We have been covering the backlash against Disney over its social and political agenda as well as the recent loss in its fight against the state of Florida. Now the company is facing a new lawsuit supported by Elon Musk that alleges that it fired actress Gina Carano over conservative views expressed on X. The complaint below makes some interesting comparisons in how liberals have been allowed to make analogous statements in the House of Mouse while conservatives are given the chop.
On Tuesday, Carano sued both Disney and Lucasfilm over her firing from “The Mandalorian” in 2021, a hit series where she played the popular character Cara Dune, a Rebel soldier turned mercenary.
That came to an end after Carano shared a post from a different Instagram account in February 2021 stating:
“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.”
Musk is funding the lawsuit after promising to pay for legal actions brought by people claiming discrimination from posts to Twitter/X. Musk has been attacked over his efforts to restore free speech values to social media with the reduction of censorship and the disclosure of the government-corporate partnership to target individuals and groups.
Joe Benarroch, head of business operations at X, stated:
“As a sign of X Corp.’s commitment to free speech, we’re proud to provide financial support for Gina Carano’s lawsuit, empowering her to seek vindication of her free speech rights on X and the ability to work without bullying, harassment, or discrimination.”
The complaint is heavy on movie analogies, including Star Wars:
“A short time ago in a galaxy not so far away, Defendants made it clear that only one orthodoxy in thought, speech, or action was acceptable in their empire, and that those who dared to question or failed to fully comply would not be tolerated. And so it was with Carano. After two highly acclaimed seasons on The Mandalorian as Rebel ranger Cara Dune, Carano was terminated from her role as swiftly as her character’s peaceful home planet of Alderaan had been destroyed by the Death Star in an earlier Star Wars film. And all this because she dared voice her own opinions, on social media platforms and elsewhere, and stood up to the online bully mob who demanded her compliance with their extreme progressive ideology.”
The complaint includes three claims:
FIRST CLAIM FOR RELIEF: WRONGFUL DISCHARGE California Labor Code §§ 1101 et seq.
SECOND CLAIM FOR RELIEF: WRONGFUL DISCHARGE AND REFUSAL TO HIRE California Labor Code § 98.6
THIRD CLAIM FOR RELIEF: SEX DISCRIMINATION California Gov’t Code § 12940
The first claim is based on CLC Section 1101, which states:
“No employer shall make, adopt, or enforce any rule, regulation, or policy:
(a) Forbidding or preventing employees from engaging or participating in politics or from becoming candidates for public office.
(b) Controlling or directing, or tending to control or direct the political activities or affiliations of employees.”
The discrimination claims are based on the treatment of male actors who have made similar claims without termination or penalty.
She notes that one of her co-stars was Pedro Pascal, who played the role of the Mandalorian. Pascal has regularly attacked conservatives while supporting various political causes from Black Lives Matter movement, LGBTQ+ rights, and protests for abortion rights. That included comparisons of Donald Trump to Hitler and the treatment of undocumented migrants to the Nazi concentration camps. He also allegedly posted two Disney characters, Bert and Ernie, waving a transgender and LGBTQ+ pride flag and promoting “Black Lives Matter” and “Defund the Police.”
She also noted that actors like StarWars star Mark Hamill posted a comparison of Trump with the Nazis in a September 18, 2022 posting. He also described Donald Trump as Valdimir Putin’s puppet and the KKK’s candidate as well as comparing his followers to the Third Reich.
No action or even condemnation was forthcoming against these actors.
However, Carano was fired.
Disney has long tolerated even liberal attacks on its own brand. The company’s new Snow White, actress Rachel Zegler, has publicly defended her right to trash the franchise’s original storyline and characters. Zegler used her casting as the new Snow White to denounce the entire premise and appeal of the original 1937 movie, calling Prince Charming a presumptive “stalker” and promising to ditch the whole love interest. She told an interviewer that Snow White is “not going to be saved by the prince and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love.”
What is interesting is that the company itself has acknowledged that its social and political agenda has proven costly. In its annual SEC report, Disney acknowledged that “we face risks relating to misalignment with public and consumer tastes and preferences for entertainment, travel and consumer products.” The company observed that
“the success of our businesses depends on our ability to consistently create compelling content,” and that “Generally, our revenues and profitability are adversely impacted when our entertainment offerings and products, as well as our methods to make our offerings and products available to consumers, do not achieve sufficient consumer acceptance. Further, consumers’ perceptions of our position on matters of public interest, including our efforts to achieve certain of our environmental and social goals, often differ widely and present risks to our reputation and brands.”
Yet, these actors did not face any backlash from Disney or Lucasfilms.
It is a pattern familiar to many on college campuses. Liberal faculty regularly make extremist and racist statements with little fear of discipline. Such comments include “detonating white people,” abolish white people, denouncing police, calling for Republicans to suffer, strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservative protesters and other outrageous statements.
When these controversies arose, faculty rallied behind the free speech rights of the professors. That support has been far more muted or absent when conservative faculty have found themselves at the center of controversies. The suspension of Ilya Shapiro is a good example. Other faculty have had to go to court to defend their free speech rights. One professor was suspended for being seen at a controversial protest.
We discussed how St. Joseph’s University refused to renew a contract for a professor who actually prevailed in such a free speech fight. A conservative North Carolina professor faced calls for termination over controversial tweets and was pushed to retire. Dr. Mike Adams, a professor of sociology and criminology, had long been a lightning rod of controversy. In 2014, we discussed his prevailing in a lawsuit that alleged discrimination due to his conservative views. He was then targeted again after an inflammatory tweet calling North Carolina a “slave state.” That led to his being pressured to resign with a settlement. He then committed suicide just days before his last day as a professor.
Disney appears to have the same zero tolerance for controversial statements if they are coming from the right of the political spectrum. What is striking is that the other actors routinely disparage roughly half of the country — and half of the market for Disney. The company itself acknowledges that its political agenda is depressing sales and alienating consumers.
None of that makes this an easy lawsuit. Stars often sign contracts with a clause allowing for termination for conduct that brings “public disrepute, scandal, or embarrassment.” These clauses are written broadly to protect companies and their “brand.”
However, Carano makes a strong case that Disney is applying a political litmus test for public comments of its stars. Indeed, one of the greatest threats of the lawsuit is not the verdict but the discovery if Carano can make it beyond a motion to dismiss. She could demand emails and communications related to the controversy that will expose the inner workings of the House of Mouse.
Here is the complaint: Carano v. Disney Complaint
“The more you tighten your grip, Biden, the more free thinking people will slip through your fingers.”
Bob Iger is an ‘old school’ progressive; he is committed to using other people’s money to fund his pseudo-tony agenda.
Ditch your DIS shares as the House of Mouse is in decay and the situation ripe for competition (or takeover at a lower price?).
From your link,
“During a staff meeting on Florida’s recent enactment of the Parental Rights in Education bill, an executive producer at Disney said she was advancing a “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” to insert queerness into children’s animation.” FWIW
“Male actor” is redundant.
Would Admiral Rachel Levine agree?
I think Admiral Levine would wig out. 🙂
“We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged”
― Heinrich Heine
Good to see the Rebel Alliance is fighting back against The Empire!
Havent a clue who she is, and Joe Rogan calls her the “O.G.” of women Mixed Martial Arts. I had to look up O.G. = original gangster? 😐. However, this woman is beautiful, apparently very accomplished at MMA, a true “feminist” and in the following interview with Rogan, completely self-effacing (no wonder the Left hate her). She strikes any sentient being as a gracious woman: strong, fit, tough, yet endearing, feminine and big hearted. Again, no wonder the Left hate her.
The Left has excoriated Catholicism for decades about being judgmental, intolerant, and rigid. At least the Church gave Western Civilization beautiful canon law, philosophy, music, literature, architecture and the offer of redemption. The Left relishes orchestrating inquisitions in perpetuity with no redemption. They will never last 100 years never mind 2000+ years. Wishing Gina all the best…
Estovir,
Well said.
Now, she is a role model for young women!
“T]he Church gave Western Civilization beautiful canon law, philosophy, music, literature, architecture . . .”
And now for the historical truth:
Philosophy: Ancient Greeks, especially Plato and Aristotle. That predates Catholicism by some 1,000 years.
Music: Again the Greeks. Classical music was born in the Renaissance. That’s some 1,000 years after the Church. What took so long?
Literature: That one’s a joke. Plays come from the Greeks; the novel is a product of the Enlightenment.
Architecture: Seriously?! See the Parthenon. Modern architecture is a product of the Industrial Revolution.
You are selling ideological poison wrapped in achievements that were created by those with *secular* values.
“Now the company is facing a new lawsuit . . .” (JT)
No, no, and no:
No: Lawfare is just as wrong when the Right does it, as when the Left does it.
No: Just as a baker has the moral and property right to refuse service (on whatever grounds), so a company has the right to refuse employment (whether those grounds are consistent or not.) (Leaving aside the terms of her employment contract.)
No!: “. . . those who dared to question or failed to fully comply would not be tolerated.” (From the complaint) There is no such thing as the “right” to compel an employer to tolerate your ideas and values. That’s what Kaepernick tried to do.
Boycott Disney, if you want. There are certainly good reasons to do so. But using the law to punish Disney, because you are indignant, is not the right way to protest.
P.S. This is *not* a free speech issue. Disney is a private company.
Sam, it’s not lawfare. The woman suffered an actual harm. It’s a legitimate cause of action.
“The woman suffered an actual harm.”
So do I when the store doesn’t have my favorite ice cream. So does a rejected suitor. So does the person not hired. . . .
“Harm” (whatever that means) is not the standard for suing or for demanding government action.
Maybe take Walt out of the fridge long enough for him to bring magic back to the kingdom?
The cultural Counter-Reformation is rolling on and should reach it’s full potential after the elections in November 24.
End the Uniparty….cut federal spending 50%
End federal aid to cities, states, colleges, non-profits where anyone gets $100k+
Then see what happens in these liberal utopia. This is ALL ABOUT producing more failure for Democrats Plantations…where Democrats SKIM the money. So END THE MONEY!
Way to go Gina!
These companies are used to bullying people that can’t afford to fight them, so this’ll be interesting. The incredible stupidity of the woke era is beginning to come home to roost.
James,
Well said and I agree.
These woke companies think they are all powerful and can walk all over others while denying their hypocrisy.
@Upstate
I don’t think these privileged woke children, or their parents, could have imagined anyone with magnitudes more money than them or they could ever hope to see in their lifetimes challenging them. Perhaps the modern guillotine is an electronic funds transfer and a (Constitutional) court ruling and a social media blast. I don’t wish harm on anyone, but it is time to get beyond this nonsense. Way past time. I am sick of the rest of us having to indulge the whims of the elite’s spoiled brat children and watch our society crumble because we have had no choice. The gloves are off. Let the woke burn. 🔥🔥🔥 They will just go back to their (lily white) estates, anyway.
Good for her! I hope the Gay Groomers at Disney get exposed even more. They have already put their whole business at risk to make stupidly woke movies to satisfy a pack of gay and tranny freaks, and maybe, just maybe, this will finally wake up the people who still send them money each month for streaming, or go to their parks. Like my grown daughter, who has an excursion planned to Orlando in the spring. I keep telling her, “Kid, you are supporting a corporation that is actively trying to indoctrinate children into being gay, or thinking that being gay is normal.” That is some pretty sick stuff. But America could throw a bucket of cold water on Disney execs in one day. That is all it would take, one day. Just one day of the majority of their viewers pulling the plug, and Disney would get Bud Lighted, and the Board at Disney would have to change the company up. One day is all it would take to get that crossdressing drag queen canned at United Airlines, too. One day.
Ah, Discovery. Such an innocent sounding word but so full of potential explosive results when applied in the law. One thinks of discovery as a new land seen from a ship or landing on the moon and finding the surface like fine talcum. In law though, Discovery is where you get down into the muck and mire of the inner workings of a corporation where are the greasy little, unpleasant things are stored haphazardly, just waiting to be found so they can blow up in a board member’s or a CEO’s face. So delicious to contemplate.
Thankfully, Musk is bankrolling this case and in it to win it. Otherwise, Disney would simply settle by giving Carano a million dollars to go away and paying her legal fees and she would likely accept as cases like this can cost millions in legal fees. But now Carano is not obliged to accept a settlement and can simply demand a trial on the facts, assuming, that is, the court accepts the case. Discovery in a case like this could be devastating to a company like Disney. It could expose top-level bias uncharacteristically averse to Disney’s “family-friendly” image. The company should use this great example of its own hypocrisy to produce a series called Woke Wars in which people like Carano prevail over evil companies in the universe trying to force everyone to adopt the same Weltanschauung. Historical antecedents for this theme are voluminous and well-known.
I suspect her contract with Disney will override the provisions of the law.
It is not easy to sign away your rights with a contract if the contract violates the law.
Sounds like she can easily show that others violated their clause without being fired. Disney openly dmits that their business is being damaged by the public comments of others on the Left in their employ.
Carano should prevail. Not because she is politically conservative, but because no one should be fired for speech conducted outside and unconnected of the workplace. Especially if others expressing their views in a similar manner are protected.
Olly: I kind of agree but there should be some limitation if, for example, someone openly is criticizing an employer who has a right and expectation of loyalty from its employees. In this case, Carano was not criticizing Disney and, therefore, I agree with you that she should not have been fired for her views.
JJC, that’s why I said “unconnected of the workplace.”
Olly, Disney is a public company where diverse people own shares. Would you feel the same about a private company?
Of course Seth. What reason would it matter?
Olly, as you know, private ownership and public ownership are different under the law. Let us take a small private company. One can fire a person for almost any reason except race and sex. Let us say the owners of this small company don’t want any association with certain things. Are they unable to fire an employee for creating such an association?
Of course “unconnected of the workplace.” might be widely interpreted.
Seth, it’s the difference between can not and should not. The underlying principle is what I originally said: but because no one should be fired for speech conducted outside and unconnected of the workplace. I live in an “at will” state. As a friend’s wife found out, even a church “can” fire her for no reason whatsoever. They shouldn’t have, but they could and did.
Excellent Olly. We are in total agreement, but where we wouldn’t fire those on the left, they would fire us, and if they didn’t want to, leftists would try and force them to fire us. I looked back at the should not, which was clearly there, but sometimes one isn’t sure of the difference between should not and could not. In your case, I thought that was your feeling, but I preferred it clarified.
Though I abhor the Jim Crow laws, I question the Supreme Court case involving Ollies Barbecue, a mom-and-pop restaurant. That is what I was thinking about when I asked my question. A different decision or the SC not taking the case would have been better in the long run.
We are in total agreement, but where we wouldn’t fire those on the left, they would fire us, and if they didn’t want to, leftists would try and force them to fire us.
Absolutely Seth. This doesn’t just show to be true regarding employment in the private sector. Spineless Republicans voted not to impeach Mayorkas because they they feared impeachment would be used against Republicans in the future. Apparently these cowards slept through Pelosi’s abuse of the impeachment process.
Olly, love him or hate him, Trump is an outsider fighting insiders who stand to lose a lot if he is elected. Most of these people should be voted out. They let the Democrats and Pelosi win. We need an outsider who is willing to fight the system. That fight caused Trump’s multiple prosecutions and 91 charges. This situation filters down to the individual worker, you and I, who likewise are losing the right to hold opinions or express them. We need Trump, and we need voters to vote in mass against the Democrat Party. We need to reclaim the nation.
Seth, I agree completely. One of the main reasons I follow this blog is that JT writes posts that detail how this country is being destroyed as a constitutional republic. Any reasonable, objective observer would agree that our trajectory is towards a totalitarian state. We are in many ways already there. The shadowy and not so shadowy forces in control I call the Regime. Anyone that truly loves this country should oppose the Regime. And yet we have those on this blog that day in and day will see those “details” articulated by JT and vehemently deny they are either happening, or that they are happening not due to the Regime, but because of anyone to the right of their ideological leanings. I don’t seriously believe all of these people hate this country. But like the children in Gaza, they’ve been taught to hate the very existence of anyone to their right. They see Trump as an existential threat to them and not the Regime, when in reality Trump and the millions that support him, seek to defeat the Regime and improve the security of rights and freedom for everyone.
Olly, we see too many people wishing to ‘go with the flow’ and who are lazy. The left is smart. They provide all sorts of welfare, whether it be for physical needs or needs of the mind (i.e., grade inflation). Eventually, the ability to do so ends, and suddenly, the people wake up too late. At that point, those in favor of the government continue to be treated better than the rest. That is when a revolution is the only way to turn things around, but by then, the people have neither the knowledge nor the means.
OLLY and S. Meyer,
Well said and I agree with both of you.
I was watching Dune yesterday while working out, the 1984 version, where Duke Atreides says to Paul, “Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.”
The sleeper, within all of us, must awaken
“Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.”
That is an absolutely spot on quote, Upstate! That reminds me of something I concluded several years ago. The progressive movement that began over 100 years ago and the Marxist movement in this country more recently, has been a gradual burying of those fundamental, core principles that originally defined this country. I use the word “bury” as a metaphor for where they can be found. Year after year over the past century, layers of progressive sediment have gradually been added, burying the importance of those core principles from the consciousness of the American people. That made the people ripe targets for the Marxist movement over the last 60 years. Those thoroughly demoralized by the Marxists are the walking dead. The rest of us are left to excavate those core principles.
Disney could garner some relief by publicly settling, but that would go against the extremist progressives. Let the boycott strengthen.
RE: “We have been covering the backlash against Disney over its social and political agenda as well as the recent loss in its fight against the state of Florida.” At the outset of this dustup, a Disney employee gleefully rejoiced that she was now able to incorporate as much ‘gay’ into her work as she desired. We may yet see Disney fully drowned in an ‘alphabet soup’ of its own making. One can only hope.
In reconsideration of my comment, it was the word ‘queerness’ that she used.
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/disney-executive-producer-admits-to-gay-agenda-adding-queerness-wherever-she-could/
The way you sum this up “the House of Mouse ” is priceless , well done Mr. Turley