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After making her Star Wars debut in The Mandalorian in 2019, Gina Carano had an unceremonious exit in 2021 after making a series of offensive posts on social media. Earlier this year, with the financial backing of Twitter/X owner Elon Musk, Carano filed a lawsuit against Disney alleging that her first amendment rights were violated by her dismissal from the Star Wars franchise. Now, Disney has filed its response, and the company wants the entire lawsuit thrown out before it goes to court.
Disney recounted the post that the company felt was the breaking point for its relationship with Carano in its filing (via Deadline).
“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 in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors…even by children. ‘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?'”
Prior to that day. Disney and Lucasfilm expressed their displeasure with Carano’s controversial social media posts. Her character, Cara Dune, had previously been planned to headline a Mandalorian spin-off called Rangers of the New Republic. But according to Disney’s filing, the company decided to change course and sever all ties with Carano because of the post cited above.
“Disney had enough. The same day Carano grotesquely trivialized the Holocaust as comparable to sharp political disagreements, Lucasfilm announced that ‘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 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.'”
Additionally, Disney’s latest filing states that Carano’s lawsuit should be dismissed “on the grounds that Disney has a constitutional right not to associate its artistic expression with Carano’s speech, such that the First Amendment provides a complete defense to Carano’s claims.”
Disney has requested a June 12 hearing to get a ruling on its filing from the judge attached to the case.
