About one month ago Lucasfilm announced that actress Gina Carano would no longer appear in their hit Disney+ series The Mandalorian, with later reports indicating that the Cara Dune character wouldn’t be recast moving forward. The sudden “firing” of Carano was spurned my multiple controversial social media posts by the actress, backlash off which led to the hashtag #FireGinaCarano trending online in the hours leading up to her firing. Since today marked the annual Disney Shareholders Meeting, anyone that owns a share in the company is given the chance to ask a question of CEO Bob Chapek, with one person asking about this instance in particular.
Phrasing their question in a totally normal way, implying that a “new Disney blacklist’ exists at the company, Chapek addressed the question and accusations of political partisanship by saying: “I don’t really see Disney as characterizing itself as left-leaning or right-leaning, yet instead of standing for values, values that are universal, values of respect, values of decency, values of integrity and values of inclusion and we seek to have the content that we make reflective of the rich diversity of the world we live in. And I think that’s a world we should all live in harmony and peace.”
To recap, the end of Carano’s time in the galaxy far, far away came after Carano made a post conflating persons with conservative view points in the modern era to Jews in the time leading up to Nazi Germany. Unlike other statements she’s made, Carano deleted the post that day, but the damage was already done. An uncredited statement from Lucasfilm was released that evening which read:
“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 previously revealed that she learned of the firing, and subsequently being dropped by her talent agency, on social media like everyone else. Not to be outdone though, the MMA fighter turned actress revealed she was developing a new project with far-right pundit Ben Shapiro and his Daily Wire outlet.
Reports in the time since have indicated that Lucasfilm was previosuly gearing up to reveal Carano as the star of her own Star Wars spinoff during last December’s Disney Investor Day presentation, but those plans were done away with following her previous social media behavior. While it was never confirmed, many had speculated that she could be at the center of the Rangers of the New Republic spinoff series, which was announced during Disney Investor Day but did not have confirmation of a cast or roster of characters.