Whether Cara Dune survives the second season of the hit Disney+ series The Mandelorian isn’t known, but some fans would like to see the actress who plays the former shock trooper all but disintegrated! Actress Gina Carano is now facing something far worse than Imperial Storm Troopers – she is facing backlash for comments she made on social media.
This isn’t the first time the former MMA fighter has created a Death Star-sized firestorm for comments on Twitter. Comments that could derail any plans Disney may have had for a spinoff revolving around her character, which had become almost as much of a breakout as the Child (aka “Baby Yoda”).
The latest controversy began on November 5 when Carano posted from her official Twitter account (@ginacarano), “We need to clean up the election process so we are not left feeling the way we do today. Put laws in place that protect us against voter fraud. Investigate every state. Film the counting. Flush out the fake votes. Require ID. Make Voter Fraud end in 2020. Fix the system.”
While President Donald Trump wasn’t actually mentioned by name, the mere association was too much for some fans of the Star Wars spinoff, who found her post akin to turning to the dark side! Some fans even suggested Disney should fire Gina Carano.
Episode I: Anger Of The Fans
The “prequel” story to this month’s calls for Ms. Carano’s firings came earlier this year after she was asked by fans of the show whether she would add pronouns to her bio to show solidarity with the transgender community. This act of adding pronouns to a social media profile has become increasingly common among trans and non-binary users as a way to avoid being misgendered.
Carano finally responded by adding the words, “boop/bop/beep” – which is the sound that droids in Star Wars make, and according to the Wookipedia is the name of a song performed by the band Duro Droids. Of course for fans it was constructed as mocking, something the actress denied.
“Beep/bop/boop has zero to do with mocking trans people. (Love) & 100% to do with exposing the bullying mentality of the mob that has taken over the voices of many genuine causes. I want people to know you can take hate with a smile. So BOOP you for misunderstanding.”
While she received a large amount of support, with many users agreeing that no one should be forced to use pronouns on their profiles, many have called her out as well for playing the victim when she is the one who threw the thermal detonator that started the firestorm in the first place!
“Social media has become amazingly anti-social over the past several years,” said technology entrepreneur Lon Safko, author of The Social Media Bible. “A platform that was designed to be an open forum where people can connect and express their ideas has now become a weapon of mass destruction. Now, if you don’t agree with ‘popular’ views, people are using the social platforms to try to destroy you and your reputation.
“It’s unfortunate and unnecessary what happened to Gina Carano,” added Safko. “She was simply expressing her views. If you don’t agree, just hit that little button on every platform called ‘unfollow.'”
The Wrong Opinion Can Cost You
Former Cheers star Kirstie Alley faced a similar pushback on social media in the weeks leading up to the election after she shared her support of President Trump on Twitter.
In some cases celebrities have seen their careers take a hit.
“We all remember what happened to Kathy Griffin when she posted the bloody Trump head and even Roseanne Barr tweeted her infamous ‘Planet of the Apes’ tweet,” said Safko. “These all but ended their careers. The last I checked, we have a right to an opinion in the U.S. and there’s even a document that says we all have ‘Freedom of Speech.'”
Since President-Elect Joe Biden was declared the winner in the 2020 election, there has been no shortage of comments such as those made by Carano – including calls that votes should be recounted. Instead of this coming off as patriotic to ensure democracy, many see this as a form of sedition.
“Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted ‘Is anyone archiving these Trump sycophants,’ and Hari Sevugan, deputy campaign manager at ‘Pete for America,’ tweeted ‘We just launched the Trump Accountability Project to make sure that anyone who took a paycheck to help Trump is held responsible for what they did,'” warned Safko. “It is deplorable how some people of power are abusing the technology created to bring people together to try to destroy them simply because they disagree.”
The danger is that the masses aren’t attempting to censor what people are saying, but rather to silence them. And given that social media lasts forever there could be good reason to think before you tweet.
“As the author of The Social Media Bible, in all of my 1,000’s of tweets, posts, updates, and videos, I have never once voiced my political opinion,” said Safko. “As the old adage teaches us, ‘Even a fish can’t get caught if he keeps his mouth shut.'”
Episode III: Call In Baby Yoda
While Carano may not keep from tweeting, her most recent efforts to win over fans may have fallen short. On November 8 she posted on Twitter a map of the United States all in green declaring the aforementioned Baby Yoda to have “won” a contested race, “OMG BREAKING NEWS!!!!”
Of course some even found offense at that – because the Baby Yoda character (spoilers) ate some eggs from an endangered species on the verge of extinction. Clearly even Baby Yoda wasn’t enough to turn the tide on social media for Carano.