Gina Carano issued a response to The Walt Disney Company’s Motion to Dismiss her lawsuit against them.
Gina Carano speaking at the 2015 San Diego Comic Con International, for “Deadpool”, at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Carano filed her lawsuit back in February with the suit detailing it is “a civil action arising from Defendants wrongful termination of Carano’s employment in retaliation for Carano’s lawful exercise of her right to speak and express her views. Specifically, Defendants—under the regime of former Disney CEO Bob Chapek—fired Carano because of her posts (‘the Posts’) on various social media platforms including X (formerly known as Twitter). Carano composed and published the Posts while she was off-duty and away from the workplace.”
The suit also alleged, “Defendants terminated Carano’s employment and took other retaliatory actions to limit and deny her future employment opportunities, including but not limited to making maliciously false statements about Carano with the intention of damaging her reputation and, thus, her ability to find and retain work.”
It also stated, “Defendants treated Carano differently than her similarly situated male co-workers, who likewise expressed their personal political views on social media but, upon information and belief, were not counseled or disciplined, let alone terminated.”
(L-R): The Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal), Cara Dune (Gina Carano), Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) and The Child in Lucasfilm’s THE MANDALORIAN, season two, exclusively on Disney+. © 2020 Lucasfilm Ltd. & ™. All Rights Reserved.
The lawsuit specifically accused The Walt Disney Company and Lucasfilm of “wrongful discharge,” “wrongful discharge and refusal to hire,” and “sex discrimination.”
Carano is asking for “preliminary and permanent injunctive relief requiring Defendants to reinstate Carano to her prior position with no loss of pay or benefits; A judgement declaring that Defendants’ termination of Carano’s employment was unlawful and in violation of California law; Compensatory damages, including but not limited to loss of pay from the date of termination to the date of reinstatement, in an amount to be determined at trial, but exceeding $75,000; Compensatory damages for loss of future employment, including but not limited to the promised role in Rangers of the New Republic, in an amount to be determined at trial; Emotional distress damages, in an amount to be determined at trial; Punitive damages, in an amount to be determined at trial; Reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs; and Such other and further relief as the Court may deem just and proper.”
Gina Carano is Cara Dune and Carl Weathers is Greef Karga in Lucasfilm’s THE MANDALORIAN, season two, exclusively on Disney+. © 2020 Lucasfilm Ltd. & ™. All Rights Reserved.
The Walt Disney Company filed a Motion to Dismiss earlier this week arguing that “Disney makes this motion on the grounds that Disney has a constitutional right not to associate its artistic expression with Carano’s speech, such that the First Amendment provides a complete defense to Carano’s claims.
Later in their motion the company’s lawyers argued, “Carano’s claims are all barred by the First Amendment. As the Supreme Court held in Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston, 515 U.S. 557 (1995), The First Amendment embodies a core principle of ‘speaker’s autonomy’ that bars the state from dictating to expressive enterprises what to say, how to say it, and whom to say it through.”
Disney continued, “As the Court further held in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640 (2000), that principle means that a state cannot force an employer engaged in speech to speak through an employee whose own views or public profile could compromise the employer’s own message, even if the employee does not express her views on the job.”
(L-R): Cara Dune (Gina Carano), The Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal), Mythrol (Horatio Sanz) and Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) in Lucasfilm’s THE MANDALORIAN, season two, exclusively on Disney+. © 2020 Lucasfilm Ltd. & ™. All Rights Reserved.
Interestingly, the Motion to Dismiss appears to confirm that Carano was fired over her political opinions and specifically an Instagram post she shared to her Instagram stories.
The post reads, “Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors…even by children.”
The post then shares a quote which reads, “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?”
Along with this text it included an image of a woman in undress being chased by youths with blunt objects.
Gina Carano Instagram
READ: Gina Carano Says Pedro Pascal And Carl Weathers “Did Not Believe What Happened To Me Was Correct”
The Motion states, “The coup de grace came in February 2021, when Carano admittedly reposted on Instagram a post comparing criticism of politically conservative viewpoints to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany.”
It adds, “Carano’s decision to publicly trivialize the Holocaust by comparing criticism of political conservatives to the annihilation of millions of Jewish people—notably, not ‘thousands’—was the final straw for Disney. As Carano alleges, Lucasfilm that same day denounced her statements and observed that it had ‘no plans’ to employ her in the future.”
The Motion later added, “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.'”
(L-R): Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff), Cara Dune (Gina Carano), Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) and Koska Reeves (Mercedes Varnado) in Lucasfilm’s THE MANDALORIAN, season two, exclusively on Disney+. © 2020 Lucasfilm Ltd. & ™. All Rights Reserved.
Carano has reacted to the Motion to Dismiss writing on X, “Disney has confirmed what has been known all along, they will fire you if you say anything they disagree with, even if they have to MISREPRESENT, MALIGN, and MISCHARACTERIZE you to do it. They are now on record letting everyone who works for them know that Disney will take any chance they get to control what you say, what you think or they will attempt to destroy your career. Glad we cleared that up.”
She added, “The First Amendment does not allow Disney to wantonly DISCRIMINATE, which is what they have done in my case and frankly have now admitted they did. If you ever wanted to know what today’s ‘Disney values’ are, they just told you.”
Disney has confirmed what has been known all along, they will fire you if you say anything they disagree with, even if they have to MISREPRESENT, MALIGN, and MISCHARACTERIZE you to do it. They are now on record letting everyone who works for them know that Disney will take any… https://t.co/RRIPtPrURu
— Gina Carano 🕯 (@ginacarano) April 11, 2024
What do you make of Carano’s response to the Motion to Dismiss?
NEXT: First Amendment Legal Expert Ron Coleman Reacts To Disney’s Motion To Dismiss Gina Carano’s Lawsuit
Disney is like “you can’t do that”, but we can. We can do whatever we want, but you can’t. Both times proving their immoral and unethical behavior.