ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
Gina Carano fired from ‘Mandalorian’ after social media post
Feb 11, 2021, 7:06 AM
FILE - This Oct. 19, 2019, file photo shows Gina Carano at the Disney Plus launch event promoting "The Mandalorian" at the London West Hollywood hotel in West Hollywood, Calif. In a statement Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2021, Lucasfilm said Carano is no longer a part of “The Mandalorian” cast after many online called for her firing over a social media post that likened the experience of Jews during the Holocaust to the U.S. political climate. (Photo by Mark Von Holden/Invision/AP, File)
(Photo by Mark Von Holden/Invision/AP, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lucasfilm says Gina Carano is no longer a part of “The Mandalorian” cast after many online called for her firing over a social media post that likened the experience of Jews during the Holocaust to the U.S. political climate.
A spokesperson with the production company said in a statement on Wednesday that Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm with “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,” the statement read.
Carano fell under heavy criticism after she posted that “Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors…. even by children.”
The actor continued to say, “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?”
Carano, who played the recurring character Cara Dune on the “Star Wars” series, deleted the post but it was widely shared online and spurred the #FireGinaCarano hashtag to trend. Her character appeared in several episodes of the second season of “The Mandalorian,” a series about a bounty hunter and his quest to unite a powerful, young user of the Force with a Jedi Knight.
Dune, who in the second season is a lawperson on a frontier planet, frequently teams up with the title character to fight an old nemesis: remnants of the evil Galactic Empire.
Carano, a former mixed martial artist whose Dune character used a mix of heavy weapons and her fists to best opponents, had been criticized for social media posts that mocked mask wearing during the pandemic and alleged voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election. She also mocked the use of gender pronouns, listing “beep/bop/boop” in her social media bio.
