Hello! I woke up thinking about Disney. I am sorry to say, this is how my brain works.
But first, here is a nice, relaxing video of a yarn swift and ball winder, and obviously the toddler in the background. If I wind yarn without him, it is the most basic betrayal.
I am also on Square Four of the Great American Aran Afghan, and I figure if I have to stop at 9 or 12, those are both baby-blanket-sized, so time will tell what ends this sucker. I am using Berroco Weekend, which has beautiful stitch definition, is light, and is working beautifully for all of the cables. Ooh...and it is washable! So I have that going for me.
Anyway, Disney.
So, yesterday, Gina Carano was fired from LucasFilm (owned by Disney) for posting what reads as a Nazi-sympathizing blurb about having conservative views, and being treated like poop for it. Almost immediately after that, the hashtag #fireGinaCarano started trending on Twitter. Disney did. Then, almost immediately after that, the hashtag #CancelDisneyPlus started trending on Twitter. Claims from her supporters are that she was misunderstood, and that she was actually arguing the point of loving (and therefore the idea of hating) your neighbor, and not ever saying it was okay to beat or hate Jews. It was the journey that mattered, the origin, and not the end result. Nor did both matter; the claim from her supporters is that only one or the other mattered (or so it seemed to me).
The argument was that if Disney fired Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn for posting inappropriate and abhorrent tweets and then rehired him a year later, then why would they fire Gina Carano for the same thing?
Well, they are not the same. And they are. And they are not.
Take the climate of the times out of it for a second. Difficult to do, I know, but seriously. Let's pretend the ideologies of politics were not a thing.
Every company has a code of conduct, and their employees must adhere to it. It is why employees could have tattoos exposed at, say, Big Box R Us, but they could not have an "I HEART NAZIS" tattoo exposed at Big Box R Us.
(This should go without saying, but in case there is any confusion, the tattoo referenced above is probably the most offensive, abhorrent, horrible, disgusting thing I could think of to put on someone's body, let alone even think. That said, I would bet someone in the world has one, defends it, and does not understand the big deal.)
If I had that awful tattoo, I am exercising my rights to free speech, right? I should not be able to get fired for this! These are my beliefs! Wrong. Separate from not being a person consistent with inclusivity and diversity - two values Big Box R Us embraces - you are exhibiting hate-speech. Hate speech is not allowed at Big Box R Us.
But wait - I got the tattoo before I was hired. Right?
See, that is what happened with James Gunn. His offensive posts were from before he was an employee. Social media is also pretty new, in the grand scheme of the world of employee conduct; employees know now that their employers can search their history and make a determination in their hiring decisions. They did not necessarily know this a decade ago.
Carano is in a different situation. The Nazi-sympathizing post was the last in a line of questionable social media decisions, including another post last year where she put up a photo of a bunch of people engaging in a Nazi salute, except for one guy who refused and then went on to marry a Jewish woman. She also appeared to mock people on Twitter putting their preferred pronouns in their bios, instead putting "beep/bop/boop" for her own, and refusing to apologize or even show understanding as to why that could be considered transphobic.
It is not the posts, though, that are the problem. The comparison to James Gunn is not accurate or fair, for a different reason. The first thing Gunn did was issue an apology, explanation, and another apology. He showed remorse. He had a track record of not being "that guy in the tweets" for a decade and he regretted it.
Carano not only has no regrets, she keeps pushing the idea that she is somehow being unfairly persecuted for her beliefs. I could absolutely be wrong on this, but I feel she will never apologize because she does not see a reason to apologize. She thinks she is just fine as she is. I went back and looked at some of her posts. She is anti-mask, pro-conspiracy-theory (on some level), and much of what she posts is not rooted in fact, but is also not meant as satire or animated humor.
Lets be fair: maybe she is just fine as she is. I don't know her, I don't watch Disney+, I have such a limited pop-culture parachute that I am not exactly the authority on this. My blog is my way of getting my overnight thoughts out, and do not reflect anything other than a night of thinking. I still have plenty of thinking to do.
But, history has shown me time and again that if someone is not willing to grow, not willing to be vulnerable and teachable, and not willing to entertain the idea that they may be wrong, then that is exactly who they are.
Disney sees it this way as well, I am guessing, and this is not the kind of person they want to employ, no matter how much money she makes them.
They fired her, I would think, for a breach in their code of conduct and for her continual display of a personality incompatible with their family-oriented brand.
The people who want to cancel Disney+ may be the same people who also refuse to shop at Home Depot because their CEO supported Donald Trump, or who continue to eat at Chick-Fil-A because even though they were monetarily supporting anti-LGBTQ+ groups for years, their chicken is just too good to pass up. I don't know.
What hook do you hang your hat on? Will you boycott Disney but continue to shop at Home Depot? Will you throw more of your money at Chick-Fil-A but drive that extra ten miles to Lowes?
You can do either or neither. The hook you hang your hat on is yours, and your own. You can support, advocate or protest however you want. You can even take a knee in front of your television during the National Anthem at a football game, or stand in front of your television with your hand over your heart in the same situation. But the businesses you support have a right to conduct business in their own way, too. If Disney wants to fire an actress for portraying herself as a jerk all the time (which, in my uneducated opinion, is more Charlie Sheen and less James Gunn), they can. And you can be upset about it. And you can pull your business in protest. And the full picture of the businesses you choose to support and boycott is a slice of who you are, if you follow their political leanings and donations. You also may not care, or you may just not know enough about it because you don't care "enough."
We have enough choices here in America where you can always choose to be on your own side of history. Just remember that sometimes, people will see - and judge - where you hang your hat.
