Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) went after Disney on Thursday, lambasting the company for firing actor Gina Carano from “The Mandalorian” over controversial social media posts.
“Texan Gina Carano broke barriers in the Star Wars universe: not a princess, not a victim, not some emotionally tortured Jedi,” Cruz wrote on Twitter. “She played a woman who kicked ass & who girls looked up to. She was instrumental in making Star Wars fun again. Of course Disney canceled her.”
Carano, who played Cara Dune on the Disney+ series, was fired after sharing an Instagram Story with problematic messages about the Holocaust.
“Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors...even by children,” read the post, which the MMA star has since deleted.
“Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?” the post continued.
Lucasfilm, the Disney-owned company that produces “The Mandalorian,” said in a statement that Carano was not “currently employed” by the company and that there were “no plans for her to be in the future,” adding that “her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”
Since Carano’s firing, social media campaigns such as #CancelDisneyPlus have cropped up in support of her. Several right-wing commentators, including Jack Posobiec and Paul Joseph Watson, have also spoken out against Disney or in defense of the actor.
Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the backlash.