right to swing your fist ends with your neighbor’s nose.””
I love this. Thank you.
If I’m honest, I’m glad they made those silly racist jokes. GLAD! Because we just got ourselves a little bargaining power in Hollywood. Sony will restructure soon and I’ll be damned if they arent afew black people on the VPs list. Jesse and Al just have to track this so that its not just a bunch of token hires with no power. As the proverb goes, one foot in makes room for many more feet.
I think when Chris Rock’s ‘Top Five’ is a big hit (it’s getting killer reviews) that will increase bargaining power for Black Americans in Hollywood – the color of Hollywood is always green. Unfortunately it looks like ‘Annie’ is going to be a big flop. The little girl who stars in the movie is so pretty, but she can’t sing. I think it was supposed to be Willo Smith’s part, but she got too old for it before the film was made.
My daughter wants to see Annie, so the movie will be getting some money from us 😉
I don’t know why some think al sharpton and Jesse Jackson are the spokespeople for the entire black race.
They aren’t. But Amy Pascal got exposed, and this was the best she could do. Another approach would have been to donate (a lot) to the United Negro College Fund, but maybe they turned her down.
They should apologize to Kevin Hart first.
I know. Like apologizing to them makes everything ok. That’s so not the case. The only thing apologizing to them does is make sure there isn’t some big media draw, with a race perspective, to the issue. But I guess that’s all Amy Pascal and the like are really after. To minimize the racist angle in the coverage.
The fact that she sought them out to say “sowwy” is actually another indication of her racism. As if two men speak for everyone!
Also, there is no such thing as saying or doing racist things without being a racist. Maybe you don’t burn crosses, but you must have racist ideologies to say the kinds of things that were said in that email exchange.
This exactly!
me neither, the majority of the people I know don’t care for them. say something racist, write a check to Al and/or Jesse and everything it forgiven. When Jessie ran for president, none of the key civil rights activist endorsed him (Coretta Scott King, Abernathy). That should have been a clue to mainstream america
I have to laugh at people who got upset at the hackings that disclosed naked photos of Jennifer Lawrence and other female stars (Why should we be seeing these photos? Don’t link to them! They’re private!) but think it’s perfectly legit to be reviewing all this stolen material, which is exactly what the hackers wanted. They wanted to humiliate the people at Sony, and they succeeded, in a sense by making most of the media their accessories.
One incident is a sexual violation of women. The other is not.
Basically, rape vs theft.
Bingo.
I disagree. Rape is a body crime – it is the violation of your body, your self-determination, and your dignity. Dissemination of a voluntary nude photograph is in no way rape, and I find it offensive that you would compare the two.
Furthermore there’s absolutely NO reason for those women’s private personal photos to have been shared. This was them nude and vulnerable with subject matter intended for a private significant other.
These are company emails from a business that relies on dollars from a general public and the public has a right to know just how racist and ignorant that company is. Much like Donald Sterling I’m not going to boo-boo over someone being exposed for trash when they’re using public dollars and public manipulation to do it.
@UltraViolet
Irene’s comparison is *definitely* too extreme, I agree. But to call those photographs “voluntary” is to minimize the violation, and that’s pretty offensive too.
It would be awful if the photos were taken secretly, but the fact that they weren’t doesn’t make it any less intrusive. Those women had the right to decide who saw the pictures. They did NOT take those photos with the intention of letting the whole world see them. They did not agree to be exploited for the sexual pleasure of men they don’t know. Whether or not *you* would personally feel comfortable taking nude pictures, you should still be able to empathize with the humiliation they were subjected to.
Besides, there’s a huge difference between reading headlines and articles with direct quotes (almost inescapable if you follow celebrity or entertainment news right now) and reading headlines and articles about the hack, THEN deciding to pursue the pictures and have their exposed bodies in your mind forever. I would know about the emails whether or not I clicked the articles. I still don’t know what the pictures looked like… because that would have required extra effort on my part, and that deliberate effort is, in itself, a violation of women I don’t know.
@UltraViolet
While the “rape vs theft” analogy I made was extreme, it was more to illustrate the difference between hacked naked photos of someone, and hacked business emails. One is a sexually motivated crime and one is not.
That being said, I think someone stealing personal photos of naked women and distributing them to the entire world IS a ‘body crime’, a violation of their ‘body, self-determination, and dignity’, regardless of whether the photographs were voluntary. So I stand by my rape vs theft analogy, although I do apologize if I offended you.
Let me just say, and please don’t be angry at me, but I would like to say thank you to the hackers for the exposure of the studio bosses and their egos going down to the gutter. I made me appreciate why I am not and will never be an actress or anything celebrity possible.
Thank you
Suck it, Amy.
Agree.
times 2
If Pascal is going to make apologies perhaps she should start with those she insulted in her emails. You know, like the president of her country?? I am not American, and my personal opinion of my own prime minister is not flattering. But if in the course of my job I was invited to lunch with him, my work emails would not be peppered with insulting comments. And honestly, for such a successful / powerful woman, why did she need to ask Rudin for suggestions on what to discuss with the president? Couldn’t come up with any topic on her own? Ugh.
LOL, just posted a similar opinion below. ITA with you.
Yes, it was weird how dismissive she was about the event, calling it dumb or stupid, and she supposedly was a supporter/donor. The lack of respect alone was appalling to me, she seems like such an ignorant jerk.
I think she just wanted to seem cool with the popular kids. Hollywood is basically high school.
Excellent point.
To me this woman looks messy. Glassy glassy eyes.
Excuse me? What about issuing a public apology to THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, whom you publicly insulted with your racist comments?
B!tch, please. Take your apologies and…
Right on!
Actually Sharpton has come out saying he doesn’t accept her apology and that instead he wants to see action. Also, word is that she may indeed be fired. She has commented that her job is secure but her employers have declined comment on the issue. I love this site but I don’t think this particular article was well researched at all. Everything included here came out days ago. There have since been new developments.
Well the thing is …she doesn’t owe him an apology…he had nothing to do with the situation…I actually think its pretty embarrassing for her that she tried to apologize to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton instead of the people she was talking smack about. Shows how truly out of touch she is.
I completely agree. She should have issued an apology to the President. I was merely fact checking this article
She made a public apology. But I’m sure she’s reached out privately to all of them and she’s “not getting through.” I have no doubt she probably tried to be put in contact with the President or First Lady and others in the e-mails and no one wants to hear her damage-control apologies.
Hah! Perfection.
As if everything will be wiped out just because you say sorry! Lady, clean yourself up, inside and out!
One of the things I saw on Facebook that made such an impression:
Throw a plate on the floor.
Did it break?
Tell it “Sorry”.
Did it go back together?
No.
Company email is not private people.
It’s Sony, Pascal, Rudin and others who should be embarrassed that they made so unprofessional remarks through email, NOT the people they slurred. Frankly, I doubt that anyone who knows them is surprised by anything here.
This has been a major PR disaster for Sony. Pascal had better start updating her résumé because if they need a sacrificial lamb, she is it.
I totally agree that Pascal is scum, but man does it kill me that the sacrificial lamb has to be one of Sony’s few female executives. Even though it’s hard I want to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she wasn’t thinking clearly from the stress of working at a company that consistently devalues women. I mean really, I can’t believe more people aren’t talking about this.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/12/05/sony_pictures_hack_reveals_gender_pay_gap_at_the_entertainment_company_and.html
You either accept responsibility, or you do not. Wanting to falls quite short of actually doing so.
I know this is the least of her problems, but she looks so unkempt. I want to put concealer around her eyes, run a brush through her hair, put lipstick, mascara and blush on her….
Jesse andd Al??!! WTF?? Hey, how about taking a long look at yourself and asking why you are such a racist a&&hole in the first place instead of trying to reach back into the 80’s for an empty gesture of apology”? god, when they “show business” they mean it to the bone.this sh^t is all ofr SHOW, cause all she cares about is her bu$ine$$.
She can stick her apology where the sun don’t shine. “Those emails are not me”?! Bitch, puh-leeeze. Whose are they, your clone’s? YOU wrote those emails. YOU sent them. They are yours and they are you. End of story.
Yep.
God, Kaiser. You chose the best photo.
Why do white celebs always run to Al Sharpton & Jesse Jackson whenever they get caught saying and/or doing racist shit?
As if those morons are some how the Supreme overlords of all black people or something? And if they forgive you then everything is okay and all is well again.
I never understood that stupid nonsense. Smh
To be fair, they insert themselves into racial issues CONSTANTLY and act like ambassadors for their entire race. My friends of color resent them for it, because it always seems disingenuous and exploitative. By turning to them, Amy proved just how out of touch she is with minorities and their communities.
This woman rubs me the wrong way and I don’t believe for one second that she’s sorry–she’s only sorry that she got caught.
Exactly.
Which is fine, she just needs to hunker down and go into shut-the-f-up mode instead of trying to plead some Touched By An Angel bull.
I wouldn’t say her job is safe just yet. Granted, I think there’s about a 0% chance she’ll be fired for making racist comments, because I suspect lots and lots of her colleagues do the same. I think what’s more likely to get her in trouble is generally appearing incompetent, and the possibility that even more damaging things might come out. There’s apparently another leak coming, and if she insults someone powerful enough, I think that will be it for her.
I like that this is just making Angelina Jolie look good, and these 2 look bad. Basically, they are the egotistical indulgent camp racists with no talent. They have not exposed Angie, they exposed themselves. We now see what they said about her counts for nought. This is good.
Me too.
Just like Chelsea Handler’s attacks reflected poorly on Chelsea, not Angelina. It comes from a place of defensiveness and insecurity and jealousy, and it doesn’t look good on anyone except the person who gets to rise above it all. She’ll be just fine.
I don’t care how many times she apologizes; it’s Scott Rudin’s turn now. The media keeps focusing on her, and I understand why she feels the need to respond (even if she’s only saving face)… but we should all be demanding answers from Rudin too. The coverage of Amy is starting to detract from the fact that he’s a vile and hypocritical and cowardly man.
She is crazy and spoiled with power but those were private emails. She is not actor, not public person. She was speaking her own nasty thoughts in private. And should not be punished for it. It’s the same when hackers released those nude photos. People have the right to privacy.
We all had fun and laugh reading inside stuff. But they can’t punish her for it. And i’m sure that if we would looks at emails of other powerful Hollywood people then they would look the same. They are all half crazy there.
Technically, she was speaking her nasty thoughts in work emails, and had no reasonable expectation of privacy.
And it’s not the same as the hackers who released the nude photos. Those women had every right to an expectation of privacy.
And it’s been discussed to death why people were upset about the photos and not the Sony hack. When there’s a sexual aspect with someone targeting young women, that crime is going to make people angrier than a bunch of rich white people getting caught saying racist stuff.
She’s only sorry she got caught. And she’s probably only saying this to avoid getting fired.
I am sorry, but can someone please explain to me why – when some public figure gets caught making a racist comment – they immediately feel the need to prostrate themselves at the altar of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (who have their own disgusting histories of making racist comments?) Note that Pascal says she “wants” to take responsibility for her comments, which is quite apart for saying she “will” take responsibility. Seems to me (and most people here) that instead of ringing up a couple of cartoonish race hustlers, she might …oh, I dunno….personally apologize to the President of the United States. You know…the one she directly offended??
Dear God, this woman has a terminal case of foot-in-mouth disease.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2875143/Sony-exec-race-row-saying-TV-deals-popular-Hollywood-new-black-baby-wants.html#ixzz3M291y1kt
Is that Ana Gasteyer? 😉