Gina Carano, between body-shaming, conspiracy and transphobia: let's be clear

Let's clarify the controversy surrounding Gina Carano, Cara Dune's The Mandalorian. Let's talk about body-shaming, no-mask and pro-Trump conspiracy, and transphobia.

In the last few days the Italians have finally reached the ears controversy over Gina Carano, the actress who plays Cara Dune in The Mandalorian. These controversies, in fact, are not exactly new, but in recent days they have become more noisy.

I intended to quickly clarify the content of these controversies in the de review The Siege, the third episode of the second season of The Mandalorian. However, as always, my "fast" quickly turned into a lengthy digression when the whole review. So, I have decided to move it completely in this separate article.

Why did I write this article?

Personally, I felt the need to do this deepening why it seemed to me that the narration that was made of these controversies was often rather superficial. Unfortunately, a superficial narrative tends to give an unclear impression of what one is talking about.

I have seen these polemics treated as if they were respectable complaints from politically correct fixers (which as usual is a misused term, as we said Thu). I have seen them treated as attempts to censor Gina Carano, who instead was praised because "she has the courage to say what she thinks, something that nobody does now". I wonder why this supposed "honesty of thought" is praised only when it expresses reactionary ideas, where the same honesty of thought expressed by a progressive person is labeled as a "rant by SJW" or as a "censorship / dictatorship of the politically correct". But that's not the point of the article, so I'll gloss over the issue.

After several days in which I found my social networks invaded by articles on the subject and by dozens of comments with the tones mentioned above, I decided to do this little study. In this article, in fact, I want to list the various controversies that revolve around the figure of Gina Carano, explain where they come from and why some of them are actually to be taken into consideration.

There are three controversies currently in vogue. The first concerns the body shaming done on Gina Carano on Twitter. The second and third instead concern something that Gina Carano wrote on Twitter: transphobic messages and conspiracy messages. In turn, conspiracy messages fall into two main categories: no-mask and pro-Trump. Let's look at these controversies in more detail.

The body-shaming on Gina Carano

Let's start with the simplest controversy with less chiaroscuro, that is the body-shaming that some users on Twitter have done against Gina Carano. The story was reported also by the columnists of L'Insolenza di R2-D2.

After the fourth episode of the second season of The Mandalorian, in fact, Carano was insulted on Twitter for her physical appearance and for her alleged weight gain. In the images above you can see two examples of these comments. Some of the haters came up with these insults in response to Carano's more political tweets.

There is little to say in this case, other than the fact that we are again faced with an example of how, for certain elements of our society, it is unthinkable that a non-threadlike body is normal or healthy. It's always sad to see how the demonization of being fat extends to anyone who is not thin in the sense (unfortunately) now perceived as proper to the term (which is not having little fat mass, but having a thin body, which is a very different thing).

These insults are hate speech and body-shaming in their most obvious forms. Whatever the positions of Gina Carano, this type of insults is not acceptable.

The transphobia of Gina Carano

Let's now talk about the transphobia accusations against Gina Carano, born above all from the modification of her Twitter profile, which you can see above. In this modification, by writing boop / bop / beep in fact, next to her name, Carano, she made a very secret mockery of the habit of many Twitter users a specify your pronouns. Habit that also has the lead actor of the series, Pedro Pascal.

This usage has also and above all spread to normalize the fact that trans people, to avoid misgendering (i.e. being called in the masculine although they are women, or in the feminine although they are men), specify their gender and the pronouns with which they are feel comfortable. By making this practice common and also used by cisgender people, in fact, it makes trans people less isolated and less uncomfortable having to make this specification.

The fact that Carano makes fun of this practice is not nice, and it could imply that she despises the idea of ​​gender identity, or at least people who use unconventional pronouns because they have a non-binary gender identity. Furthermore, we are faced with a very subtle type of transphobia, which is not immediately recognizable as such. In that sense, it is different from JK Rowling's transphobia (which we talked about Thu e Thu) And the one against Fumettibrutti.

The reactions of the audience and the response of the actress

After it was pointed out to her that her externalization was not very delicate, Gina Carano claimed to have talked about the issue of pronouns with Pedro Pascal and to have understood that she was wrong. He said he wouldn't put pronouns in his Twitter description, but he also took away the boop / bop / beep. Below you can see some of the critical comments made by fans towards Carano's decision.

Gina Carano's anti-mask and conspiracy outbursts

With regard to his conspiratorial utterances, we are instead faced with two main trends, always visible on Twitter, and much less excusable than Carano's previous utterances.

Indeed, on the one hand, Gina Carano has published content critical of carrying the mask to counter the Covid-19 epidemic. On the other hand, the actress has posted tweets in which she is not simply supporting Trump and therefore is not "just saying her opinion", as some say. These tweets (you find them Thu e Thu) support Trump's conspiracy theories and, frankly, anti-Democrats that the US elections were rigged in favor of the Democrats. You will find the three tweets in image format below.

Let's clarify why it is serious that Gina Carano spreads conspiratorial and anti-democratic ideas

Gina Carano's conspiratorial outbursts are serious not because the actress is pro-Trump, not because the actress has her own political views. They are serious because Carano is a famous actress and with her media coverage she is spreading false information. It is false that the mask is useless. It is false that the US elections were rigged to make Trump lose.

And no, it's not okay to spread false information. We have always said that. We said this against the anti-mask conspiracy theorists and Covid-19 deniers who gathered to protest this summer. Then we said it against Angela da Mondello and her "there is no coviddi". We have said it over and over against the anti-vaccinists, the flat-earthers, the conspiracy theorists of the strong powers, the New World Order, the pedophiles hidden under the pizzerias of Washington and the new conspirators of Q-Anon.

If it's not okay for Angela da Mondello to spread the idea that “there isn't any coviddi”, then it's not okay for Gina Carano to spread anti-mask ideas. Just because we like Cara Dune, just because Carano is a beautiful woman who proudly brings to the screen a physique that much of the cinema deems unacceptable to a woman, doesn't mean we can't condemn the fact that this actress is using her notoriety to spread conspiracy and anti-democratic ideas.

#FireGinaCarano: the reason for the protests

After Gina Carano's no-mask and conspiracy utterances, it was inevitable that part of the Star Wars protested. Articles like this explain why many and many fans, who see Cara Dune's character as an example of resistance to tyranny, feel the character somehow "ruined" by the political ideas and problematic expressions of the actress who plays him.

This doesn't happen because some fans are “stupid” and “can't tell the actor from the character”. Obviously it is not for this. These reactions happen because you realize that it is the character of Cara Dune who gives Gina Carano a large part of her current fame. We realize that by supporting The Mandalorian and making Carano work for a company as big as Disney, and in a legendary franchise like Star Wars, it is being given the power and the public to spread its conspiratorial and reactionary ideas very much.

That's why he asked to fire Gina Carano, with the appropriate hashtag #FireGinaCarano. Not because the actress can't have her political views or can't vote for Trump. Not because you want to censor his free thinking. But because fake news about pandemics and anti-democracy are dangerous. They are the reason why Covid-19 deniers exist and the conspirators of Q-Anon who kidnap their daughters.

Some of my final thoughts

Personally, I'm not sure I want to see Gina Carano fired. When I learned that she was going to join The Mandalorian I was delighted, because I think it is important to represent female characters with a varied physique. But it certainly makes me strange to see a rebel who fought against an authoritarian regime that has dismantled a democracy played by a woman who supports anti-democratic ideas aimed at dismantling democracy. And I also believe that it is serious that Carano has the media coverage to support conspiracy ideas of this type.

For this reason I do not appreciate that these controversies are spoken of superficially, limiting oneself to the "damned politically correct" or "these people are stupid". The matter is more complex than that, and it should be acknowledged.