Actress and former MMA fighter Gina Carano has been fired from the cast of the Disney+ Star Wars series The Mandalorian, following online outrage over a social media post that likened the murder of Jews during the Holocaust to the current U.S. political climate.
A spokesperson for Lucasfilm said in a statement on Wednesday that Carano is not currently employed by the production company with ‘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,’ the statement read.
Talent agency UTA has also dropped Carano as a client following the controversy, according to Variety.
Carano fell under heavy criticism after she posted on Instagram Stories that ‘Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors…. even by children.’
The post continued: ‘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?’
Actress and former MMA fighter Gina Carano has been fired from the cast of the Disney+ Star Wars series The Mandalorian following a controversial social media post
Carano’s post (right) likened the experience of Jews during the Holocaust to the current U.S. political climate. Lucasfilm called the post ‘abhorrent and unacceptable’
Carano, who played the recurring character Cara Dune on the ‘Star Wars’ series, deleted the post but it was widely shared online and spurred the #FireGinaCarano hashtag to trend.
Her character appeared in several episodes of the second season of ‘The Mandalorian,’ a series about a bounty hunter and his quest to unite a powerful, young user of the Force with a Jedi Knight.
Dune, who in the second season is a lawperson on a frontier planet, frequently teams up with the title character to fight an old nemesis: remnants of the evil Galactic Empire.
Carano, a former mixed martial artist whose Dune character used a mix of heavy weapons and her fists to best opponents, had been criticized online for social media posts.
In some, she mocked mask wearing during the pandemic and promoted claims of voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election.
On Wednesday- before news of her termination was announced – Carano posted a picture to her Instagram story that included the phrase ‘Jeff Epstein didn’t kill himself’ – a reference to conspiracy theories that the pedophile billionaire was murdered.
Before news of her termination was announced, Carano posted a picture to her Instagram story that included the phrase ‘Jeff Epstein didn’t kill himself’
Carano is seen with cast of The Mandalorian at the show’s 2019 premiere
Her character appeared in several episodes of the second season of ‘The Mandalorian,’ a series about a bounty hunter and his quest to unite a young user of the Force with a Jedi Knight
She also mocked the use of gender pronouns, listing ‘beep/bop/boop’ in her social media bio after some expressed outrage that she did not list any pronouns in her bio.
Last month, Carano opened up about facing backlash from the Star Wars community over her conservative and anti-mask tweets amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The actress spoke with YouTuber Drunk 3PO in a candid interview about her controversial social media presence.
‘People need to be OK with having conversations,’ she told the host. ‘With having difficult conversations, with having different opinions. What’s wrong with having a different opinion?’
She continued: ‘Why does everybody have to straight go to demoralizing because maybe they just didn’t think the way you did?’
The actress also noted that she is not deterred by critics and stays vocal to prevent them from controlling Twitter and other social media platforms.
‘My whole perspective on this is, I’ve seen people get bullied off of Twitter on both sides,’ the former MMA fighter explained. ‘I don’t like bullying, and If I don’t stay present, which I don’t even necessarily want to stay present that often, I want to make art, art is my passion, but if I don’t stay present then other people win.’
She continued: ‘Other people win in bullying people off of platforms and there needs to be a more balanced platform.’
Insisting she won’t be silenced, the Texas-born performer pointed out that ‘a lot of people are not bothered by’ her presence on Twitter and she chooses to focus on her fans.
‘I bring the fire out in people. I’m not sure why,’ she said just weeks after sharing a snarky meme of two people putting face masks over their eyes like blindfolds.
Fallout from Carano’s firing was swift online, and the terms ‘Gina Carano’ and ‘Nazi Germany’ began trending on Twitter on Wednesday night as a result of her post.
While those who had called for her firing cheered Lucasfilm’s move, conservatives rallied to support Carano and even claimed that her firing was evidence of her premise.
The hashtag #CancelDisneyPlus was also trending, apparently driven by conservatives vowing to cancel the streaming service over the controversy.
‘Gina Carano’s post made the point that mass violence starts with hatred for your neighbor. This is not only uncontroversially true but also one perspective of the commandment to love your neighbor,’ tweeted Daily Caller associated editor Katrina Haydon. ‘That idea is not a call to empty niceness. It’s how you prevent suffering.’
And Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway wrote: ‘We canceled our @Disney subscription tonight.’
Political commentator Dave Rubin wrote: ‘Disney has cancelled @ginacarano , so I’m cancelling my @disneyplus . We need to stop giving these people our money and we must build new franchises.’
‘Gina Carano was fired for being conservative,’ wrote conservative activist and Parkland shooting survivor Kyle Kashuv.
However, others celebrated Lucasfilm’s move to disavow Carano, saying the was the fate she deserved.
‘Turns out that when you publicly support and encourage authoritarianism and fascism, you reflect poorly on your employer and they want nothing to do with you,’ one person tweeted.
‘Watching Republican after Republican just lose everything because of how s***y of a person they are is my favorite past time,’ another wrote.
