Gina Carano, Conservatism, and the Problem with Cancel Culture Critics
The uproar over Disney’s decision to fire the Mandalorian actress highlights some difficult questions
Disney and its subsidiary Lucasfilm announced that actress Gina Carano won’t be on The Mandalorian anymore and people got mad. Not just Star Wars fans who like her performance as bounty hunter Cara Dune, but also critics of cancel culture, for whom this was yet another sign of a vengeful, speech-restricting ideology run amok.
New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait said Carano was fired for “being conservative” and compared the “current treatment of right-wingers” to the infamous 1940s-50s Hollywood blacklist of suspected communists. Daily Wire editor Ben Shapiro announced that he’ll fund a movie project with Carano, writing that “Hollywood cancelled Gina Carano for being conservative. That’s bullshit. So we’re fighting back.” In an article comparing Carano’s treatment to McCarthyism, Bari Weiss wrote: “So what did Carano do? Her sin is her politics. She’s a conservative.”
Is it, though?
The issue wasn’t that she advocated low taxes, reduced regulation, or small government. It wasn’t that she spoke out against abortion or stood up for gun rights. It wasn’t that she venerated the military…
