Gina Carano fired from ‘Mandalorian’
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lucasfilm says Gina Carano is no longer a part of “The Mandalorian” cast after many online called for her firing over a social media post that likened the experience of Jews during the Holocaust to the U.S. political climate.
A spokesperson with the production company said in a statement on Wednesday that Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm with “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,” the statement read.
Carano fell under heavy criticism after she posted that “Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors…. even by children.”
The actor continued to say, “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?”
Carano, who played the recurring character Cara Dune on the “Star Wars” series, deleted the post but it was widely shared online and spurred the #FireGinaCarano hashtag to trend. Her character appeared in several episodes of the second season of “The Mandalorian,” a series about a bounty hunter and his quest to unite a powerful, young user of the Force with a Jedi Knight.
Dune, who in the second season is a lawperson on a frontier planet, frequently teams up with the title character to fight an old nemesis: remnants of the evil Galactic Empire.
Carano, a former mixed martial artist whose Dune character used a mix of heavy weapons and her fists to best opponents, had been criticized for social media posts that mocked mask wearing during the pandemic and alleged voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election. She also mocked the use of gender pronouns, listing “beep/bop/boop” in her social media bio.
Wallen says not to defend racist words
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Country star Morgan Wallen asked fans not to downplay the racist language he was caught saying on camera and said that he accepted the punishments he faced.
TMZ posted a video last week of Wallen saying a racial slur and Wallen apologized at the time. Wallen posted a five-minute Instagram video Wednesday night saying he had let so many people down, including his parents and his son.
“Our actions matter. Our words matter. And I want to encourage anyone that is watching to please learn from my mistake. There’s no reason to downplay what I did,” he said.
He said he was waiting until he could personally apologize to people he had hurt. He said that the video was taken after a three-day “bender,” but he has since gotten sober.
Wallen said that he accepted invitations from Black organizations, executives and leaders to have honest conversations.
“They offered me grace and they also paired that with an offer to learn and to grow,” he said.
Wallen also said he accepted any punishments that he faced. Wallen’s songs were removed from radio stations, streaming services took his music off their top playlists and his record label suspended him.
But many of his fans responded to the backlash by buying up more of his records and continued to stream him.
In response to the surging sales, Grammy-winning singer songwriter Jason Isbell announced that he was going to donate money that he makes from Wallen’s cover of his song “Cover Me Up” to the NAACP.
Wallen included a cover of the song on his sophomore record, “Dangerous: The Double Album.”
“I’ve decided to donate everything I’ve made so far from this album to the Nashville chapter of the @NAACP. Thanks for helping out a good cause, folks,” Isbell, a popular Americana artist and former member of the Drive-By Truckers, wrote on Twitter earlier Wednesday.
Wallen had been performing a cover version of “Cover Me Up” for a while before he recorded his own version, which leapt to the Top 15 on the Hot Country Songs chart and earned platinum status by the Recording Industry Association of America.
His album was already setting streaming records prior to TMZ’s release of the video of him using the slur. It is the first country album to spend four weeks atop the Billboard 200 chart since 2003, when Shania Twain’s album “Up!” spent five weeks at the top.
