Ken Levine, the BioShock series’ creator and current Ghost Story Games director, has said that Gina Carano should not have been fired from The Mandalorian and that “Jewish people are not benefited or protected” by such an action. Levine’s comments have been widely shared and criticized on social media, with other industry figures criticizing his comment that “people should not lose their jobs for expressing stupid opinions.”
Carano was fired by Disney this week after posting an image to Instagram seemingly comparing the treatment of Jewish people in the Second World War to the tribulations faced by Republicans. Lucasfilm branded Carano’s behavior “abhorrent,” stating that the studio had no plans to work with the actress in the future. This means that she will not return to the role of Cara Dune, an important character in the Disney+ series The Mandalorian, and that she won’t appear in any future Star Wars programming.
Levine, who directed BioShock and BioShock Infinite, posted to Twitter that his “life is not improved” by Carano’s firing:
My life is not improved and, in my personal opinion, Jewish people are not benefited or protected by the firing of Gina Carano. People should not lose their jobs for expressing stupid opinions. And I don't even watch the Mandalorian!
— Ken Levine (@levine) February 12, 2021
His comments were promptly criticized, with Vlambeer co-founder Rami Ismail replying: “You genuinely don’t think someone publicly comparing being “an anti-vaccination insurrectionist-president-supporter claiming fraud after a fair election” to being “a Holocaust target” might be grounds for removal from a role-model position in a entertainment production?”
Carano’s Instagram post saw her being accused of anti-Semitism, with it comparing the treatment of Jews by their neighbors in the Second World War to people being hated as a result of their political views. Carano’s defenders have pointed out that the post also included a link to the song ‘Nazi Punks F*** Off’ by the Dead Kennedys.
“Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews,” the post read. “How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?”
There have been big moves with Star Wars video games recently, as Lucasfilm Games was officially unveiled. The publisher has revealed that it will be working with Ubisoft Montreal on an open-world game set in the Star Wars universe, while Knights of the Old Republic 3 is also reportedly in development.
