A Win for Gina Carano — and the Culture

By Giancarlo Sopo

Thursday, August 07, 2025

MMA fighter-turned-actress Gina Carano just went the distance with Disney and walked away with a settlement that may be the clearest sign yet that the cancel culture era has run out of gas.

 

As Variety reports, the company has resolved a lawsuit with the actress over her 2021 firing from The Mandalorian. In a statement, Lucasfilm said:

 

The Walt Disney Company and Lucasfilm are pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement with Gina Carano to resolve the issues in her pending lawsuit against the companies. Ms. Carano was always well respected by her directors, co-stars, and staff, and she worked hard to perfect her craft while treating her colleagues with kindness and respect. With this lawsuit concluded, we look forward to identifying opportunities to work together with Ms. Carano in the near future.

 

That last line is the twist: Disney says it’s open to working with her again.

 

For those who don’t remember, Disney fired Carano in February 2021 after she posted a message on Instagram that critics claimed compared being a Republican under Biden to being Jewish during the Holocaust. Overwrought? Yes. Jew-hater? Hardly, and firing her for it looks even more absurd now, given the surge of antisemitism on campuses and across the culture. The charge seemed especially ridiculous to anyone who’s spent time around Gina (as I did, during my time with the Daily Wire).

 

The public didn’t buy Disney’s reasoning either. A poll taken shortly after her dismissal found that 72 percent of Americans, after seeing the post, said she shouldn’t have been fired. That view cut across party lines, with majorities of Democrats, independents, Republicans, and even Disney fans agreeing.

 

In hindsight, her firing was Peak Woke — a flashpoint from the early days of the Biden presidency when the loudest voices online often dictated corporate decisions. Since then, cancel culture has seemed to lose its grip. We saw more proof of that last month, when Superman soared at the box office despite boycott calls from the Grift-Industrial Complex. Americans want normalcy, and big business is starting to get the message.

 

Good for Gina. Good for Disney. And maybe — just maybe — good for the rest of us, too.