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The Dangers of Debating the Debatable
Gina Carano is an interesting person. She’s extremely athletic (her father was a quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys) and she was a standout in mixed martial arts, competing very successfully in two professional leagues, with an overall professional record of 19-2-1. She is beautiful, and was featured in Maxim and ESPN The Magazine. She then moved into acting, where she has starred in Fast & Furious, Deadpool, and The Mandalorian, among other projects. The Mandalorian is a Lucasfilm spinoff of Star Wars and is turning into its own extremely successful franchise, which should pay Carano handsomely for years to come. Except it won’t, because Lucasfilm just fired her, because she’s an out of the closet conservative. Check out this explanation of her firing from an article on CNet:
Carano, who played Cara Dune for two seasons of The Mandalorian, has come under fire before for her political social media comments. Late last year, the actress mocked mask-wearing during the pandemic, suggested voter fraud had occurred during the 2020 presidential election, liked posts disparaging the Black Lives Matter movement and derided the use of pronouns on social media bios.
Let’s take those one at a time. Ok, so she mocked mask-wearing during the pandemic. Have masks helped reduce the spread of the disease? Perhaps, but the data on that is very unclear, and one can certainly understand the skepticism of some people. Japan wears masks religiously, and they’re getting hammered by COVID right now. I’m not defending either point of view, I’m just acknowledging that debate on this topic is understandable. It’s not allowed, but it’s understandable.
Next, she suggested that voter fraud had occurred during the 2020 presidential election. Considering the remarkable swings that took place in the weeks after election, in very specific districts of very specific states, one can understand why some might wonder about that. Perhaps there was voter fraud. Perhaps not. I’m not defending either point of view, I’m just acknowledging that debate on this topic is understandable. It’s not allowed, but it’s understandable.
Then, she liked posts disparaging the Black Lives Matter movement. One might think that any movement that used such ruthless and violent tactics to promote vague solutions to even more vague problems would open itself up to the occasional disparaging post. Did BLM act appropriately? Perhaps, I suppose, but that’s extremely questionable. I’m not defending either point of view, I’m just acknowledging that debate on this topic is understandable. It’s not allowed, but it’s understandable.
Lastly, Ms. Carano stands accused of deriding the use of pronouns. This sounds ridiculous, as I doubt that Ms. Carano has strong feelings against any part of speech. So whoever wrote this article is intentionally concealing Ms. Carano’s efforts to point out the silliness of the 137 genders and all their various pronouns, and suggesting instead that she is waging an absurd war on grammar. Now, one could make the case that our array of newly discovered genders is reasonable. I’m not defending either point of view, I’m just acknowledging that debate on this topic is understandable. It’s not allowed, but it’s understandable.
So Ms. Carano lost a multi-million dollar contract, and all the acting gigs that it might have led to, because she debated four things that are most certainly debatable. I haven’t read her actual Tweets. She may have been rude. I’m not sure. The article doesn’t suggest that she was. But even if she was, her points were fair.
And now she’s gone from being an extremely highly paid actress to being unemployed.
There is a reason I write behind a pseudonym. Heck, I recently considered just leaving Ricochet and keeping my head down. These are scary times. Ms. Carano tried to have an honest conversation, and openly stated what she thinks about things. You might agree with her. You might not. But she told you what she thinks about things. And her acting career is probably over.
Because you’re not allowed to think those things.
Even though these things are clearly debatable. In fact, I suspect that the left knows just how debatable these things really are, which is why they’ve outlawed debate. If they knew they were in the right, they would encourage debate. Because they know they’d win.
But because they know they’ll probably lose an honest debate, a pretty lady who doesn’t know her place is out millions of dollars, and a life of fame and excitement.
If you wonder why conservatives won’t stand up for themselves, this is why.
Published in General
If Conservatives in the US are in danger of being treated like the Jews were in Germany then by implication that is calling who the Nazis? You can see where this was going.
(Also – insane comparison.)
On Ricochet, I ‘like’ a lot of posts and comments that I disagree with. I’m just thanking the person for their input, or acknowledging their point of view, or even just expressing appreciation for them keeping the conversation alive. When I ‘like’ something, that doesn’t mean I agree with every word.
This is poison.
Its calling the progressive Left the Nazis-and its not such an insane comparison, especially in light of the past year. It doesn’t mean that an actual political holocaust is imminent, but it wasn’t imminent in the early 1930s, either. That’s the perpetual danger of demagogic hate movements without either internal limiting mechanisms or effective external resistance.
Generally it’s the press who is doing it.
Journalists now spend their days on Twitter seeing who posted something that doesn’t meet their approval and noting who “liked” it, and then calling in the cancel cabal.
Although I noticed that some Republicans of the Evan McMullin variety have decided to self-purge and create their own party.
I mean, I figured one side had to go. I assumed it would be our side. But if they’re going to self-purge because they just can’t stand being in the same party as those populists . . . well, bye!
I fell in love with her (as an actress, but I could go further) when I saw the movie Haywire. The movie is a little disjointed with flashbacks and such, but still a good action flick. I never watched The Mandalorian because frankly, I’m exhausted from the endless sequels of Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel and DC comins . . . you get the idea. Unfortunately, I’m not remotely interested in the Disney Channel or Disney Plus, so I can’t join in the boycott . . .
I have spent zero minutes reflecting on what Evan McMullin was going to do next.
Unfortunately I cannot excuse a misplaced modifier as a typo.
I would say it’s analogous, not the same. The treatment of Jews in Germany was an extreme that is known and understood by everyone, therefore it makes a good point for comparison and contrast. If you want to instead compare with, say, the treatment of non-Communist Poles in Communist Poland, it’s going to be a lot harder to get your point across.
But if those who invoke the Nazi comparison are only namecalling and not actually pointing out any points of comparison, that’s not so useful.
Overwrought, not insane – after all we’ve elected literally Hitler.
I assume he’ll do whatever his boss John Brennan tells him to do.
But the comparison was apt. Unpersoning a group of people and making it that much more acceptable to destroy them.
Crossposted from the PIT:
Aside from general employment law, film casting has always been at-will, and AFAIK Disney hasn’t actually used the term “anti-Semitic”. When ABC fired Roseanne, they didn’t have to prove racism, just that they didn’t want her around anymore. That’s all it takes.
There ought to be better language than racism/not racism to describe words that are offensive but not racial. Conservatives should back that idea, to take the all or nothing “racism” banhammer out of media hands. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t solve everyone’s problems with cancel culture, because once we take “racism” off the table for non-racist remarks, we’ll still have to debate. Was “bitter clingers” racist? No. Was it offensive? Yes.
The press used “anti-Semitic” when reporting on it. Lucasfilm said “social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”
Which is just “anti-Semitic” using other words.
Lucasfilm’s statement is insanely self-righteous and off the mark in this case. But there’s a big difference between saying someone in the press says it, and it being true. Words count.
Well, especially on Twitter where you only get 220 characters or so.
The left does dehumanize conservatives in the U.S.A. I suspect fair number of the, would be fin with putting us into re-education camps.
That needs to be a tee shirt.
I’ve been following this story since it broke yesterday evening.
Several comments:
Her post wasn’t offensive. It is probably not a good idea to compare most things to Nazi’s and Jews because it can seem overwrought and can also diminish the actual event, but the post itself wasn’t that bad. I did find it a little overwrought, but it certainly wasn’t offensive. She was making the point that people are treating others horribly right now and it’s happened before. Her point was proven with Disney’s next move.
It’s even worse because Disney is so hypocritical about this. They worked with China to make Mulan even though there are million(s?) of Uyghurs in Chinese concentration camps right now getting raped, tortured, re-educated, sterilized, and killed. Disney obeys China in shrinking the size of black actors on their advertisements like they did with shrinking John Boyega’s character. They allowed the Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal to keep his job despite terrible posts including this gem I’ve seen floating around:
If that’s real that’s incredible that she was fired but he wasn’t.
Disney rehired Gunn for Guardians of the Galaxy after his offensive tweets, because he’s a lib. So, China, Pascal comparing Trump voters to Nazis, and Gunn are okay with Disney, but Gina isn’t?
If you have Disney+ you should consider cancelling it. These people hate you, and your money is going to fund more of this hatred.
Speaking of overwrought. ?
Not even remotely.
No, I don’t think so. They disdain everything about flyover country and red America. If anyone is conservative in Hollywood they have to keep it a secret because coming out as conservative is genuinely more damaging to your career than coming out as gay, or communist, or anything else.
Consider Pascal’s since deleted tweet in which he compares Republican voters to Nazi’s and confederates. Consider his tweet in which he compares children in custody at the border to Jews in concentration camps. There is no punishment for this. He still has a job. They both used Nazi imagery to make a point, yet only one was punished (and the worse offender wasn’t). This is just one illustrative example of hundreds or thousands that show how biased Hollywood is against conservatives.
Underwrought.
Sure – things have changed since the time of Tab Hunter or Rock Hudson. They’d have been fine today, unless they were Conservatives.
(Though still perhaps not Communists?)
Hollywood follows the market. And that’s why I think the comparison is overwraught. Close to 50% of Hollywood’s American market is on the Right of the Centre. How much of their market share is likely to be influenced by their not signing Gina Carano up for the next film/series vs how much would be influenced if they did? I doubt either group is huge, really, but it’s a relative thing.
Here’s the sort of person Disney hires these days. A complete and unapologetic racist.
I read that entire page- I couldn’t help but laugh because it’s farcical how disgusting she is. I was unaware of this person (I’ve got some other descriptors in mind for her but they wouldn’t pass community guidelines), but it speaks horribly for Disney that she is employed by them. One more reason not to pay for anything they make. I mean, the Gunn and Pascal stuff by comparison is tame.
I wonder if she had her sense of irony surgically removed?
When Lucasfilm said “social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable,” (which actually defines themselves in what they were about to do except in the thoughts realm rather than faith or DNA). So their thin skins thought she got too close to the truth about their industry/press/democrats (her actual point), hence she fell outside the boundaries of allowed speech. Because “othering” is only done by Republicans and conservatives. She defied the narrative and exposed their own behavior (which they proceeded to confirm). They don’t even care about how they look or craft sloppy arguments any more, I think at this point they just want to use force.
It looks like life goes on . . .
Edited – couldn’t get it to format right.
Chowderhead, and running wild with a spectacular lack of self-awareness. The victim bubble wrap is tight and thick on her.