Actress Gina Carano responded this week to her recent dismissal by Disney after she tweeted something that critics claimed was controversial by saying that she was stunned to learn of the outrage online and that people were claiming that what she posted was anti-Semitic.
“I was in utter shock and confusion when certain people said it was antisemitic,” Carano told Bari Weiss. “Then, as I went to take it down, I noticed that the image was not the same as the one people were referencing. I was honestly confused: should I take it down, or leave it up? I still don’t know the answer to that question, because taking it down only makes the mob attack you more.”
Weiss noted that people online were not only pointing to a tweet that Carano posted that compared the current political environment in the U.S. to Nazi Germany, but they also had found an image that Carano posted in December that had “a striking resemblance to an infamous East London mural called ‘Freedom for Humanity’ that Jeremy Corbyn defended from destruction.”
The image showed several old men sitting around a monopoly table that represented power over different industries around the world.
“To me, at first glance, that image looks as if it’s a visual representation of the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion,'” Weiss, who is Jewish, continued. “When old men, money, a globe and a secret meeting are in one picture, my mind screams ‘Jews!’ But it seems that, to a lot of people, it genuinely does not, perhaps because there are no explicitly Jewish symbols.”
“The image for me was a statement that people need to stand together and rise up, stop being so manipulated by the powers that believe they know what’s best for you and play games with our lives,” Carano said. “My heart has only ever had ultimate respect and love for the Jewish community.”
Following the controversy, Lucasfilm, which is owned by Disney, said in a statement:
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.
“That was heart-breaking, but I didn’t want to take away from the hard work of everyone who worked on the project, so I said ok,” Carano told Weiss. “That was the last time I was contacted about any type of public statement or apology from Lucasfilm. I found out through social media, like everyone else, that I had been fired.”
Weiss continued:
Gina Carano got fired. Meantime, Ice Cube tweeted out, among other troubling things, the original London mural and it doesn’t appear to have hurt his reputation beyond the Jewish community. John Cusack tweets unmistakeable antisemitic conspiracies and still gets cast.
Chelsea Handler, Jameela Jamil, and Jessica Chastain shared a Farrakhan video; P Diddy hosted the prominent antisemite for a July Fourth day address; and all of these celebrities are thriving. By the looks of it, Mel Gibson has had a very busy Covid-19, which suggests that leftist politics isn’t the only thing that grants you protection in Hollywood. Too big to cancel?
The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro defended Carano in a statement to Weiss, saying, “I know what antisemitism looks like, being one of the more prominent kippah-wearing people out there. This doesn’t chart. I don’t like the meme, especially given its origins. But antisemitism, like racism — and contrary to the NYT’s executive editor’s dictum — requires intent. Gina obviously didn’t have any such intent.”
“Gina isn’t antisemitic. Period. This meme is being ‘resurfaced’ as a post-facto justification for an unjustifiable cancellation,” Shapiro said. “Gina wasn’t aware of the origins of the original picture, and was devastated to hear about it, just as she has been devastated by the absurd and bad faith contention that she is antisemitic in any way.”