Well, this thread is a few years old, but it seems pertinent to the topic:
Elon Musk’s company X is funding a new lawsuit filed by actor Gina Carano over her firing from the Disney+ streaming TV series “The Mandalorian,” which followed a controversial post she shared.
Of course he is. Bless his heart.
Like the ADL?
IANAL, but that lawsuit seems nuts. Unless Disney violated a contract they both signed (and AFAICT that isn’t the case), what’s the cause of action? She doesn’t have a right to continuous employment by Disney.
The claim (I guess) is unlawful discrimination, based on her political views.
Though, AFAIK, political views do not constitute a protected class in U.S. labor law. It’s definitely not included in this list from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
They are not.
Maybe they’ll claim it’s a First Amendment violation, but Disney is not (yet) the US Government.
Bottom line: this lawsuit has no reasonable basis.
It’s just empty-headed culture-war trolling by people who don’t either understand or care about how law and justice work.
Call me cynical, but is this plausibly anything but a PR stunt piggybacking on Disney’s recent announcement of an upcoming Mandalorian film?
ISTM that the realistic aim here is not to win a lawsuit but to get Carano’s name before the public in connection with her former franchise. To get her legions of fans to pressure Disney into reintroducing her to the Mandalorian narrative, I guess? To get her airtime on conservative talk shows? I’m not perceiving the endgame here.
But it’s funded by a billionaire genius who has a lot of experience with lawsuits.
I’m sure deSantis will find a way to make hay from this as well.
At this point, it’s three years, almost to the day, since Disney fired her, and her dispute with Disney had become old news. My guess is that it’s mostly the last hypothesis you note: to get her back in the public eye, in particular those consuming conservative media.
AIUI, she’s claiming she was discriminated against because she was a woman with those views. Which would be a protected class:
“While Carano was fired, Defendants took no action against male actors who took equally or more vigorous and controversial positions on social media.”
I think that’s somewhat skipping over which “vigorous and controversial positions” are in question, here…
Well, I’d assume Carano’s lawyers must have had specific examples, or it’s gonna be a short case. You can’t just use the Trumpian “people are saying” argument.
Interesting that they took that approach though, because there could be some truth to it. Women have long been classified as “difficult to work with” in the film biz for saying and doing things that are barely noticed at all when men do them.
Here’s the full lawsuit, and there are some examples near the bottom. Pedro Pascal comes under particularly heavy fire. The lawsuit is full of screen caps of tweets, it’s pretty entertaining stuff.
Also, WTF is this?
That’s for public consumption. Boilerplate “I’m being persecuted for what I think, not being held accountable for what I did” right-wing victim rhetoric.
As regularly seen on this very messageboard.
I am more pointing out that the lawsuit borrows directly from the screen roll at the beginning of Star Wars, directly comparing herself to the rebels.
Yes, that’s part of the public consumption bit. Somebody is probably patting themselves on the back for it. The court will ignore it.
I feel like I remember hearing that he was also told to cut it out, and did.
Sure. Stuff like “No, I won’t sleep with you”
Not stuff like mocking the wearing of Covid masks and pronoun usage & publicizing the stolen election CT.
I have a tough time believing that the MAGA crowd would cheer for the rebels. The rebels are all ‘them’, so many foreigners and even women in leadership roles. And they are trying to overthrow old, white guys.