By Lily Morris
American actress Gina Carano, who played Cara Dune in the hit Star Wars series The Mandalorian, has been fired from production company Lucasfilm in response to messages posted on her social media platforms over the past several months.
In the days leading up to the film company dismissing Carano, the hashtag #FireGinaCarano was trending on social media platform Twitter, reaching number one. The hashtag had already trended a first time back in summer of 2020, with users imploring Disney and Lucasfilm to fire the actress for her extensive history of harmful social media posts.
The situation reached a head this February, when Carano shared a post to her Instagram story comparing the treatment of Republicans to the treatment of Jews in the Holocaust. The outrage which followed on both Instagram and Twitter appears to be what pushed the company to go through with terminating Carano. A spokesperson for the production company said: “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.”
A source went on to reveal: “[Lucasfilm] have been looking for a reason to fire her for two months, and today was the final straw.”
Carano’s trail of controversies began back in August 2020, when she openly refused to support the Black Lives Matter movement, describing some supporters as “cowards and bullies”. Issues continued to mount the following month when she was seen to mock transgender people, by ridiculing the online movement of including pronouns in social media profiles. In November, Carano expressed support for the fraud claims over the US presidential election, openly backing Donald Trump’s accusations despite there being no evidence of voter fraud. She soon followed this up with a collection of anti-mask memes, which were seen to condemn the coronavirus safety precautions and make a mockery of the pandemic.
In response to the firing of Carano, fans and fellow conservatives came out in support for the actress on social media, posting #WeLoveGinaCarano and #WeLoveCaraDune as well as questioning why the actress should be fired for having different opinions. The anger continued to spike as some fans even went as far to voice their opinions that co-star Pedro Pascal, who plays the titular character in the show, should also be fired. The Game of Thrones and Narcos star has used his online platform effectively for some years, promoting liberal views and enthusiastic support for the Black Lives Matter movement, feminism, and trans rights, among other things. Pascal’s supporters clashed immediately with Carano’s, pointing out that the Chilean actor has never used his platform to spread hurtful comments against oppressed minorities.
Carano has since announced her new upcoming project with conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro, announcing her plans to make a movie with him with a tweet stating: “This is just the beginning… welcome to the rebellion.”
Her tweet has received mixed reviews, with one twitter user responding: “You weren’t fired for being a conservative. You were fired, because as a human being, you’re engaging in the spread of dangerous conspiracies and hateful rhetoric. You embarrassed/horrified your colleagues and the company you worked for. And I was rooting for you too. Oh well.”
Another response read: “You could maybe show remorse and humility instead of self importance and ignorance. You posted [awful] stuff and got fired for it. The first amendment protects your right to say whatever you want, but it also protects how others respond to it.”
One user in particular kept it brief: “This is sad and hilarious. You blew a huge career for this? Lol.”
It remains to be seen whether anything will come of Carano’s new emergence into conservative media, or whether her fans will have any success in their campaign to fire Pascal. Further questions have also been raised about whether Cara Dune will be recast or simply written out of the script, but for now, Carano’s future in acting remains uncertain.