Gina Carano Wins Award; LucasFilm Responds by Firing Her

On the same day Critical Blast announced that Gina Carano had been selected by our readers as the Best Series Actor for 2020 based on her work in the Disney Plus streaming series, The Mandalorian, came the shocking capitulation from Lucasfilm to social media outrage over postings by the actress. The postings addressed historical methods of the government dividing people by turning friends and neighbors on each other before moving in themselves to take over the process.

However, Carano's first half of the example described (accurately) that this was done in Nazi Germany to Jews. In a twist of taking the focus off the methods of the oppressors and shifting it instead to the oppressed, Twitter users made the convoluted leap that Carano was somehow either supporting Nazis or dismissing the plight inflicted upon Jewish people. Regardless, the hashtag #FireGinaCarano began trending, and apparently the suits at Disney and Lucasfilm took notice, with the latter company issuing the following statement:

“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.”

Whether Lucasfilm's decision is motivated by internal factors or is the result of a capitulation to cybermob tactics, the question now becomes what impact this decision will have on Disney Plus, the exclusive streaming service that broadcast Star Wars: The Mandalorian. With a new season being perhaps a year or more out, a change in ratings would be long in coming. But some on social media have already announced their intentions to cancel their subscriptions to the streaming service; as of this writing, #CancelDisneyPlus is already trending on Twitter. Whether or not a loss of subscriptions would make an impact, or if would even be attributed to these actions against Carano, remains to be seen.