Not unlike the First Battle of Geonosis, this fight could turn ugly quickly.
About two months after actress Gina Carano filed a biting lawsuit against Disney and Lucasfilm, the House of Mouse’s army of lawyers has responded, demanding that the suit be thrown out.
The lawsuit — financially backed by Elon Musk — effectively alleges wrongful termination and sex discrimination, all of which stems from Carano’s messy departure from the Disney Plus series “The Mandalorian” back in February 2021.
Carano is seeking two critical things in her lawsuit:
- Money
- To be recast as Cara Dune in “The Mandalorian”
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In a filing on April 9, Disney responded and made it clear that they would fight this lawsuit.
Per Deadline, Disney offered up this response in the filing:
“Carano’s social-media usage sunk to its nadir on February 10, 2021. On that day, she reposted an Instagram post from user warriorpriestgympodcast.
“The post 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?’
Do you think this lawsuit will move forward?
“Disney had enough.
“The same day Carano grotesquely trivialized the Holocaust as comparable to sharp political disagreements, Lucasfilm announced that ‘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.’
“A month later, Disney’s former CEO explained that Carano’s views ‘didn’t align with Company values,’ including its ‘values of respect, values of decency, values of integrity, and values of inclusion.’”
Furthermore, Deadline notes that Disney wants the suit thrown out altogether.
Disney is seeking a June 12 hearing in Los Angeles to address these issues.
It is worth pointing out that the characterization offered in Disney’s rebuttal is complicated.
For many, Carano’s comments about the Nazi treatment of Jewish people were neither untrue nor were they inflammatory. It was a statement of fact reflecting the hyper-polarized state of political tensions.
Is it an aggressive metaphor? Sure, but that’s a far, far, far cry from Nazism or anti-Semitism.
Disney, obviously feeling different, appears to be taking the worst possible interpretation of Carano’s otherwise rather innocuous social media comments.
Time will tell if a judge agrees.
