Disney pushes Gina Carano for Emmy consideration for The Mandalorian

The 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards will be held on September 19 of this year, and studios have begun to push for recognition. Disney is trotting out campaigns for shows like WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and The Mandalorian, hoping to snag some hardware to go along with those tens of millions of subscribers it’s getting.

All this is pretty standard, but the “For Your Consideration” poster for The Mandalorian has raised a few eyebrows. This poster highlights the actors from the show, pleaded for voters to award, say, Pedro Pascal (Din Djarin) with a nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, or Rosario Dawson (Ahsoka Tano) with one for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series.

Again, that’s all standard, but it’s curious that Disney is pushing Gina Carano (Cara Dune) for a nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, considering that it had formally severed ties with her. Her character isn’t expected to return for a third season.

Why did Disney fire Gina Carano?

Disney fired Gina Carano back in February. “Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future,” said a spokesperson at the time. “Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”

Carano had posted a series of inflammatory messages on social media to the point where apparently the Mouse had too much. She mocked the practice of pronoun sharing, mocked the practice of wearing masks during the pandemic, spread some of President Trump’s conspiracy theories about election fraud and finally evoked the Holocaust when talking about modern-day political divisions.

With all that, it’s not exactly shocking that an image-conscious company like Disney would let Carano go, although it received about as much blowback for firing her as it did for employing her in the first place. Word is the studio was looking for a reason to can her soon after the initial social media pushback began and she refused to issue a company-approved apology.

And now Carano is back on the “For Your Consideration” poster. Should we take this as a sign that Disney has made up with her? I’d guess probably not. I imagine they’re just following standard protocol and pushing all their actors for awards consideration, perhaps confident that Carano won’t get a nomination or win. I mean, let’s be honest: she fit the role of Cara Dune well enough but I kinda doubt voters will think her performance Emmy-worthy.

But I dunno! What if she wins and gets up on stage and blasts Disney? That seems like the kind of eventuality a studio as calculating as Disney would foresee and correct for…unless they really have made up behind the scenes? We’ll see what happens.

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h/t DisInsider