If you’ve ever wondered why so many “canceled” people resort to publicly denouncing their previous statements, and decide to profusely and abjectly apologize – The Mandalorian star Gina Carano, who was recently fired by Lucasfilm, is now shedding some light on that topic.
These apologies may not be as sincere as they are supposed to sound and may in fact be “scripted” and coming under pressure. In conversation with Bari Weiss, a former New York Times columnist, Carano revealed that Lucasfilm and Disney tried to make her apologize over one of the earlier controversies on social media – when she was attacked online for refusing to add her pronouns to her bio.
Carano, who is conservative and was eventually fired for re-sharing an Instagram post that compared current political and social climate to that in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, said that last year, ahead of The Mandalorian launch, the entertainment industry giants wanted her to use “their exact wording for an apology over pronoun usage.”
She told Weiss that she refused and instead came up with her own statement, that explained her intention was not to mock transgender people, but to speak against “the abuse of the mob in forcing people to put pronouns in their bio.”
What followed was Lucasfilm blacklisting her from all press and promo events for The Mandalorian. “That was heart-breaking,” Carano said, “but I didn’t want to take away from the hard work of everyone who worked on the project, so I said ok.”
As for her firing, Carano said that she learned about it on social media and was never contacted by anyone from Lucasfilm the public announcement was made. The image that brought out the pitchforks on social media was interpreted as her promoting antisemitism, a charge that she firmly rejects. Others also fail to see such intent, including host and political commentator Ben Shapiro, who said the contention was absurd and made in bad faith.
For this reason, many now believe Carano’s firing was made purely for political reasons, rather than Lucasfilm or even those who called for her to be dropped from the franchise really believing she was antisemitic.
Bari Weiss’ piece over on Substack suggests that she agrees, pointing out that not only Carano but a huge majority of those now being canceled as a result of “crowd-sourced McCarthyism” lose their livelihoods and reputation “for simple mistakes, minor sins or absolute nonsense.”
