Star Wars Drops Gina Carano After Social Media Controversy

According to a source close to Lucasfilm, the latest controversy was "the final straw".

gina carano the mandalorian

Actress Gina Carano, known for her role as former Rebel Alliance soldier Cara Dune in Disney+’s The Mandalorian, has been fired from the show.

 

What’s happened?

This follows yet another social media dust-up. Carano has become known for controversial Twitter posts opposing the use of masks in public spaces and suggesting voter fraud took place in the 2020 American elections. The final straw, here, was a now-deleted instagram post comparing being right-wing to being Jewish during the Holocaust.

In a statement sent to io9, a Lucasfilm representative stated: “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.”

There had been tentative rumours that Carano was lined up to lead one of Disney+’s many planned Star Wars spinoffs, Rangers Of The New Republic. That, obviously, will now not be happening. Carano has also been dropped as a client by United Talent Agency.

 

Was this predictable?

The Hollywood Reporter quoted a source close to Lucasfilm who claimed “They have been looking for a reason to fire her for two months, and today was the final straw.” As stated above, Carano has a back catalogue of petty controversies, and it has been reported that The Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau had stepped in to prevent Carano’s firing during a previous bout of social media controversy.

There has already been a significant backlash to Carano’s firing, with the hashtag #CancelDisneyPlus trending on Twitter and becoming yet another digital battleground.

There is a wider argument to be had about the principle of free speech, and whether it should apply to private corporations like Disney, not just the government. However, any pretense that firing an actor for the views they hold in their private life is some kind of new-fangled, Twitter-based dynamic is not merely incorrect, but historically illiterate.

In the 1950s, no less a star than Charlie Chaplin found himself completely blacklisted in Hollywood on the basis of some fairly tenuous links to the American Communist Party, faced calls to be deported, and in 1952 was ultimately refused re-entry to the United States. And dare I say, Gina Carano is no Charlie Chaplin.

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