While you might sit around and complain how Twitter is ruined now, there are at least two people out there using the platform as intended — connecting and bonding over like-minded interests and beliefs. They just so happen to be Gina Carano and Elon Musk, who are either pro- or anti-free speech depending on the day, and have also maximized their non-slay to sue Disney and Lucasfilm for Carano’s 2021 firing from the company. Their team-up is a match made in hell — the suit itself combines their like-minded corniness and penchant for dramatics. “A short time ago in a galaxy not so far away†sounds like the start of yet another Disney+ Star Wars universe spinoff you didn’t know happened like The Book of Boba Fett, but it actually takes place in a much worse universe: our own, and specifically the opening lines of Carano’s lawsuit.
Carano was fired from Disney’s The Mandalorian series back in 2021 after she posted a variety of tasteless social-media posts that ranged from mocking pronoun usage to comparing mask mandates to Nazis. Along with filing, Carano wrote one of those 700-character tweets on February 6 alleging that she was “hunted down from everything I posted to every post I liked because I was not in line with the acceptable narrative of the time.†The post also noted that her case against Disney and Lucasfilm is funded by Elon Musk, who bought Twitter in 2022 and renamed it X for reasons we still don’t understand or care to know. “A couple months ago @ElonMusk tweeted that if you had been fired from using the platform (X) for exercising your right to free speech, he would like to offer these people legal representation,†Carano wrote. “Quite the noble offer, but never in my wildest dreams would I have thought anyone would take on my case against Lucasfilm/Disney.â€
“Defenders made it clear,†the suit, filed on February 6, argues, “that only one orthodoxy in thought, speech, and or action was acceptable in their empire, and that those who dared to question or failed to fully comply would not be tolerated. And so it was with Carano.†The overwrought, hero’s journey tone suggests that both Carano and Musk are trolling for attention. This suit is television to them, and bad television of that. What’s more, it hardly argues her case with any coherency. The filling is mostly screenshots of tweets about Carano primarily from users with very small followings, while omitting most of what Carano said to incur that ire. “Even though ‘the Force is Female,’†the suit claims, “defendants chose to target a woman while looking the other way when it came to men.â€
For all that Carano has claimed that her firing led to her losing opportunities, she’s still attending and profiting from conventions and meet-ups to promote a character she no longer plays. The suit feels less like an attempt at justice and more an opportunity to pile onto Twitter users who are also exercising their free speech in a way that happens to disagree with Carano’s. Everything feels very “point and laugh†about the suit, down to the arch tone. It’s not that serious — to Carano or to Musk, who always cries “trolling†when held accountable for his speech. It’d be troubling if Musk went pro on this, funding lawsuits left and right for people who feel harmed for facing consequences of their actions, but like all his business ventures, he might not be able to take it that seriously. All of the replies on his tweets about Disney are full of like-minded people joking about being discriminated against for being white men.
Folks who argue that free speech is being censured need a hero to rally around, an underdog with a scrappy personality who has been unfairly maligned and targeted. Never mind that Carano has new work producing films with Daily Wire co-founder and Ben Shapiro. And Musk exercises his own free speech several times a day, posting his thoughts ranging from innocuous and empty like “Ice cream is amazing†to the galaxy-brained malice of “LGBTQ(Anon?).†Most recently, and perhaps in light of him taking on Carano’s case, he tweeted that “Disney sucks†in response to rumors that Ayo Edebiri may take a role in the sixth entry in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.
At the end of the filing, Carano and her lawyers ask for an amount “exceeding $75,000†to cover the damages of her termination and compensation for her losing the part in Rangers of the New Republic. With this lawsuit against Disney, she’s not fighting for her rights; she’s fighting to star in the role of a lifetime.