Is 2021 the year that celebrities put their careers on the line? From Armie Hammer to Marilyn Manson, it seems like misdeeds from the past or current misguided choices of words have been a running theme in the early part of this year and now The Mandalorian star, Gina Carano, has been added to the mix. Amid controversial social media posts from the actress, Lucasfilm released a statement late last night announcing that Carano, who plays bounty hunter Cara Dune on the first two seasons, is no longer employed by Lucasfilm. This means that her time on The Mandalorian is up.
The statement from the spokesperson read as follows:
"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."
Carano's social media controversy began when she began when Carano shared a Tik Tok post comparing the divided political climate to Nazi Germany to her Instagram. In that post, Carano wrote “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.”
In another photo shared to her Instagram story, a person with several masks covering their face and head is featured with the caption "Meanwhile in California." In a bit of damage control, it appears that the posts were removed from her Instagram page this afternoon but the Internet is swift and others picked up the posts and began sharing them on social media platforms. You can check out one of the posts below:
Other posts on her page that could be deemed questionable remained on her page as of this writing. One of them includes a quote saying "Expecting everyone you encounter to agree with every belief or view you hold is fucking wild" and another says "Jeff Epstein didn't kill himself." This also isn't the first time that Carano has stirred up controversy via her social media. She has attacked mask-wearing and voter fraud and in November of 2020, she made fun of people using preferred pronouns on social media by listing "beep/bop/boop" in her Twitter bio. The action was viewed as transphobic and she later apologized by saying her Mandalorian co-star Pedro Pascal "helped me understand why people were putting them in their bios. I didn't know before but I do now. I won't be putting them in my bio but good for all you who choose to. I stand against bullying, especially the most vulnerable & freedom to choose."
Carano and her supporters tried to get the hashtag #weloveginacarano to trend but the damage was already done. The hashtag #FireGinaCarano began trending even more on social media and users began tagging Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau, Disney, Disney+, Star Wars, and Lucasfilm in order to get their attention. The move clearly worked because now Carano has lost a huge opportunity and will have to sit and think about if all of the social media posts were really worth it in the end.
Do YOU think Gina Carano should've been fired?