cognitivedissonance  - 2018-03-30
Thing to note about John K.:
His grandfather was an Eastern European protestant clergyman who fled the Communists, wound up in Canada, and built his own church with his own hands and ran it mercilessly.
His father was obviously mentally deranged, physically and emotionally abusive, and incredibly, intensely homophobic, especially about his own son's clearly effeminate nature as a creative. His mother sounds like a total non-entity.
His relationship with older cartoonists is notably disturbing in some ways. He talks about Bob McKimson in such glowing, rapturous ways. There was clearly at minimum an emotional romantic infatuation, if only one directional (no evidence for the otherwise). His relationship to Ralph Bakshi is frightening when you unpack it. It sounds like he was Bakshi's personal slave for over a decade, which leads to a weird understanding of how the mentor/apprentice relationship in art works, which led to his abuse of the girl. Add to it that he has an active, vociferous hatred of CalArts (deeply and irrationally), which was built SPECIFICALLY by Walt Disney to eliminate unhealthy mentorships in the animation industry. Disney's goal with CalArts was to prevent another Art Babbitt from ever rising again to challenge him, and it worked. CalArts builds loyal company men who can work within an autocratic industrial animation corporation. Obviously, John K. hates that, and although he'd never admit Babbitt's influence on his work (he hasn't and he won't), he has emulated Babbitt's persona and work habits his entire career.
There's no excuse for his crimes, and he is a criminal. There are, of course, reasons.
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