By Gary Symons
TLL Editor in Chief
Talk about a rough week at the office.
Toy giant Hasbro says it will no longer produce any toys featuring former Mandalorian star Gina Carano, who plays the part of the popular character Cara Dune. Carano was fired from her role in the hit Disney+ series after posting a series of controversial social media messages, she was dropped by her agents at United Talent Agency, and now licensed toy merchandise is also being discontinued.
“The Star Wars Black Cara Dune figure was released in 2020 and sold out not long after the inventory was received,” a spokeswoman for BigBadToyStore told The Hollywood Reporter in a Monday email. “Hasbro planned for another production run and we were accepting preorders from that production run. Due to recent events, Hasbro was no longer approved to produce any more of this figure.”
Carano has been at odds with Disney+ and Lucasfilms for months over social media posts that co-stars and colleagues found deeply offensive, and in some cases misleading. However, the post that led to her firing compared the recent criticism of right wing figures in the US to the treatment of European Jews during the holocaust. On her Instagram account, Carano reshared a post reading: “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?”
The studio acted quickly and decisively, so much so that Carano later complained that she learned of her own firing over social media.
Lucasfilms announced last Wednesday that Carano would not be returning to The Mandalorian or to any other Star Wars project after an offensive social media post, a Lucasfilm spokesperson saying that “(posts) denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.” The actress and former mixed martial artist was also dropped as a client by UTA later the same day.
Carano has come under fire for her social media posts in the past, with critics saying she is transphobic, racist, and has backed false conspiracy theories from QAnon and on the 2020 US election results.
In December Carano posted a meme going the rounds of QAnon and various conspiracy sites, featuring a group of men playing Monopoly on the backs of a group of naked men, with the caption “All We Have to Do is Stand Up and Their Little Game is Over.” Social media analysts say the post is a widely-shared meme that espouses an anti-semitic conspiracy theory that a cabal of rich Jews secretly runs the world.
Carano did apologize for one social media post in which she wrote the phrase “beep/bop/boop” on her Twitter bio as a way to mock people who put their pronouns in their bio. It’s becoming a common practice among trans or non-binary people and their supporters.
In this case, however, Carano said she was educated on the issue by Mandalorian co-star Pedro Pascal, who was very outspoken in support of his sister Lux when she transitioned. Carano apologized, saying, “He helped me understand why people were putting them in their bios. I didn’t know before but I do now. I won’t be putting them in my bio but good for all you who choose to.”
But Carano is not backing down after being fired, saying she is a victim of ‘cancel culture’.
“I am sending out a direct message of hope to everyone living in fear of cancellation by the totalitarian mob,” Carano said Friday. “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.”
The controversy has cost Carano dearly. Disney+ reportedly planned to give Carano her own show, but backed away from the idea due to her earlier social media tweets, and now Carano has essentially been banned from any Disney-related project. However, Carano does say she is developing a film with the ultra-conservative media outlet The Daily Wire.