The Walt Disney Company is certainly no stranger to lawsuits. But, as of late, many of these lawsuits have become pretty high profile.
The Walt Disney Company headquarters in California
We finally have a temporary truce in the battle between Disney and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more cases on the docket for the House of Mouse. Former Star Wars actress Gina Carano was fired from her role in 2021. Since then, she has been pretty vocal and has even caught the eye of fellow Disney critic Elon Musk to file a lawsuit in California federal court against Disney and Lucasfilm. But, Disney has filed a new request that hopes to squash the beef.
In a new filing made late on April 10th, Disney requested the dismissal of Carano’s wrongful discharge and sex discrimination lawsuit, Deadline has reported.
©Disney
After Carano’s suit was filed, she later spoke out saying she felt “unfairly targeted and bullied” by what she claimed was a discriminatory termination.
But, in the motion to dismiss, Disney says Carano was fired because of her decision “to publicly trivialize the Holocaust by comparing criticism of political conservatives to the annihilation of millions of Jewish people—notably, not ‘thousands…'” This ended up being the “final straw” for the House of Mouse.
Walt Disney Studios
Disney is seeking a June 12th federal court hearing in Los Angeles, California before Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett for the potential dismissal. Lawyers for Disney say the suit should be dropped “on the grounds that Disney has a constitutional right not to associate its artistic expression with Carano’s speech, such that the First Amendment provides a complete defense to Carano’s claims.”
©Lucasfilm
Carano’s lawsuit states, “Defendants (Disney and Lucasfilm) went so far as to try and convince Carano’s publicist to force Carano to issue a statement admitting to mocking or insulting an entire group of people, which Carano had never done.” The claim is referring to a post that Carano shared stating, “being a Republican is like being Jewish during the Holocaust.” This was one of several social media posts the actress shared about her right-wing opinions.
The Mandalorian
When asked about the situation and subsequent firing, Carano told The Hollywood Reporter, “I just laid down and cried and cried,” adding, “I curled into a fetal position. It’s not that I didn’t think that something like that could happen. It was that I couldn’t imagine they would put out this horrendous statement about me after working with me — the most powerful entertainment company in the world saying that about me.”
Walt Disney Studios
It’s unclear whether or not Disney will get its wish granted and have a judge agree to toss out this lawsuit. We’ll be on the lookout for more updates, so stay tuned to DFB for the latest.
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Before people jump to conclusions, please seek out the actual “Tweets” (or would they be called “Xs”?) and read them. Come up with your own conclusions, trying to remove as much bias as possible. With the rise of social media and too much information to properly digest we have demonized each other far too quickly.