The Carano Lawsuit
The reason I haven’t covered this suit is simple enough. It’s never going to go to Discovery.
There is no way on Earth Disney can let it go that far. It’s bad enough that the results of LucasFilm’s complete dysfunction is available for all the world to see. The one thing Disney doesn’t want is to reveal just how disastrous things are behind the scenes.
However, part of this suit was actually jaw dropping.
Under a lot of pressure to issue an apology for something she hadn’t done. Gina Carano decided to compromise and donate to GoFundMe that was put up at LucasFilm to support the trandgender community becasue honestly, she’s much more of centrist than she is hard right.
Here is where things get seriously illegal in California.
“Carano went to donate to a GoFundMe page allegedly set up in support of the transgender community. When she opened the link, she read that the fund was supposedly created by a Lucasfilm creative and was directly targeting Carano, defaming her by accusing her of being a “bigoted” actress. Accordingly, Carano did not donate.”
The lawsuit then alleges “Carano brought this to Lucasfilm’s attention, who denied the GoFundMe account was established by any Lucasfilm employee. Shortly thereafter, the account was changed to call Carano “ignorant” and the identity of the organizer was changed to no longer identify a Lucasfilm employee.”
It then reveals that Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy wanted Carano to join a struggle session on ZOOM with her and 45 other employees “who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community.”
The purpose of this struggle session, according to the lawsuit, “was a ‘litmus test’” to determine if she had the “willingness to endure such harassment and humiliation.”
The group was described by her publicist as “a friendly group that WANT Gina to succeed.” However, multiple employees that were to take part in the struggle session had contributed to the GoFundMe campaign including Leslye Headland.
The lawsuit states, “several had contributed to the anti-Carano GoFundMe account, including filmmaker Leslye Headland, who was scheduled to produce a Star Wars production.”
I don’t know if she screen capped it. If she did LucasFilm is boned. California has a whole bunch of laws designed to protect political activist employees. The funny part is that Musk’s lawyers are hitting them for sexism as well because only MEN were allowed to make abhorrent and extreme political statements but not a woman.
This could get very bad for Disney LucasFilm if Carano holds out for an apology. Kathleen Kennedy would die before doing that. Iger on the other hand is in kind of in the the clear, this happened when Chapek was CEO. The suit even names Chapek. Which now that I think of it is a much worse problem for Disney because it means he can be depositioned. No NDA in America can supersede a deposition.
The suit also demands her reinstatement.
Does she want to go back to work in that cesspit?
I doubt it.
BUT this could stall all Star Wars productions until it’s settled.
At the end of the day, this was a godsend for Elon Musk. Disney/LucasFilm broke every rule in the book and a few that weren’t and did so knowing that freshly unemployed actress would never have the wherewithal to battle the legal forces of Mickey the Great and Terrible. The fact that Disney is going to be frantic to keep this from going to discovery puts Gina Corano in the driver’s seat if she wants the one thing that Disney/LucasFilm would rather die than do.
Apologize.
