Disney’s Lucasfilm has fired The Mandalorian actress Gina Carano for what Disney claims are “abhorrent” social media posts. Of course, had she simply been a liberal or an ardent supporter of the Chinese Communist Party, she would still be employed.
The post that broke the camel’s back was Carano’s Instagram story, in which she compared the national political divide to how Jews were treated in Nazi Germany. Of course, if comparing things to Nazi Germany is the line being drawn, perhaps The Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal should have been notified, as he has done the same thing.
The difference was that Pascal did so in service of a liberal, pro-immigration aim.
Disney and Lucasfilm had almost certainly been looking for an excuse to fire Carano, who caused a social media rage-fest last year after mocking the ridiculous trend of announcing your pronouns on social media. Pascal, a liberal who has his pronouns displayed alongside his Twitter name, isn’t subject to the same outrage machine.
That Carano’s admittedly misguided post comparing something to the Holocaust was the final straw was ludicrous, given that Lucasfilm and Disney openly pander to a regime carrying out a genocide for the world to see. The companies have desperately sought to improve the standing of the Star Wars franchise in China, which has received a lukewarm response in the country.
Disney, in its effort to maintain its wide Chinese audience for other projects, went so far as to praise Chinese government agencies involved in the Xinjiang concentration camps in the credits of its live-action remake of Mulan. This, because Disney decided to shoot scenes of the film in Xinjiang, where the Chinese government is torturing, forcibly sterilizing, and forcing abortions on the detained Uighur population.
So, Holocaust comparisons on social media? Not acceptable, unless you’re a liberal talking about children at the U.S.-Mexico border. A genocide being perpetrated by the worst human rights abusers on the planet? Disney will shoot its film just miles away and praise the very government agencies helping to carry it out while tripping over itself to help Lucasfilm get its footing in the country.
Disney and Lucasfilm do this because they know their U.S. audience won’t care. Disney+ is a growing streaming service, flooding the zone with Marvel and Star Wars spinoffs and series that will keep subscribers coming back for more. Maybe firing Carano can once again draw attention to Disney’s continued hypocrisy, but it hasn’t changed anything before. Unless viewers change their viewing habits, it won’t change any time soon.
