Actress Gina Carano filed a lawsuit against Disney after she was fired from the “Star Wars” Disney+ series “The Mandalorian.”
Within the lawsuit, funded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the previous MMA fighter sought to return to her role as Cara Dune and sought monetary compensation after being fired for posting her conservative perspective on social media.
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Disney Explains Why They Fired Gina Carano From ‘Star Wars’ Series ‘The Mandalorian’
Of their lengthy legal filing in response to Gina Carano’s lawsuit, the House of Mouse claimed that they decided to part ways with the previous MMA fighter in 2021 because her decision “to publicly trivialize the Holocaust by comparing criticism of political conservatives to the annihilation of thousands and thousands of Jewish people—notably, not ‘1000’s’—was the ultimate straw for Disney.”
Their legal team insists that her lawsuit must be tossed out “on the grounds that Disney has a constitutional right to not associate its artistic expression with Carano’s speech, such that the First Amendment provides an entire defense to Carano’s claims.”
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Disney Has No Plans To Let Gina Carano Return As Cara Dune
In her own lawsuit, Gina Carano claimed that her “words were consistently twisted to demonize & dehumanize me as an alt right wing extremist” and asked Disney to let her return to her role as Cara Dune as a part of her lawsuit. Nevertheless, Disney made it clear that it was unlikely to occur, writing:
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“Carano’s social-media usage sunk to its nadir on February 10, 2021. On that day, she reposted an Instagram post from user warriorpriestgympodcast. The post read: ‘Jews were beaten within the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors…even by children. Because history is edited, most individuals today don’t realize that to get to the purpose where Nazi soldiers could easily round up 1000’s of Jews, the federal government first made their very own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for his or her political beliefs?’
“Disney had enough. The identical day Carano grotesquely trivialized the Holocaust as comparable to sharp political disagreements, Lucasfilm announced that ‘Gina Carano will not be currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are not any plans for her to be in the longer term. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and spiritual identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.’ A month later, Disney’s former CEO explained that Carano’s views ‘didn’t align with Company values,’ including its ‘values of respect, values of decency, values of integrity, and values of inclusion.’”
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Disney’s response to the lawsuit was first reported by Deadline.
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Gina Carano Claims She Was ‘Harassed and Defamed’ Prior To Her Firing
Before she was handed her pink slip, Gina Carano claimed in her lawsuit that Disney and Lucasfilm harassed and defamed her for allegedly refusing to align with their viewpoints on pronoun use and political issues.
After she modified the pronouns in her bio to “beep, bop, boop,” Carano claimed that she was asked to satisfy with a representative of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination and issue a public apology.
In response to the grievance:
“Defendants went thus far as to try to persuade Carano’s publicist to force Carano to issue a press release admitting to mocking or insulting a whole group of individuals, which Carano had never done.”
Gina Carano Explains Why She Filed Her Lawsuit
In a lengthy statement posted on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter, Carano described how her lawsuit against Disney got here about.
“A pair [of] months ago @ElonMusk tweeted that should you had been fired from using the platform (X) for exercising your right to free speech, he would love to supply these people legal representation,” she explained. “Quite the noble offer, but never in my wildest dreams would I actually have thought anyone would tackle my case against Lucasfilm/Disney. Still, I did respond back ‘I feel I qualify’ & 1000’s of individuals agreed–but I didn’t expect anything. To my surprise, just a few months ago I received an email from a lawyer who had been hired by X to look into my story & many others.”
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Gina Carano is suing for wrongful discharge and sex discrimination within the workplace. She is looking for a court order that may force Lucasfilm to recast her in her role as Cara Dune and at the very least $75,000, plus punitive damages for the emotional distress she alleges she suffered consequently of her public feud with Disney and the social media controversy that followed.
