Gina Carano Should Have Never Been Fired in The First Place. It is Not Capitulation.
What did Gina Carano do that got her fired?
Gina Carano recently settled with Disney and basically won her case against the company. She was suing for wrongful termination and damages to her reputation after Lucasfilm publicly called her “abhorrent and unacceptable.”
It is not capitulation as nothing she said was “abhorrent or unacceptable.”
In my opinion Disney’s attempts to get her lawsuit dismissed and subsequent settlement potentially indicate that they were more afraid of what might come out if the case moved forward to discovery. Why?
Nothing the actress did warranted Lucasfilm’s response and her firing.
It’s especially evident in the uneven handling of her case when compared to the constant political hot takes posted by other Disney-owned franchise actors like Mark Hamill, Mark Ruffalo, Pedro Pascal, and Rachel Zegler.
Zegler wished “no peace” to anyone who voted for Trump, but only got a talking to and not a pink slip.
Carano had to go through meetings with representation people and they wanted to put her on a Zoom meeting with dozens of people from Lucasfilm, which seemed like their version of an inquisition.
How is that fair?
How was politely saying “no” to putting pronouns in her own bio worthy of all that?
She never disparaged anyone, she instead supported them in another way and she was to be subjected to all of this in response.
Meanwhile many other Lucasfilm employees and other actors did not have pronouns in their bio, but they weren’t determined to be “representation” by these people.
With each passing month Carano had a stronger and stronger case against Disney based on the uneven handling of nebulous rules that seemed to boil down to conservative=fired, but liberal = look the other way.
Why was she fired?
Gina Carano was an actress in the “Star Wars” series “The Mandalorian” playing a character named Cara Dune.
Initially, she and her character were instantly beloved by the same people who wanted and still want her fired and smeared. She was a buff, strong, female character with an interesting backstory. Some thought that meant she was their LGBTQ representation.
The trouble begins
Back in 2020 people started to demand that Carano put pronouns in her Twitter bio. She did not feel comfortable doing so, but it doesn’t matter if the mod decides you need to do something.
She politely declined saying that she would not be doing so but supported those who chose to do so. So of course, those people decided she was against them since she would not capitulate to them.
For months the actress faced targeted harassment and bullying in response.
Disney and Lucasfilm said nothing. Unlike how they responded when actress Moses Ingram and host Kristina Arielle faced similar backlash.
When those women were faced with bullying on a smaller scale, Lucasfilm stepped in immediately, but left Carano be harassed for months.
During this time Carano also posted, shared, or liked things on Instagram and Twitter that leaned conservative. Including questioning masks, and other hot button topics.
Her gravest sin
What ultimately led to her public firing was a post she made regarding the Holocaust where she never mentioned any political party but shared concern for the way people were being made to hate each other over political leanings.
Her comment was historically accurate, and Disney-owned National Geographic would say something similar a couple of years in an article.
Here is what she said,
“Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors… even by children. Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?”
This led to Lucasfilm publicly firing her, implying the comment was anti-semitic and claimed she was denigrating people which was not true.
"Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable."
They never contacted the actress. She found out via social media.
Then her agency dropped her right after.
She was fired but Mark Ruffalo and Pedro Pascal could post Holocaust images and that was fine.
Gina Carano did not do anything that should have led to her termination, reputation damage, and loss of her agency.
Disney tried everything they could to get the suit dismissed and even drag it out until a judge ordered them to turn over documentation.
This isn’t capitulation. This is justice from online bullies who demanded she capitulate to them and when she refused, they seemingly targeted her. This would likely include people from inside Lucasfilm and Disney.
In my opinion, Disney likely settled because they knew they couldn’t win and if it all came out, they would look very bad.
Given how hard they fought to stop the lawsuit it is what makes the most sense.
People keep repeating lies over and over but the evidence clearly shows that Carano was not transphobic, nor did she “denigrate” anyone.
Disney might want to consider some guidelines for social media moving forward. They also need to evenly enforce any rules they implement.