On Wednesday, February 10th, Gina Carano was fired from The Mandalorian and any subsequent Star Wars features. Carano played Cara Dune, a recurring character in the hit Disney+ series.
Carano sparked outrage on social media when she shared a picture on her Instagram story implying that conservatives today are like Jewish people during the Holocaust. Almost immediately the hashtag, “#FireGinaCarano, began trending on Twitter.
This outrageous post was the last straw for people. It seemed as if news sites were running to their sources to see if Lucasfilm, the production company of The Mandalorian, had any comment on this. Surprisingly, they did!
Later that day, news site, i09.com, broke the news to the world that Gina Carano was in fact fired after they obtained a statement from a Lucasfilm spokesperson. The statement reads: “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.”
People were very much divided on her firing and not to mention that some people were accusing Disney of infringing upon her first amendment right. People were also shouting online that is why “cancel culture” is so cancerous.
Let’s set some things straight. First, Disney is not infringing upon her rights. Gina can very much say what she wants, but there are consequences. At the end of the day, she, the employee, is in many ways representing the companies of Disney and Lucasfilm. What level-headed person would want someone of that nature representing their company?
Secondly, Disney and Lucasfilm certainly did not fire her for this one post. Gina Carano has sparked controversy time and time again on Twitter over the past several months.
In September of 2020, Carano was repeatedly asked by Twitter users to include her pronouns in her bio. Rather than staying silent or saying “no”, she–almost in a mocking way–instead put “boop/bop/beep”…
Gina’s response to the uproar was that she was not in fact mocking trans people, but making a statement against mob mentality. Transgender people already fight an uphill battle, why make it tougher for them? If you don’t want to give into peer pressure, then simply don’t, but don’t go and do something that is so tone deaf.
The thread of controversy continued in early November when Carano made tweets suggesting that the 2020 election was rigged in Joe Biden’s favor. She tweeted: “We need to clean up the election process so we are not left feeling the way we do today. Put laws in place that protect us against voter fraud. Investigate every state. Film the counting. Flush out the fake votes. Require ID. Make Voter Fraud end in 2020. Fix the system.”
Later that month, dumping more fuel to the fire, Carano retweeted memes On Twitter, mocking mask-wearing during a pandemic. At this point, Gina has not only spread misinformation about a government election, but also of a deadly pandemic that has killed more than 400,000 people in the United States alone.
Disney and Lucasfilm made the morally sound decision in pulling this weed out. Star Wars has always been about hope, and bringing people together; no matter what background. Gina Carano was beyond infringing those themes.
Overall, this is a bummer. I am not saddened of Carano’s firing, but of the loss of the character. The Mandalorian was reportedly setting up a series for the character in Rangers of the New Republic.
Truth to be told, they may totally recast the character–which is ultimately better because Gina’s acting was borderline horrendous anyways!
Correction: An earlier edition of this article misspelled Holocaust and shouting. They have been corrected.