Gina Carano has been dropped from the Disney+ series The Mandalorian after a social media post which her employer described as “abhorrent and unacceptable.”
The 38-year-old actress has appeared in several episodes of the Star Wars show since it premiered in 2019, but a recent post on Instagram where she compared the current situation in the US to Nazi Germany prompted an online uproar and resulted in Lucasfilm firing her.
In the post which Carano shared to her Instagram Stories last week, it showed a black and white picture of people in the streets from the Second World War era alongside some text.
“Jews were beaten in the street… by their neighbors,” Carano wrote. She told her followers that “most people don’t realize” that governments make their own neighbors hate each other — and compared hating people for “simply being Jews” with hating someone for their political opinions.
The full controversial post that Carano wrote on social media 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.”
Lucasfilm issued a statement to announce Carano was no longer employed by them and confirmed that they had no intentions to rehire her in the future.
The recent Instagram post was described by the production company as “abhorrent and unacceptable” in the statement shared by a spokesperson.
UTA — a talent agency that had taken on Carano as a client — also made the decision to drop her this week.
Gina Carano, who is a former mixed martial arts fighter, was playing Cara Dune in The Mandalorian, showing off impressive moves as she used weapons and her own fists for the show.
She deleted the controversial post from her Instagram story, but not before it had already been reshared several times across other social media channels, prompting the hashtag #FireGinaCarano to start trending on Twitter.
Carano, who is dating Muay Thai fighter Kevin Ross, previously said that people “need to be OK” with “difficult conversations” and “different opinions.”
Days after being released, Carano happily announced that she has been hired by the conservative website The Daily Wire, for whom she will develop and produce new films.
She said in a statement: “The Daily Wire is helping make one of my dreams — to develop and produce my own film — come true. I cried out, and my prayer was answered. I am sending out a direct message of hope to everyone living in fear of cancellation by the totalitarian mob. I have only just begun using my voice which is now freer than ever before, and I hope it inspires others to do the same. They can’t cancel us if we don’t let them.”
Some of her supporters say she took the comparison too far, but she did not need to lose her job over this.
