If Disney Doesn’t Like Nazi Comparisons, Maybe They Should Stop Acting Like Them

In 1997, when my mom got me the original Star Wars Trilogy for Christmas, I thought she was crazy.  I had never thought that nearly 25 years later, I would still be such a rabid fan.  I love anything any anything Star Wars, even the steaming piles of crap that the sequel trilogy turned out to be.  While Disney’s ownership of Lucasfilm has only spanned the last almost-decade, I have raised my two children, neither of whom have known a “pre-Disney” Star Wars universe, with characters like Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu, Palpatine, Count Dooku, Luke, Leia, Han, and even Cara Dune.  My home has Star Wars stuff in every room, we watch Star Wars movies several times a month, and even made a special trip to Galaxy’s Edge in 2019.  I have said that The Mandalorian is some of the best Star Wars we have seen since the close of the original trilogy 38 years ago.  The story has been amazing, tying pieces of Star Wars lore together from a storyline that spans nearly three generations and introducing us to characters whom we have grown to love, even when Disney gives them names like Grogu.

That is, until yesterday, when it was announced that Gina Carano, the actress who played an integral role in The Mandalorian as Cara Dune, and helped to defend The Child / Baby Yoda / Grogu from the remaining factions of the now destroyed Empire.  Carano, a conservative, was fired because she compared the current inquisition to the Nazi empire’s conquest to rid the world of Jews.  Somehow, this offense was too much for Disney — and likely because it hit too close to home.  In this comparison, Carano was saying that good little brown-shirt neighbors were out reporting their Jewish (Conservative) neighbors to please the Fuhrer, which in this case isn’t a person but rather the entire progressive ideology.   Disney took umbrage with that comparison and then, in turn, acted exactly like Nazis in casting Gina Carano into the same ghettos to which the left has sent James Woods, Adam Baldwin, Scott Baio, and other conservative actors with whom they disagree.

Remember, Nazi Germany didn’t start from that place.  They didn’t rise to power on the extermination of the Jews; rather they rose to power on the demonization of the Jews, stating that they were the reason for the divide in Germany and that they were sub-human, unworthy of the acknowledgment of any redeeming quality, and irredeemable, incapable of any type of rehabilitation.  Genetically, they were flawed, and the media in Germany portrayed them as the enemy, explaining that everything that was wrong with Germany was their fault, and the only remedy was to expel them from society.  Those expulsions became increasingly forceful, initially with self-imposed exile from Jews themselves, advancing to deportations, the establishment of ghettos, arrests and labor camps, and eventually, the horrible and deplorable use of concentration camps.

Certainly, Disney isn’t sending Carano to some camp to be systemically murdered, but what they are doing is telling her that her *gasp* conservative ideals, and her belief that conservatives are being pushed from society, are beyond the pale.  Remember, Disney’s benchmark for this is comparisons to Nazis, which was done by Mando himself, Pedro Pascal, numerous times over the last couple of years.  The only difference?  That Pascal compared Trump and conservatives to Nazis, which to actual Nazis, is acceptable.  Disney’s own use of nazi-imagery is throughout Star Wars, most notably seen in “The Force Awakens,” as General Hux, portrayed by an actor of such Aryan appearance and  cadence of speech that it would have earned the stamp of approval from Hitler himself, standing in front of large red and black banners, announcing his plans to eradicate “The Republic.”

As we can see from the video above, comparisons to Nazism, really don’t bother Disney that much.

Carano’s original hire was praised because she’s a gorgeous woman who doesn’t fit the Hollywood cutout of “beauty.”  Now, she’s villainized because she dares to speak out against the Fourth Reich.  She said the Nazis would come for her, and when they did, they acted exactly like Nazis, literally proving her point (as pointed out by Kyle Becker.)

Disney presumably fired Carano over those comparisons, but then acted like the fascists Carano warned about, by expelling her from the Star Wars universe.  Disney states they “have no plans” to work with her in the future, while James Gunn, who joked about literal pedophilia, is back helming the third “Guardians” movie for Marvel.  In other words, Disney finds credible complaints of Nazism and fascism more of a problem, than a grown man making horrible jokes about children.  That is their literal hierarchy of the offensive.   Why?  Because Gunn is one of them.  All Gunn had to do was issue a mea-culpa, put on his red armband, and rejoin his Aryan brothers and sisters in the fight against the evil wiles of the rat-like conservatives.  Disney’s bar for expulsion is simply fighting against their high-stepped march toward their progressive socialist future.  Instead of National Socialists (Nazis) they are Progressives Socialists or Prozis.

What could Disney have done?  What if they had a roundtable discussion, streamed on Disney+ that invited Pascal and Carano, presumably ideological opposites, to sit down and have a discussion?  That discussion, moderated by Bob Iger, would be an awesome forum for fans of all ages to understand that despite our disagreements, we can still find common ground, even if that common ground is the love for Star Wars.  Disney didn’t like the Nazi comparisons, likely because they felt they were inaccurate, so instead of showing the world they were inaccurate, they went out of their way to engage in Nazi-like tactics to get rid of Carano.

If Disney doesn’t like the Nazi comparison, maybe they should stop acting like them.