Disney tried to shake up it’s marketing a year and a half ago when they brought in NY marketer MT (Marie Therese) Carney, a woman with absolutely no experience marketing films. They wanted to think out of the box.

Suffice it to say that the experiment failed. Carney is reported to have left her job and returned to NY where her kids live, and where she traveled each weekend.

While it looked like it was a bad fit from the beginning, the knives were out for her and since the day she started people were eyeing her departure. How can anyone even try to be a success under those circumstances?

I don’t know her or anything about her except it has got to have sucked that people were waiting for you to fail from the moment you started a new big job, one that was so tempting and exciting that she made the decision to commute to NY to see her kids who were living with her ex.

The NY Times posted a scatching piece on her yesterday afternoon before word leaked out that she was gone. I cringed when I read the lead anecdote about her wearing white pants and Chanel flats on a visit to the muddy War Horse set about 6 months into her job. All the guys who were with her wore boots knowing the set would be a mess. Would it have been so hard for someone to have given her a heads up? I’m sure the guys got a chuckle of her walking through the mid in white pants. It actually seems like a scene from a nasty comedy.

I find the whole thing sad. I hope she’s happy back in NYC with her kids and back at a job where she can succeed. It’s got to have been hard coming from success and never figuring out how to get your bearings. It’s also another testament to how insular Hollywood is. If you are not one of the club they will eat you up and spit you out.

Update: MT sent out an email to Disney staffers. Read it here.

In Hollywood’s Clubby Culture, a Disney Marketer’s Rapid Downfall (NY Times)

Disney Marketing Chief MT Carney Exiting Studio (Hollywood Reporter)