Social media is flooded with stupidity, cruelty and misguided political opinions masquerading as deep thoughts and intellectual acuity.
Three years ago, actress Gina Carano, of “The Mandalorian” fame, became an example of the trend when she reposted a particularly silly meme on her Instagram Stories page.
It featured a famously sickening image of a terrified, half-naked Jewish woman fleeing a pursuing mob, including a boy threateningly brandishing a stick. The photograph was taken in 1941, during the Lviv pogroms in Ukraine.
opinion columnist
Robin Abcarian
“Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors… even by children,” the post said. “How is that different from hating someone for their political opinions?”
Carano has said that the message behind the meme was simple: “Do not demonize your neighbor.” In her naive way, I think she believes it.
But if I need to explain to you the difference between deadly anti-Semitic purges and fighting on Facebook with someone whose politics you despise, you probably shouldn't post these things in the first place. And you deserve the criticism that follows.
But do you deserve to lose your livelihood?
The social media mob decided Carano was unemployable and digitally descended on Lucasfilm and its parent company, Walt Disney Co., demanding #FireGinaCarano. The entertainment giant did just that.
“Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future,” Lucasfilm said in a statement on February 10, 2021. “However, her social media posts denigrate people for their cultural and religious beliefs. The identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”
That's not actually what she did, but that didn't stop Disney from canceling a “Star Wars” spin-off series, “Rangers of the New Republic,” in which she was set to star. It also didn't stop UTA, her talent agency, from abandoning hers. It also didn't stop Hasbro from scratching the action figure line that was based on her “Mandalorian” character, Cara Dune.
“I was distraught,” Carano told Glenn Beck last week. He said he also briefly lost most of his hearing.
And then, he said, he received an email from a lawyer who works for Elon Musk, the impulsive billionaire owner of X.
Last year, Musk offered to fund lawsuits for anyone who believes they have been subject to employment discrimination because of his posts.
Carano, backed by Musk, filed her employment and sex discrimination lawsuit last week.
“After two highly acclaimed seasons in The Mandalorian As rebel ranger Cara Dune, Carano was fired from her role as quickly as her character's peaceful home planet, Alderaan, had been destroyed by the Death Star in a previous Star Wars film,” the lawsuit alleges. “And all this because she dared to express her own opinions, on social media platforms and elsewhere, and she stood up to the mob of online bullies who demanded her compliance with her extreme progressive ideology.” ”. (Congratulations, by the way, to the lawyers who wrote the brief, which is a fun, if cheesy, read.)
Carano, 41, maintains she was unceremoniously fired because she dared to express her conservative political views on social media. It's hard to disagree with that. In a call with investors in March 2021, then-Disney CEO Bob Chapek implied that Carano did not share the company's values of respect, decency, integrity and inclusion. He made no mention of free speech, which is ironic since Disney would later accuse Florida Governor Ron DeSantis of violating the company's free speech in retaliation for Disney's opposition to the state's 2022 “Don't Say Gay” legislation. ”.
In her posts, Carano also ridiculed California's mask mandates, espoused conspiracy theories about voter fraud, and mocked trans activists' demands that she say their preferred pronouns, which, alluding to R2-D2, she stated They were “boop/bop/beep.” That's not transphobia; That is refusing to be intimidated by people who demand that she do something she doesn't feel like doing. (I also don't put pronouns on my signature card.)
Carano also alleges that she was treated differently than her male co-star, Pedro Pascal, the Mandalorian himself, who once posted a meme conflating former President Trump with Hitler and the Nazis, and suffered no backlash, although, as the demand, “some would find his statements “abhorrent.” “
Carano was a celebrated mixed martial arts fighter before she was chosen — out of nowhere, as she described it — by Steven Soderbergh to star in his 2011 thriller “Haywire” with an A-list cast of co-stars: Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas. , Ewan MacGregor, Channing Tatum and Michael Fassbender.
“I hope it becomes a considerable box office hit,” Roger Ebert wrote in his review of “Haywire,” “because the fact is, within a limited range, it is good. “She has the no-nonsense beauty of Noomi Rapace, Linda Fiorentino or Michelle Monaghan.”
It's clear that Carano's film career has gone off the rails. It's also clear that this happened because she embraces ideas that are out of step with Hollywood's liberal orthodoxy. It's not fair, but she became the target of rabid “Star Wars” fans and a headache for Lucasfilms, which she is not obliged to endure headaches.
In 2022, he starred in “Terror on the Prairie,” a film produced by Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire as part of the conservative media group's attempt to fight against, as Shapiro put it, “a culture that despises conservatives.” The film failed.
With Disney and Lucasfilm, Carano took a principled stance and lost. Of course, he asks for damages. And she also wants her job back. In the end, she traded stardom for a star on conservative talk shows. I wonder if she thinks it was worth the price.
