Excerpt From New Book Alleges Toxic Environment Behind The Scenes Of ‘Lost’

etcanada.com:

Vanity Fair has published an excerpt from a new book examining Hollywood’s corrosive culture rips the lid off “Lost”, revealing a shocking pattern of toxic behaviour behind the scenes of the hit series.

In a chapter from the upcoming book Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood, Vanity Fair contributor Maureen Ryan spoke with writers and cast members across all six seasons, including cast member Harold Perrineau and writer Monica Owusu-Breen, both of whom are Black.

According to a “Lost” writer, members of the writing staff were instructed to focus on the “hero characters,” who were Locke (Terry O’Quinn), Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) — all white characters.

When Perrineau questioned his character’s storyline in relation to the white characters, he claimed that a “Lost” producer told him, “Well, this is just how audiences follow stories,” and those characters were “relatable.” That led Perrineau to ask why were white people were relatable, and his wasn’t. READ MORE: Kelly Clarkson Responds To Toxic Workplace Claims From Staffers On ‘The Kelly Clarkson Show’ Perrineau also pointed to the storyline in which Walt, the son of his character, Michael, is kidnapped, with that episode’s flashbacks focusing on Sawyer, while Michael doesn’t mention his son. “I don’t think I can do that,” Perrineau recalled feeling at the time. “I can’t be another person who doesn’t care about missing Black boys, even in the context of fiction, right?