WTW41: Gina Carano Sues Disney

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:41 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke. This is episode 41. I'm Thomas. That's Lydia. How you doing?

0:00:46 Lydia: Lydia. I'm good.

0:00:48 Thomas: Yeah, confirm. Yeah. Thanks for confirming what I said.

0:00:50 Lydia: Yes, you're welcome.

0:00:51 Thomas: That s good. They might not have believed me otherwise. And we've got a very special episode because we are also I'm also joined by co-host of Opening Arguments, Matt Cameron. How are you doing?

0:00:52 Lydia: Yes. Don't know. I'm just a voice, so. Yay.

0:01:04 Matt: Hey Smith, so I'm feeling better than a guy that just did the Kessel Run in 11 Par 6. I gotta tell you. Having a night.

0:01:12 Thomas: Lydia has no idea what that is.

0:01:13 Lydia: I know some of this stuff.

0:01:16 Matt: Lydia, you've seen a Star War,

0:01:17 Lydia: I have seen several Star

0:01:17 Matt: Right?

0:01:17 Thomas: Yeah, she's seen Star Wars. She just has a normal person brain that doesn't care about it.

0:01:20 Matt: Okay.

0:01:19 Lydia: War. Yeah. I watch it as a movie. Yes.

0:01:23 Matt: I don't care that much.

0:01:25 Lydia: I don't. I don't absorb the canon, I guess. That's all.

0:01:25 Matt: Okay. All right. Yeah.

0:01:28 Thomas: Yeah, no, I just watched as a kid so much. It's like, yeah, of course I know everything, like all the lines and stuff. And then Lydia knows, like, none of the names of anybody. We just had a whole thing on this.

0:01:34 Matt: Exactly. Right. I mean, that's like the Kessler Run. I'm mean, it's right in your head. Right.

0:01:33 Lydia: Yeah. That's not true. I mean, OK, I don't know the names of a lot of them. That's

0:01:39 Matt: Right?

0:01:41 Thomas: Like, people may have heard the outtake on the last episode by now.

0:01:43 Lydia: True. We'RE DOING A LOT of STAR WARS stuff.

0:01:47 Thomas: I don't know why. We didn't do it. Matt did. Oh, wait, Gina Carano is allegedly.

0:01:47 Lydia: Yeah, no, I did it.

0:01:51 Matt: Yeah, I was...

0:01:52 Thomas: Okay. Well, yeah, let's talk about ex -MMA fighter who apparently has also acted terribly in some things. Gina Carana.

0:01:52 Matt: Okay.

0:01:58 Lydia: Yeah, handful of things.

0:02:00 Thomas: Who

0:02:01 Lydia: SO I A a lot of people saw this, essentially. Carano is suing Disney for firing her a few years ago. Quick background. In 2018, Gina Carana was cast in The Mandalorian playing Cara Dune. Cara Dane? Cara Dune? Cares? Thank you, Star Wars.

0:02:16 Thomas: Cares? It's not real Star Wars. Don't care. Yeah.

0:02:18 Matt: Yeah, she's gone now.

0:02:20 Lydia: She appeared in season one about, you know, a few episodes in and then became a pretty big character from what I understand in season two. I don't think we ever watched season two because it was The Mandalorian.

0:02:31 Thomas: I think we did I don't know it's just boring yeah

0:02:33 Lydia: And I don' I didn't. Yeah. Then in late 2020, after you Black Lives Matter and protests and everything on Twitter, she specifically never issued any public support for Black Lives matter. And it seemed to really rub a lot of people the wrong way. They kind of tried calling her out on it. She just never said anything. She avoided.

0:02:34 Thomas: Huh that was all it was I thought oh

0:02:53 Lydia: No, that's the beginning. Then there was, you this encouragement to include pronouns in in bios. Right. I've seen this reported a few different ways. I've seen some people say that, you know, Twitter fans were calling on her to put her pronouns in her bio. She later says that Disney directed her to put her pronounce in her Bio. Either way, she wasn't doing it for the longest time. And then I guess got fed up at some point and put beep bop boop in there.

0:03:22 Lydia: Pedro Pascal, who has his younger sister is trans. And I guess he had

0:02:54 Thomas: Okay huh oh yeah well

0:03:27 Lydia: A conversation with her to help educate her as to like why this, this freaking matters, and what she did was really messed up.

0:03:32 Thomas: I yeah yeah I don't think anyone would have cared if she just didn't put her pronouns in her bio would they I don't have mine in my bio does it matter THAT MUCH BUT

0:03:40 Lydia: Yeah, I don't know. And that's why I'm saying like there's different reporting. So there is some claims that from her anyway.

0:03:45 Thomas: If you go out OF your way to mock it then you're an asshole I get that but it's fine it's weird why didn't she just not say anything I'm sure it would have been fine

0:03:48 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah and I don't know. But

0:03:52 Matt: Disney's response in this, I think is going to tell us a lot more than the facts in this in this claim so we'll learn a lot I

0:03:56 Lydia: Yeah yeah I think that's true. Up apologizing for that and got rid of them. Again it was from her conversation with Pedro Pascal who I believe she throws under the bus in the lawsuit. Matt you'll walk us through that a little bit. Then in February 2021, so a few months later, she posted a series of things on Instagram. One was a meme about hating someone for their political views is like the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust.

0:04:23 Lydia: And Shapiro hero characterizes this as othering people leads to murder, and why is that such a bad thing for her to have said? Um, I don't know, it's a very weird thing.

0:04:22 Thomas: Wait whoa whoa whoa whoa leads to murder is he really just criticizing nazis based on their political views by calling the murders. That is, wow. Rich.

0:04:33 Lydia: Um Wow. Um, she also included stuff about like anti -masking at the time too, and you know, just kind of like these mocking sort of memes, and basically like the fan base had had it, and there was a hashtag Fire Gina Carano that was was trending. And in that same month, February, Lucasfilm announced that she would not be in any future projects. And she was also dropped from United Talent Agency the exact same day. Post was a big part of this. But I said, you know, she also mocked face masks a lot. During COVID, she believed in voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election and was tweeting about that a lot, um.

0:05:19 Thomas: Mean, you can cut through a lot of this by being just like, she sucks. And finally we found out she sucks and favorite thing about the Gina Carano thing is because I vaguely witnessed, I think most of this just Casually, cause I don't care about anything does really. But, what, uh, I love is she not like a good actress or something? Like, she's only cast because she was a MMA fighter, and so it's weird to be like

0:05:24 Lydia: Sucks. But She could do her own stunts and they'd save some money

0:05:41 Thomas: Yeah which is not even a big deal because we, they actually have stunt people that can do stunts, and then acting like you don't have, unfortunately you can't have a stunt actor, you know like it's easier to go the other way, you know, but uh, so what I thought was funny about it was like, it's a hell of a gamble to take with, you're already like a stunt casting, so to speak, like it's not like she's in to the you or or anything that she's ever done, and what I love is how just so little talent on the right that like they're stuck with the shittiest celebrities, and so then like you know, Ben Shapiro has to sign her on to make a bunch of movies for his website, and they're terrible. It's the best

0:05:52 Lydia: Yeah yeah yep oh yeah no, so that And that's what I was gonna mention as well, one week after this, right, so she's dropped from Lucasfilm, one week later she announces that she's going to be developing films with The Daily Wider, and the

0:06:21 Thomas: Yeah and we know how good those are

0:06:35 Lydia: Film that they were going to do is called White Knuckle, and it's about revenge by a survivor of an attempted murder by a serial killer. However, this ended up being canceled because she refused to comply with masking and vaccine requirements in the industry. And she was like, I would sooner rot in hell. Not really. But she was I'm not making this movie if I'm going to be forcing people to wear masks or get the vaccine. And then apparently Jeremy Boring recalls this interaction he had with her where she was like, screw it. I'll leave the union. Let's go up to Montana and just make a different movie where Where

0:06:36 Thomas: Oh yeah uh that's funny yeah

0:07:11 Lydia: They Can't Get Us. Yeah, it says where they can't get after us, like Hollywood can't get after them. So they made a Western called Terror on the Prairie, and that came out in June 2022. And nothing since then with

0:07:11 Thomas: They made a western and it was a best picture award winner and we all feel foolish, what

0:07:26 Lydia: Dailyware. Yeah.

0:07:28 Matt: Actually found a review of it, uh, guide, the popular Christian review site praised it for a very strong, very Christian moral worldview, but also, of course, noticed that it was stilted, unmemorable, and boring. So yeah.

0:07:32 Lydia: Ah.

0:07:41 Lydia: Even they didn't like it.

0:07:41 Thomas: It's so good oh it's the vest oh

0:07:44 Lydia: All right, let's see. On Worth It or Woke, let me pull up what they thought about it worth it or woke .com it's one of my favorite

0:07:43 Matt: Oh

0:07:49 Thomas: Worth it or woke, yeah every time you mention that I forget it existed. Did, and then I'm excited again because it's so good, worth it or woke

0:07:52 Lydia: Yeah oh my god um woke elements, it says none. Terror on the Prairie is an intentionally non-woke film. While it could be understandable for some to assume that having a woman in the lead of a gritty western thriller is woke, it is not in this case, yeah oh Oh my God, God, Carano's character is a traditional frontiers woman and mother who relies on her husband for protection.

0:08:11 Thomas: Jeez wow oh my god, oh, that's the best what if they take this MMA fighter whose only thing she offered as an actress was fighting and they're like, yeah, but we have to do Christiany stuff, so you just sit there and then the man will do everything. What if, that honestly, that's, I can't think of a worse like punishment for her than that.

0:08:29 Lydia: God, what a mess.

0:08:41 Matt: Wow she gets to shoot a gun, at least I assume at some point

0:08:43 Thomas: Yeah maybe yeah, if like something happens to her husband, you know, and her husband says it's okay yeah first

0:08:46 Matt: Yeah right right, yeah

0:08:45 Lydia: It's probably a requirement for any movie in Montana.

0:08:48 Matt: Yeah

0:08:49 Thomas: She has to ask permission can I shoot this, and then he's like, yeah okay, yeah

0:08:50 Matt: What

0:08:52 Lydia: Yeah. Waters described her as one of the up and coming, you know, rising stars of Hollywood. Would. So, you know, before her star fell, when she was let go, she actually spoke with Tucker Carlson pretty much right after. And I sent you the link if you want to play that. Clipped together because it's from his like Tucker Carlson Weekend or something today. I don't know, some weird daytime thing.

0:09:01 Thomas: I

0:09:19 Clip: When I went in, hashtag trans rights, and I went and put my pronouns in, like they kept on it, pressuring, and finally I just said, I'm not, I'm not doing this, you know, like, I'm like, what are the pronouns? I don't even know what people are talking about, I was just not clued in to the pronouns thing, which apparently been that's been happening for like, like seven, eight years now, right? It's been happy, no one has ever explained no purpose, I mean, I didn't know, you're just supposed to know, yeah, and if you don't know, your bigot, yeah. Well, Well, then I put beep -bop -boop in my... Beep -bap -boot. Yeah. So that, if I'm translating, that just means middle finger to you, right? Well, that just meant I can put anything I want in my bio.

0:09:33 Thomas: I know, is I'm against it, yeah

0:09:35 Matt: Are pronouns okay

0:10:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:10:01 Clip: I can do whatever I want. That's all that was. Because you thought it was a free country. Yeah, because I thought it Was a free... Yes. I was speaking

0:10:04 Lydia: She's

0:10:07 Thomas: No, but it's not a free country because you can't fire someone from your studio if you don't want to. See, it only goes one way.

0:10:12 Clip: Out about lockdowns, Masks, vaccinations, and pronouns way before anybody was even saying a word about it. And so I was a little bit ahead, I'm sure, if I would have done that now, it wouldn't have been a big deal, but because I was talking about this when nobody else was talking about it, especially nobody else in my industry It was like, um, Lucasfilm Called me and they're like, okay, we're gonna need you to get, um, go on a Zoom call with 45 of our, you know, LGBTQ, you know, community, and we have to get you on the phone with those people, we need to watch, you know, have you watch all these trans, um, these movies about the trans lives, um, documentaries and and I was like, okay, I'll watch your documentaries and I'll talk to your people, but I'm not going to get on a Zoom call with 45 different people who can have their phones out videotaping me, and I feel like that's extremely abusive.

0:10:23 Thomas: What? What is she talking about? What?

0:10:25 Lydia: Basically saying she's a pioneer

0:11:03 Matt: I'm sorry, if somebody made me go on a Zoom call with 45 people, I would quit. Just doesn't matter which 45 people. That's just awful.

0:11:08 Lydia: Yeah. There's

0:11:07 Thomas: Yeah. I Or might do it because it would be such chaos that it's like, what's even going to happen? Zoom call with seven people is chaos. 45, kidding me, fine.

0:11:12 Lydia: Yeah,

0:11:18 Matt: Right. Way too much, can't do it, it's

0:11:20 Thomas: Oh,

0:11:20 Clip: Just become fascinated the last two years by bravery and where it emerges in people you never expected to emerge in. That's a brave woman and a really interesting conversation. It's on Tucker Carlson today. Tomorrow, 7 a .m. on Fox Nation.

0:11:31 Lydia: I had to, I had I had, make sure you got that, yeah.

0:11:33 Thomas: Haven't seen such bravery since Tucker interviewed Vladimir and uh, gosh, I hope we, I don't know if there's anything to cover in that interview, but I just love how even Putin, like afterwards talking shit on him, it's my favorite thing in the world. He's like, I thought this guy was gonna ask me hard questions, and he's He didn't. It's so good.

0:11:38 Lydia: Yeah, Yeah.

0:11:51 Matt: A, it's the bravest thing this woman who fights in a cage has ever done. I

0:11:54 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah,

0:11:57 Lydia: Lost her job and, you know, it was pretty quiet it the years in between until recently when Elon Musk on Twitter basically issued a statement and said, if you feel like you lost your job or have been discriminated against because of your speech, reach out to me and I will pay for your lawyers, basically. And Gina Carano responded, and Elon Musk took her up on it, and now he's paying for her lawsuit. So here we are. Yeah.

0:12:13 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Wow. God, just when you think that guy can't waste any more money. Actually, Matt's here to tell us it's a of a lawsuit and she's going to win. She's going to take Disney's lunch or whatever.

0:12:32 Lydia: Yeah. Can't wait to hear.

0:12:38 Matt: This this money was well spent, let me tell you this.

0:12:41 Thomas: Am we figured since Matt doesn't have enough work between defending immigrants who are getting, you railroaded by the system and also doing episodes of opening arguments seemingly every day, you know, we thought he had nothing but time. So maybe he could come help us with this lawsuit.

0:12:57 Lydia: Yep.

0:12:59 Matt: I had fun. This is, this is a fun read. I me tell you first of all about Donald M. Falk, the lawyer responsible for this garbage, uh, the, the guy best the money that Elon Musk could spend, uh, appears to be someone who's known as a class action killer. I'm not sure why he was hired on this one, but he's, he's taken up a lot of conservative causes, including vaccine stuff and, you employment discrimination stuff you'd expect from the right, basically. So I had the look him immediately because of the introduction, which I assume that you've taken a look at. This is the dumbest introduction I've ever seen to a legal document, and I have to just a quick word here as a practitioner, this is stupid and dangerous to do something like this. So he starts off saying, "A short time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, defendants made it clear that only one orthodoxy and thought, speech or action was acceptable in their empire," and it goes

0:13:00 Lydia: What's going on?

0:13:25 Lydia: Oh, my God. Yeah.

0:13:45 Matt: On from there, all right. I know, it gets worse. "After two highly acclaimed seasons on The Mandalorian as rebel ranger Cara Dune, Carano was terminated from her role as swiftly as her character's peaceful home planet of Alderaan had been destroyed by the Death Star.

0:13:45 Lydia: I want to barf. It's so bad. Hop. Oh

0:13:50 Thomas: Yeah.

0:13:58 Matt: In an earlier Star Wars film." Yep.

0:13:59 Lydia: My God, it's so So bad.

0:14:01 Thomas: Do you get law points for those, like little?

0:14:04 Matt: I okay, I, I was having so much fun imagining when I read this some like 87-year-old female judge who's just never seen a Star War, and it's just like, "What are you talking about? What is this?" That's having a really good time, like, because I know people who have never ever seen a Star War. They're out there. I mean, it's like the most popular media property in the world. But my law partner, Nicole, I love her. She's never seen a star war.

0:14:04 Thomas: No. Okay.

0:14:13 Lydia: Yeah.

0:14:16 Thomas: Yeah. Lydia. There's certainly plenty of people who haven't seen, like any new Star Wars that are going to be pretty confused as to what this is.

0:14:29 Matt: Oh, sure. And And they're not missing

0:14:32 Thomas: You know, you're like, did she play the? Baby Yoda? Is that who she is? I don't know.

0:14:32 Matt: That much, really. It's fine. But this guy got paid probably like $2,500 an hour to write this or something. I also wanted to note, canonically, he just makes a mistake here. "Though the Force is female" that's in quotes, "defendants chose to target a woman while looking the other way when it came to men," we'll get to that, but "the Force's female" is not canon, the force isn't is gender neutral, that's a t -shirt that's literally a t shirt that people wear, and I have no problem with saying the Force ist female, but that's not like an actual Star Wars canonical thing, so you've already made a mistake. In mean, I'm sure he thinks this is like the capstone of his career, this introduction, but it is, sure.

0:14:59 Thomas: What is that?

0:15:13 Lydia: Yeah.

0:15:09 Thomas: I -hmm. Well, let's be honest. I mean, he's just accepting a large check from a guy who does not know how to not waste money, apparently. That's the one thing Elon Musk. And so he's probably like just having fun with it, you know? Like, it's not like he's going to get disbarred. Seen no one can get dismarred. It actually doesn't exist. So right away.

0:15:29 Lydia: Yeah.

0:15:24 Matt: Hey, no, yeah not? No, I introduction like this, I could see a bar complaint, but that's just me in my world. You know, the rule of law still reigns over the defendant's empire. I mean, it just goes on. I mean just the idea of comparing Disney, which is not like the best corporation, but it's still just an American corporation, comparing it to like a genocidal intergalactic, you know, empire with stormtroopers and I don't know. It's just so over the top.

0:15:53 Thomas: We're at least three years away from that being reality. I agree. Not quite, not quite there yet.

0:15:56 Matt: Yeah, right. Exactly. No, that's right. And before Disney is integrated into our empire. Yeah. So this is a federal suit. It brought in federal court because there's multiple states involved, and is a action basically arising from California labor law, and I will say up front I'm not a California labor lawyer, I'm not an entertainment lawyer, I've done some research on this, it's not that complicated, the issues raised in here are actually somewhat novel. So this is a case that people are watching because, so as I can tell, I wasn't able to find any other major cases under this statute for someone who had been fired based on social media posts, basically, for an actor, somebody in Hollywood. Now, the reason it really matters that she is in Hollywood and is an at-will actor for a TV show is that, I think we know, but you have special provisions in your contract when you're an entertainer, right? And especially when you're doing movies and TV, it's very common. And I really want to know up front what was in her her contract that is not in here.

0:15:59 Thomas: Yeah.

0:16:37 Lydia: Oh, I know. Me

0:16:52 Matt: Her contract's not attached, right?

0:16:52 Lydia: Too.

0:16:53 Matt: And it really would seem to be because typically there are sort of what they call morality clauses, which obviously if you go murder then you're off the movie. That's pretty easy. But there's also usually clauses about if you do things that undermine the project that you're working on or somehow denigrate the studio or whatever. Same with any employer, employer obviously if you go out, I mean, I love my staff, but if one of them lost their minds and started tweeting about we should have mass deportations, I think I'd have reason to fire them. It's bad for the business I'd talk to them first you

0:16:53 Thomas: That would be important. Yeah. Yeah. But

0:17:20 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's

0:17:21 Thomas: That's just their political view. They're allowed to do whatever, or are we the evil empire, man? Yeah,

0:17:27 Matt: Know, I guess I'm Darth Vader because I don't think my employees should be tweeting about mass deportation.

0:17:31 Thomas: It's gets so tiresome to even point it out, but like the obvious hypocrisy of cancel culture is the worst. Cancel culture is the worst, how dare you, but like you're not allowed as an employer to not want to associate with someone, like, isn't that the most basic conservative tenet of anything?

0:17:31 Matt: Um, no, Yeah, Right.

0:17:47 Thomas: Like, like they want they want people, employers to have so many rights that they can hire children to work in mines, but they can't fire Gina Carano. Damn it. Yeah.

0:17:48 Matt: And and right And they're also obsessed with freedom of contract, right? And what is freedom of contract if not to end the contract? Um, yeah, off the bat, that's the the major problem that I saw with this case, is we don't know what her terms of employment were. So she's coming out and saying that she had the right to say all this stuff, but I'm not sure that she necessarily did. And I think it's pretty well accepted, you know?

0:17:59 Thomas: Do Think that if the contract, good for her, it would have been included, like as an exhibit or whatever, as an attachment yeah,

0:18:16 Lydia: I think so. Yeah, yeah.

0:18:17 Matt: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, right. Disney will be responding soon enough. I'm sure they'll be happy to provide it.

0:18:26 Lydia: It looked to me like they had a long time to respond, though. When I was looking at the docket, it looked like they going to be due until like May. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it was like a while. And I was like, come on, people. People.

0:18:32 Thomas: These things take forever interesting

0:18:42 Matt: And let me, let me just, skipping ahead here. So essentially the factual allegations you've just laid out with a sort of series of social media posts that sort of escalated up to the point where she posted the big one on February 10th, 2021, in which she essentially compared, and what's interesting about that post is when you read it there, it's not explicitly political. It's just sort of saying some people are getting treated like Jews in Germany, you actually says, I thought this was a little strange, in the complaint. It actually, it acknowledges this wasn't a political post, but yet she's being fired for political opinions. The way through here, I never seen so many tweets in one complaint. It's just going through all of these different social media posts, and it's just like such an online filing. Like, it's just from very online people. Course, it has to in the complaint, because you have have to show all these things, but literally the responses to her and retweets and things that Carl Weathers was posting. The reason this is 59 pages is because there's so many screenshots. I

0:19:07 Thomas: Huh. It's

0:19:39 Lydia: Wow.

0:19:39 Matt: Think it would probably be 15 without all the screenshots. Let's just look at the claims very quickly because these are a stretch. Will work from the one I think is the most ridiculous, list, which is the last one. She's alleging sex discrimination under California section 12940, which is something that exists in every state, obviously, that employers can't discriminate based on a long list of characteristics. It's a very long list. It has been added to over time. I think they're all characteristics we would understand and appreciate. Politics, of course, are not included on that list, but gender and sex is, right?

0:20:09 Thomas: Not. Oh, I remember covering this at some point where it's like, it's not necessarily politics, but like political activity or something, is that in there, or is is that a different thing?

0:20:16 Matt: Coming. That's a different code. Yeah, now, yeah, this is just the sort of protected classes, and the reason that she's trying to bring a sex discrimination claim is because that puts her into the most protected class, right, into this statute, and that would be very good for her. But the way that she's trying to prove sex discrimination is by saying, well, I was tweeting about how maybe trans people aren't great, and Pedro Pascal was tweeting about how great trans people are, so he's getting treated treated differently.

0:20:17 Thomas: Oh,

0:20:43 Matt: Yeah.

0:20:41 Thomas: What? Oh, my

0:20:44 Lydia: One of the other things that that has been brought up, too, is that, well, you know, Pedro Pascal compared Jews in concentration camps with the treatment of undocumented migrant children at ICE detention facilities. So, yeah.

0:20:44 Thomas: God.

0:20:56 Matt: Hey, me too.

0:20:58 Lydia: So you know he's saying that and I'm saying this, so why am I getting in trouble? But

0:21:03 Matt: Right. No, it's really, you

0:21:01 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. I thought when you mentioned Carl Weathers, I immediately thought, oh, is the argument she's going to make is like, this guy, I don't know what tweeted, but like, oh. He tweeted some crazy crap. He didn't get fired. He's a man. I tweet crazy crap, I did get fired, I'm a woman. I thought that's what it was going to be.

0:21:05 Matt: Know, that is what she's saying. No, that's in there

0:21:22 Lydia: Carl

0:21:20 Thomas: Oh, OK. Okay, Carl the Carl Weathers piece when

0:21:22 Lydia: Weathers, I don't think so. He?

0:21:25 Matt: Too, I think. Yeah, no, he did. So he Even Carano's male co -star, the late Carl Weathers, posted this exact same message. It wasn't the exact same message.

0:21:25 Lydia: Okay.

0:21:34 Matt: And he also retweeted something about how one party was was controlling the media in Germany and whatever else. But he wrote, who gets to decide what is appropriate for me or my child to read? The Nazis knew how both to control and eradicate. Interesting playbook to emulate. What's next? Who's next. It's not exactly the same as what she said. It's kind of weird and similar.

0:21:51 Matt: I don't know what he was talking about.

0:21:50 Thomas: Was it and what was that about, yeah,

0:21:52 Matt: There's No context in this. I didn't look the tweet up. So I don't know what he was actually talking about, but I'm just going to read very quickly what actual Instagram post that caused all the trouble for her because She was getting into firefights online all the time. But then she goes and posts this. Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers, but by their neighbors, even by children. 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. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views? Great

0:21:52 Thomas: It's

0:22:00 Lydia: Right.

0:22:23 Thomas: Yeah, yeah,

0:22:24 Matt: Work, great work. This is how is that any difference? So this is just stupid, I think you can fire somebody for being stupid. I don't think that's a protected class, it's just a

0:22:28 Thomas: Yeah, I was she's not a good actor and Her job was to be an actor and the only thing she could do is bring like, you know, audience who like, like her, you know, and if she loses that, I mean, it really almost doesn't matter what it is. If you just, I mean, I don't know what the contract looks like, but I would think in a typical employment, and maybe this isn't, I don't know. You'd just be like, hey, your job here is to be liked by the audience that we need to like you. And you're not doing that. So bye.

0:22:34 Matt: Right.

0:22:57 Matt: You're making trouble, um, so the sex discrimination thing is going nowhere, I don't think, but she had to try because that's it's the only way that she could actually be within a protected class is if they could find that they treated Carl with, well, obviously Carl isn't really a factor, but yeah, exactly.

0:23:08 Thomas: Yeah. Cause asshole's not a protected class. She searched up and down the document, couldn't find asshole. And so I had to go with that.

0:23:15 Matt: Right.

0:23:16 Lydia: I just point out in a mix of all of the, you well, Mark Hamill said this, Pedro Pascal said this. Carl Weather said this there's a typo in item Item 139, where it says that Mark Hamill described Donald Trump as Valdemir Putin's puppet, by the way. So, yeah, Valdimir.

0:23:16 Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:23:32 Matt: Voldemort. Yeah. That's pretty good.

0:23:33 Thomas: Voldemir. It's like Voldemort and Vladimir combined.

0:23:33 Matt: Yeah. Yeah.

0:23:34 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm here for. I'm hier with my red pen, you know.

0:23:39 Thomas: Yeah.

0:23:38 Matt: What, that'S what Elon Musk is paying for. Um, so sex discrimination. I mean, again, it's an insult obviously to anyone who's actually suffered discrimination at work. I mean that that's just, it'S Ridiculous. So let's go through the less ridiculous ones, because these are actually interesting questions, and I don't think they necessarily... You gonna predict it possible that obviously Disney is going to bring a motion to dismiss. I think it's impossible that survives a motion to dismiss, because there are factual issues here. And I think that there might be discovery to get into, to try to figure out the actual motivation, because the first two claims have to do with California Labor Code 1101 and 1102. And 1101 says that no employer shall make, adopt, or enforce any rule, regulation, or policy or directing or tending to control or direct the political activities or affiliations of employees. And my first thought when I read this is, is it really political activity to be tweeting about some of the things she's tweeting about? And, and actually, it is.

0:23:51 Thomas: Yeah.

0:24:33 Thomas: Really? Okay. Okay, because like I said, from past opening arguments, I thought there was a thing where that was mainly like voting. But also maybe that was a different state. I It think California is actually pretty try to protect a lot, which is good. Try

0:24:44 Matt: It's very broad. Think it's broader than we have here. I didn't actually compare it to Massachusetts. But a case in 1979 where some gay activists brought a claim against Pacific Telegram and Telegraph, I guess a phone company. The court found, because there's an argument about whether it's actually political to be promoting gay rights, right? And this is, I mean, I'll say 1979, a very different climate.

0:25:03 Thomas: Interesting. Yeah.

0:25:03 Lydia: Wow.

0:25:05 Matt: Found that the term "political activity" is much broader, connoting the espousal of a candidate or a cause and some degree of action to promote the acceptance thereof by other persons. So they have a whole paragraph here, very good, about how the struggle for gay liberation is a cause, that it's important, that it's a political cause, and that it is just like any other civil rights movement.

In 1979, that's pretty good argument here, though, it's what's really interesting about the counterpoint, because saying the struggle of the homosexual community for equal rights, particularly in the field of employment, must be recognized as a political activity. But do you have to recognize someone who says that trans people maybe aren't a thing?

Like, on the other side, I don't see why you would have to necessarily, but they're this is the problem that we get when we start politicizing or we already have but the politicization of things like trans rights and queer rights, like, this is, these are people that have a right to exist, and by moving it into the political stage and calling it something we can debate, this is what happens, that you get this kind of, that it becomes political speech. I just, I have a problem with that personally, but

0:26:05 Thomas: You say that – I mean, there also was a lot of anti-vax stuff. I can make a similar argument that that's on obvious science, but I don't know. What does the law get to do? Like, does the log it to say, like, this is obvious, so it's not political? Or I would think the law would have to be a little bit agnostic and be like, well, it seems that there is an entire political party that seems pretty dedicated to these ideas, is so to them, not political would be weird if they're like in a party platform.

0:26:29 Matt: No, it seems like it's that they're willing to go pretty broad on what, what is political or not, because she did have some things to say about masking, I don't know, specifically anti-vax, but you know, I was thinking about that too, if you're opposing masking at a time when all of these contracts no doubt require you to follow COVID regulations. In fact, I believe she was fired, did, as we've already discussed, she was actually fired because she wouldn't comply with COVID regulations, and I don't think that that's political at all if you're saying, you know, there's a whole part of my industry that I don't think should happen, and the industry wants you to do it.

1102 is about if you coerce, influence, or attempt to coerce and influence by means of threat or discharge or loss of employment. And so there's the whole convoluted thing here about the Zoom call, about the meeting with GLAAD, about those other steps that they took to try to intervene. And that's another thing in Disney's favor here, is they didn't just fire her straight off.

They gave her a chance to kind of get speed here and to take back some of these things she said, and she's just never effectively did it. And I think, like I said, I think in the Disney response, we're going to learn more about other social media posts that she hasn't mentioned.

0:26:37 Thomas: Oh. Okay. Sorry. Oh.

0:27:26 Matt: I didn't go deep on her social media. I'm sure that the reason that people were calling for her to say these things is probably because she was saying things that suggested maybe she didn't believe in these things. And she certainly, there's stuff to indicate that she wasn't all that supportive of Black Lives Matter. There was one idiot who was, was trying to get her to say ACAB, which just wasn't going to happen. I mean, that's kind of silly. The political activity thing, though, is, not going to say it's an open question, because I still think that in her role, doing what she does as an actor, going out in public and promoting a film, I think that the film studio has every right to put some limits around what she can say and to discharge her if she has trouble, if she's getting into controversy. Russie she mentions in the complaint, one of my favorite jokes actually in here, is that she says that she was responsible for 50 of the social media engagement across the entire cast. Is that funny? I love that one. Yeah, like, I was, you know, everybody loves me, but

0:27:42 Lydia: Okay.

0:28:18 Matt: No, yeah, it's just

0:28:18 Lydia: Amazing.

0:28:16 Thomas: Engagement. Yeah. If you're getting cancelled online, like, yeah, you're gonna get a lot of attention. Hmm.

0:28:21 Matt: Yep, you're starting fights with everybody. Yes, um, she was, you knows, she's getting into it, and yeah, think that at the end of the day, if they can show, and I think they can, that there's a non -political reason, something completely apart from even the things that she was saying, but just the way that she was going out there and how combative she was being, and the fact that she just, you, that she's making the studio or the film or whatever look bad, um, think I have a defense, like I said, I'm not sure if it survives a motion to dismiss or not, but we'll find out.

So the second claim is about wrongful discharge, the fact they actually fired her and then they would not hire her for anything else, and potentially they kept her from getting other work. So this is obviously just discharge based on any conduct alleged that we just talked about. And that she talks about this too in the fact section, I meant to mention it, she uses the word defame a lot, which I thought was a little strange, because this is not a defamation suit. All of these things are labor violations alleged, alleged, she could have. She could have thrown a defamation claim.

I don't think it would have gone anywhere, but she could've. Because honestly, Disney's response, the statement they issued was really strange. Statement did that Lucasfilm put out when they were terminating her, I think they could have crafted this a lot better. Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future. Nature. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable. And she makes the point that she didn't denigrate anybody based on cultural or religious identities, and she's not totally wrong.

0:29:05 Thomas: It's Not defamation, yeah.

0:29:08 Lydia: Interesting.

0:29:45 Lydia: No.

0:29:45 Matt: She didn't say anything bad about Jews. She just made a really insensitive comparison to Jews. Sexual orientation and gender identity are not cultural identities. I think that's a really strange way would characterize that. So I'm not sure what they were trying to say with that. And so she's saying that issuing by this extra statement, by phrasing it that way, that they made it very hard for her to get future work. She might have a point there. They really could have, you know, but she doesn't say that. I mean, she uses the word defamation, but she doesn't actually bring

0:29:46 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, and

0:30:10 Thomas: That would be, you'd think that'd be defamation-y, right? I

0:30:17 Matt: Any claims under any defamation.

0:30:19 Thomas: Know, I guess I'm saying, like, would that even, like, what would be, be the proper course of action there.

0:30:23 Lydia: I don't know, like, a week later, she signs on with Daily Wire to start making movies with them, so, like... yeah, it's Daily Wire, but... Like, she's making movies.

0:30:31 Matt: If I'd been her, I would, would have said, look at me, look what you made me do, like I had to go sign with Ben Shapiro. Like this is how bad it got.

0:30:35 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:30:35 Lydia: Yeah. Start throwing them under the bus.

0:30:39 Matt: Yeah, no, I,

0:30:40 Lydia: Yeah?

0:30:40 Thomas: Now I remember that statement they made and I thought, like, that's bad defamation-wise. But do you think that that matters in terms of the employment stuff? Because I think it was just the kind of thing where, like, weren't they in between seasons, and there's no guarantee that, like, your character is gonna be in the next season, that's not a right you have. Yeah.

0:30:53 Lydia: Yeah. Not even a guarantee that the show's going to exist in between seasons, there have been so many times where shows are filming, this happened with, um, Minks, with Jake Johnson over on HBO, they were in the middle of filming season two, when HBO was like, nah, never mind, and they just shut up production. So just feel like this is part of the industry, and, and, like you said, Matt, earlier, with, we don't know what was in her contract, this isn't like a typical employment relationship, um, as an actor there, it's, it's different than like your typical nine-to-five, I would imagine.

0:31:02 Matt: Sure, I like that one, yeah, wow, HBL, I, I was wondering, too, I just kind of went on, I was taking a walk today, and I was thinking about this whole thing, and what if they had just kind, kind of as a one-off in the first episode of the second season, just been like, yeah, whatever happened to that Cara Dune? I heard she slipped and fell into the Sarlacc pit or whatever, right? I mean, like, just like kill her off, right. I mean like they could have done that. I think that might've been included in this lawsuit that they like closed the door on being able to, cause they were going to give her another show, like her own actual show that's that.

0:31:45 Thomas: Yeah. That's funny, they

0:31:58 Matt: And that's real damages. Rangers of the new Republic. She was going to be the star. They, they have not recast anybody for this role, and it's presumably still an active character in the Star Wars universe who's running around in the Outer Rim somewhere, so somebody else could play her, and she wants the job back. That's one of the things she's suing for, is to actually, which is kind of a funny thought that you'd go back to work after this, um, you know, it's one thing she's asking for, um,

0:31:57 Lydia: Right, yeah, yeah,

0:31:58 Thomas: Were oh, well, Then I guess I'm wondering, like, do we know, is this just one of the facts that's in dispute? We don't have a contract. Do we know that she was under contract? Because, like, okay, there, she could have been, I guess she could have been under some multi -season Mandalorian contract, or I guess they could have secured her for another season and then back on that, or I guess they could have signed a contract on whatever this new show you're talking about, or I could see it being, and because Disney has a lot of lawyers, I would would imagine that they probably thought this through. I could see it being that like, okay, she fulfilled her season two contract. They hadn't done anything yet. It was COVID, right? So they probably hadn't Done anything yet, maybe. Maybe they were in talks about another show. But if nothing was signed, then she literally was never like, I think there's a decent chance there was no employment at all at this time. Or Am is this under dispute? Like, do we know? No.

0:32:56 Lydia: I

0:33:12 Matt: We do know that she was a guest actor, that now, I don't know enough about entertainment, a lot of, know exactly what that means, but in number 23 here, it mentions that she was listed as a guest actor at a minimum salary of $25,000 per episode. So it's one of those things where it's like, you know, also Gina Carano, right? That she's in here, and that they put her in the one she's in.

0:33:27 Thomas: Well, yeah, during the season. But like if you're in between seasons of the show, that doesn't guarantee. Right. I mean, the season three.

0:33:30 Matt: Right, right. There's nothing in here that says that she was retained for season two, um, that they were, oh sorry, yeah, season three.

0:33:39 Lydia: Don't know, she probably would have been let go during season three because she wouldn't have complied with the vaccine mandate, 2021. She was let go February 2021.

0:33:47 Thomas: Well did that come from that she was let go on that date? Is that just the date of the statement that Lucasfilm put out?

0:33:53 Lydia: Is the background that I shared at the beginning. It

0:33:55 Thomas: I know. But I'm trying to ask what specific event that is.

0:33:59 Matt: That was the, that, was the Instagram post.

0:33:59 Lydia: Lucasfilm, Yeah. They issued the statement, saying she was, was gone.

0:34:01 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. So when they issued that post, they said she's not under a contract. And I'm saying it's entirely possible that she wasn't really let go at any time. It might be like, again, if I was on a show, I just don't know. I'm not the one reading the lawsuit, so I don't know what happened. But like, if I was on a show for a season and we were in the middle in the off season where we hadn't yet renewed it or because of COVID, we're still figuring that out and I say some crap and they just never hire me again. Have I been fired?

0:34:33 Matt: Right, actually. So that's one number 165, including the refusal to renew her role in season three. So that is one of the complaints. But now you can have its wrongful discharge and refusal to hire as part of the statute as well. So that's what she's saying, is that she had a right to be hired back because she's a character in the show and they clearly only didn't do it because of these things that she said. And I will say that they really could have fired her better. I do have a problem with this statement. I think you really need to be careful when you're firing someone based on things they post on social media to explain, exactly why you're doing it. I think this sloppy thing about cultural and religious identities is, I don't like it. But the CEO of of Disney, Disney, said something much more reasonable, which is that she didn't align with company values. The company values are those of universal, values of respect, values of decency, values of integrity, and values of inclusion. That's nice and broad. You can't really go wrong with that.

0:34:41 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:35:24 Thomas: Would have thought that Disney would be, you know, they have nothing but lawyers, like the entire company is actually lawyers. The lawyers are the ones that do the animation now. They don't even, they can't, and so I would've thought they'd be smarter, but was it was the case that this was because they looked at it and were like, well, she's not currently under a contract, that it was more like PR. And so what they're trying to do is just not be canceled because of her. Like, I think people are complaining, like, how dare you have this person on your show? And so they're like, hey, we don't have her on it. Like, she's not under contract. Could that be why the statement might have been a little sloppy on your in your opinion, Matt? I

0:36:00 Matt: Yeah. Well, sounds like they were accurate when they said she is not currently employed by Lucasfilm. You know, there is that. But sloppiness was just describing why. And I think that they really should have been very careful about how they... I mean it was a public statement. They really could have written it better. Because denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities is just... I don't think that describes what she did. That's why she's going to the next length of saying that you effectively blacklisted me in Hollywood by saying that I am insensitive or a bigot or a racist or whatever, and you know, ended up having to work for Ben Shapiro, and might be right, I

0:36:03 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:36:28 Thomas: Yeah. I think all sides should stipulate. Is that what they call it in the law? All sides stipulate that having to work for Ben Shapiro sucks. Like, we won't argue that point, Your Honor. We all can agree here. That is, yeah, we're not going to fight that one. Like, that's awful.

0:36:35 Lydia: Right.

0:36:36 Matt: Yeah. I, I, straight to the D list, or yeah, or the S list or whatever, yeah, was the other claim though, is the refusal to hire back and then sort of ruining her reputation and her career in in Hollywood. So, like I said, there's some factual issues here. The discovery in this should be pretty interesting, because you're going to probably end up getting a lot of internal emails and discussions and drafts of statements and trying to figure out what they're going to do with her. I think there might be some factual issues, if we get past emotional dismiss, which is not guaranteed, but it's possible. Ultimately, I don't really know, based on what I'm reading here, that she's going to prevail. I think that generally people don't seem to think that it's likely. But like, I, I said, it is a bit of a test case, um, it could become more and more common that you have outspoken right-wing actors, maybe in a world where we have more of those, I don't know, yeah.

0:36:44 Thomas: We why is it a test case? I feel like this has to have happened before. Is it just purely because of the social media component of it, you mean?

0:37:30 Matt: I couldn't find like where somebody had posted stuff that would be interpreted as political as a major actor, and she's at this point major, given the stature of the show, um, know, maybe I missed something, but I, could it seems to me, and I saw an entertainment lawyer saying that this is pretty new and that people are watching this because this is something that really hasn't come up this way, this use of Section 1101. again, all Disney has to do is fire back and say a perfectly good non -political reason related to our reputation, related to our ability to make this show and promote it. I feel like they get a win on that.

0:37:36 Thomas: Mm -hmm.

0:37:46 Thomas: Interesting. Surprising.

0:38:00 Thomas: It really true that you couldn't fire someone if they just started spouting really disgusting political views? Again, it is, job is to be liked by an audience that's going to watch you, right? It's not like she's not making widgets, you that really how the law works? I

0:38:14 Matt: Not unlimited. I mean, you still certainly, if you're saying things that are just really offensive, then you can still be fired. But what they're trying to protect against, obviously, is for the real thing in this is they're trying to protect people who are in their off time going and doing things like working on political campaigns, running for office, or whatever, or putting a sign in their yard. That's the stuff we want to make sure we protect. But the other question too is, was she off duty when she's doing this? Because part of her job is being on social media and promoting herself for the show.

0:38:26 Thomas: Hmm. That's fair.

0:38:43 Lydia: Well, And she cites it in her complaint as, you, look, I'm, you know, the actor that brought in all this engagement on the thing, and it's like, okay, so you're on the clock, then when you're posting, yeah, like

0:38:48 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. That could cut both ways, yeah, for sure.

0:38:45 Matt: Yeah. Right. Right. Right, right. So if you're that speech was within your job, then you have an extra obligation to make sure that you're not causing trouble for your employer.

0:38:57 Thomas: That's interesting. Do you think it would have made more sense, Matt, for them to really try to play up like this was her personal thing, personal views, you Think that would have Made the case stronger, maybe?

0:39:06 Lydia: More protective?

0:39:08 Matt: That probably would have been a good idea based on what I understand of how this all works. But at the same time, you can also still be fired for your off essentially, political views if they're bad enough or if you've taken a picture of yourself. There's actually a lawsuit about this that was resolved recently. I think it was a software engineer who took a picture of herself on January 6th and posted it everywhere. And her employer obviously didn't like that, didn't make them look good. She wasn't smashing windows or anything, but she was there. It's pretty loaded. Fire somebody if they went to January 6.

0:39:36 Thomas: Look, Matt. Matt, a run-of-the-mill insurrection is my right as a person, employee. I get to, it's my off time. I might, you don't see, I'm not wearing my Wendy's uniform here. Like, when I insurrect in the privacy of my off-time, Matt, you can't do anything about it.

0:39:41 Matt: That's right. It was political. Yeah.

0:39:53 Matt: And No. If you go to a Trump rally or post positive Trump things, I can't fire you just for that. Like I said, in my example of running a small immigration law firm, if my if my paralegal just, again, lost her mind and started posting about how much she loves building the wall and mass deportation, then that's against our company policy. And the things that our clients care about, and that's directly bad for us.

0:40:13 Matt: And I think that that is, and potentially could cost us money. So I think it's pretty reasonable as an employer to say that just at least shut up. You don't have to say, at the very least. And to take it in the light most most favorable to her as you have to in these things. You know, Pedro Pascal was very outspoken, Mark Hamill, very out Spoken. They were saying things about Trump and Trump supporters that I think we all agree with, but that if they were said about other people, maybe you wouldn't like as much. Weren't controversial in this way,

0:40:10 Lydia: And Your Values, Yeah. I

0:40:40 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:40:46 Matt: Right? They didn't stir up the kinds of things. It was just kind of the things that people are saying about Trump supporters. Some people were mad about them, but not people that Disney cared about, apparently. So it is kind of relative.

0:40:55 Thomas: Guess I'm just trying to ask, what makes that standard? Like, do we know? Do you have any idea? Like, what, know, I guess it is California law and you're not a California lawyer, but But like, how do I, cause I am curious, like what, where is the line there? Like, have I to be types of jobs where you could fire people for political speech, right? Or, or are there contracts you could sign that would, sign you those rights away in a way?

0:41:15 Matt: Looked into this a little. I can give you some examples. So Eisenberg v. Alameda Newspapers. This was from 1999. is somebody who's a reporter at a newspaper. And he was out speaking out against the editorial stance of his newspaper, and they fired him. And that was considered to be perfectly legitimate, because the newspaper has a right to have its editorial stance, and he's out there undermining it. The other side, you've got a guy who works for, I think it was a radio station, who goes out and appears somewhere and promotes the political candidate, who's opposed to the political candidate the station supports, but it was the owner of the station, very importantly. And that was found to be a political firing, right? Because it was just the owner's kind of personal preference to not talk about this candidate. So that kind of line makes sense, depending on what your job is and what you're allowed to go out there and do.

0:41:30 Thomas: Hmm. That's interesting. That makes sense. Those both on their own time or did that not factor in?

0:42:04 Matt: I think those were both in their own time. Yeah.

0:42:06 Thomas: Which is interesting though. Like the newspaper one, it is interesting that you can't, yeah, I've been having a hard time understanding what the rule is and what it should be, honestly. Like on your own time, there's, I could see an argument for, hey, on your on time, you an express whatever political views you want. Um, cause I, I I'm sure we all would be upset if it went the other way on certain things, but I also can see a strong argument for like, yeah. But also I'm If I'm an employer in this country, we seem to value, you rights and right to associate and all that. I feel like I have a right to not associate with certain people and to not like have my image, my corporate image be someone who says stuff I don't agree with. So I guess I just don't know. Like, is it not as simple as there's kind of one rule about it? It might be a different thing depending on the situation.

0:42:51 Matt: I really, and the courts have found it really depends on the nature of the employment. Obviously, if you're a mechanic and you're out there saying these things, maybe it's a little different. You said, I think there is a line though as to how offensive the speech is and if it's otherwise, you know there's other things that cross over. I think it can certainly cross over from political speech to just being bigoted, you now, certainly, and there's an argument for some of the things she was saying here. Clearly was insensitive to trans people, at the very least, if not actually transphobic. So, you, know, again, not great for business.

0:42:55 Thomas: Okay. Okay.

0:43:17 Thomas: We're all kind of agreed that she might not have been under contract, so how could, how do you say what standards apply there? It's one thing to be like, did you have a morality clause, did you not, so we can fire you because of the morality clause, and I think we all get that. But if the allegation is that well, they they didn't renew my contract when they should have, what know, what governs that? Like, it can't be the contract. You're not under contract. So I I would think you would have pretty wide leeway there.

0:43:39 Lydia: Right.

0:43:42 Matt: Well, that's where refusal to hire comes in. So that's an aspect here that they're arguing. But yeah, no, there are certainly circumstances like this, though, where refusal to hire is firing where you're expecting ongoing employment. There's no reason she wouldn't have expected to be on the season otherwise.

0:43:44 Thomas: Yeah.

0:43:57 Thomas: So is There no difference in, in the standard there? Like if she was fired for X speech, because of the way this statute, shoot, that's the same as if they just didn't renew her contract for ex-speech. Is that exactly the same?

0:44:10 Matt: Yeah, well, it'd be discrimination at that point, which is the same standard here. So

0:44:12 Thomas: Okay. I would have though you'd have a little more leeway if you're just not renewing a contract, just because it feels like that's less of a thing than firing someone from their job. It just seems like I should have more leeway as an employer, employee, if I'm just choosing who I want to sign to a contract. I

0:44:27 Matt: Might be right. I think there might be an argument there, but it's unclear from this. And I would very much be interested to see. I'll be reading Disney's response because I'm sure they're going to have some pretty overwhelmingly compelling arguments in response to all this.

0:44:39 Thomas: I, I would think I'm actually very curious to read their response as well. Cause I also would want to know how you define or how you prove that you should have been re in this way. Like how do you prove that?

0:44:48 Lydia: She includes some material in her complaint. And, who knows exactly? This is from her perspective. Some things, some conversation from Jon Favreau, basically saying like, you know, some really big things are coming, you know, super excited about the projects that are coming our way. And so there is kind of this implicit understanding that there will be continued work as season two is wrapping up.

0:45:16 Thomas: Hmm.

0:45:16 Lydia: That's my reading of it. But what

0:45:16 Thomas: Interesting.

0:45:18 Matt: No other reason that she didn't get it. So I see where they're coming from here.

0:45:22 Thomas: That's fair.

0:45:22 Matt: She's seeking, again, just to be clear, injunctive relief in the form of reinstating her back as Cara Dune and giving her presumably the other show. Yeah, so she gets to go back to work with Pedro Pascal after all this. I mean, and by the time this thing wraps up, I assume the show will be several seasons on. This could be a while.

0:45:38 Lydia: If Pedro Pascal like leaves?

0:45:28 Thomas: Oh wow. Yeah do you think about that? That's a weird thing to ask. Why wouldn't you just ask for money or something?

0:45:41 Matt: Yeah. That's normal in an employment claim. But again, if you're a mechanic, it makes a lot more sense than if you are an actor. She's also looking for compensatory damages, which makes more sense to me, she can say loss of future employment. Obviously, if you lose a role in an entire TV series, as she's saying she did, and she clearly did, not just Mandalorian, but Rangers of the New Republic, which would have been her own show, that's a lot of money, potentially, that she could be getting out of this.

0:45:47 Thomas: Oh okay. Yeah yeah. Ah okay. God she does she has the personality of a cardboard box. There's no way she was is carrying her own show. I can't, is that real?

0:46:12 Lydia: Yeah. I mean that that's what they've talked about. Oh,

0:46:16 Thomas: Yeah, but okay. But also was it a pilot or was it going to be a pilot? Like there's no guarantee. You can't just say, yeah, she would have had her own successful show. There's so much that goes into that or even get picked up.

0:46:26 Lydia: Yeah, I I don't think that there's any indication that it would necessarily be successful but they they had a well it's through Disney so they had approved doing the spinoff and since it's all in house, right, would have put it out and then probably stopped it. That's

0:46:32 Thomas: Right.

0:46:41 Thomas: Think that you have to find someone to write a script. You have to do like, it's not like once they say like, like, this is a good idea. Let's do this. Then that's, that means it's made. Like there's all kinds of phases of like not working as a project.

0:46:53 Lydia: True, yeah, yeah, Yeah, there's so many steps along the way in which it wouldn't have worked out. But it was something that Kathleen Kennedy, the president of Lucasfilm, had confirmed publicly, Disney Investor Day in December 2020, that this is a show that we're going to be creating, a spinoff from Mandalorian.

0:47:03 Thomas: Wow. Okay. Jeez. Okay, yeah, maybe I'm wrong. Wow. I didn't know that. Why would you make a show? Okay, whatever.

0:47:16 Matt: Claims to be the first MMA fighter to transition to serious acting. To be true. I've tried to look into it.

0:47:21 Thomas: On how you define serious. I mean, there's, there've been others, but

0:47:23 Matt: Right. It's true. Yeah. Maybe the first woman. It's very possible. Although Ronda Rousey has some roles, I think, but maybe as herself.

0:47:24 Thomas: Yeah.

0:47:30 Lydia: Yeah.

0:47:31 Thomas: Carano really disappears into the role of cartoon, didn't even know it was her actually, at first.

0:47:38 Lydia: I don't know if you looked into the law firm at all, Matt, Shay or Jaffe. To the Indiana Citizen, they contract with the attorney general out there, Todd Rikita, and they help with the anti -abortion battles that they're doing over there. Was a little bit of a, I don't know, I Don't want to call it an expose piece, but investigative reporting where they looked at their invoicing. And Christopher Bartomolucci, who is one of the attorneys who's appearing pro hoc vice for this lawsuit, had billed 12 hours of work, claimed reimbursement for parking at the airport, his airfare and one meal at the the airport, and it came to over $7,000.

0:48:17 Thomas: Yeah.

0:48:18 Lydia: And two days before that, the contract was extended through the attorney general's office, and the payment cap was raised to $900,000, Most recently, they extended the contract again. Now they're looking at December 31st of this year, 2024, and the pay cap has been raised again to $1.1 million. And when the Indiana Citizen looked at at the invoice costs and mapped them, you know, timeline, spiked at the same time that the attorney general was in a legal dispute with the Indiana gynecologist who performed an abortion on the 10-year-old rape victim out of Ohio, if you guys remember that. So they started working overtime, I guess, because they had to go after a gynecologist for helping a child. The attorneys are getting $550 an hour and $75 for paralegals. I thought it was an interesting counterpoint to what you guys reported on with Fonny Willis and Wade being capped at $250.

0:48:56 Thomas: By

0:49:17 Matt: 250.

0:49:17 Lydia: And here we have these people that are trying to force 10-year-olds to carry a baby to term, getting paid $550 an hour.

0:49:17 Matt: Yeah. Which, that,

0:49:24 Thomas: By The state, they are. Oh, my

0:49:25 Matt: That's, yeah, that's

0:49:25 Lydia: Yeah. Well, yeah, they're getting paid by the state.

0:49:26 Thomas: Wow. Oh,

0:49:28 Matt: Incredible. Just the things you can get. This firm, I mean, I found found a Reuters story about when Donald Falk joined this firm, which I thought was very strange to have a news story about a lawyer joining an appellate firm. But there's a quote at the end. He said after he was very excited to be joining this firm, and he's talking about how great they are. And now I'm understanding why he thinks they're so great when you tell me about these things. Says, "Law practice is fun again." So that's His idea of fun is those things that you just described, and this, I'm sure that his, his real idea of fund is that introduction. I'm, that is his absolute masterpiece, um, all time.

0:49:36 Lydia: Yep. Oh, my God. That's crazy.

0:49:54 Thomas: Wow.

0:50:05 Lydia: Yeah, and I saw Eugene Volokh, know, you First Amendment lawyer, is also getting involved in this case, too. So, yeah, should be some interesting...

0:50:07 Matt: But

0:50:12 Thomas: Is that the one who sucks? Okay.

0:50:13 Lydia: Yeah, he sucks.

0:50:14 Thomas: Didn't he write on, the on what's his name, the other lawyer He wrote, he wrote on Kilborn, okay.

0:50:17 Lydia: Yes, Kilborn. Mm-hmm. That's when I saw his name pop up in the docket with his application, ProHawkVCHA. I was like, oh, hey.

0:50:20 Thomas: Oh, actually Oh, he's actually getting involved that much? Wow. Well, how much money is Elon throwing around? I, that, yeah.

0:50:26 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. Think this is going to be a lot of money. Yeah and a lot lot of them had their pro hoc vice applications because they made mistakes on them. So I was, you know, looking at the docket and kind of like laughing along the way.

0:50:40 Thomas: Funny.

0:50:41 Lydia: But to wrap this up, don't we let Gina Carano tell us in her own words the impact that she's having when she visits Jesse Waters.

0:50:48 Clip: I've learned is that if this can happen to me, this can happen to anyone I am, I'm easy to work with And I am passionate about what we do. I'm always excited to be on set. I even worked with them as much as I possibly could to resolve any issues that they had. But you know, eventually you have a line, and you know, when that line gets crossed, you just have to say enough, enough is enough. And if I look back on, uh, on what I, if I would have caved and I would have done something that disrespected myself, then I wouldn't be doing any favors to, um, the next generation, to my nieces, to, to your children, you know, um. And I felt like, since I didn't have any children, I was, um, a person that could, could stand up and say some things. And the things that I said were so gentle, they weren't aggressive, they were never with ill intent. They They were never malicious, and that's how I know, because I was so conscious that, you know, if this can happen to me, this will happen to you.

0:50:53 Thomas: God. I love when they do that does

0:51:56 Clip: And if we just pass this along to the next generation, you now, it's just going to get worse and worse.

0:52:02 Thomas: Look, if she can can get fired from Mandalorian, any of us can, okay? That's some, yeah.

0:52:07 Matt: Intergalactic mercenary with uh, who was formerly an MMA fighter, is at risk yes. Now

0:52:09 Thomas: God. I love How they do that. They try to, they, this is something they do with the cancel culture stuff a lot, like a lot of those dweebs are like, look, sure, every example we have of this is of someone who was super duper privileged, complained about online, and then they ended up still privileged, but that's just because those, those are the ones we know, cause they're famous. This could happen to any auto mechanic. And you're like, really? I actually don't think this happens to auto mechanics much because they're not like on Disney and then say stuff on social media that people care about. Nobody, nobody cares about it. They tried it.

0:52:41 Lydia: Yeah. They're one follower on Twitter. Yeah,

0:52:44 Thomas: It's It's a, I've seen this argument so many times, like, yeah, well we're pointing to the ones that people know, you it, but he could happen to anybody. It's like, no, that definitionally can't happen to everybody. It's it's a thing that that only happens to people who have millions of people paying attention to them on online or on TV or whatever it is like those. That's it.

0:52:44 Lydia: Yeah.

0:53:01 Lydia: Putting some of those acting skills to the test, though, with that clip, because the way that she speaks about, what you she posted on social media, the contrast to how she described it earlier with Tucker Carlson back in 2021 when it actually like happened with the beep bop boop. And she's like kind of smirking through it and like kind of proud of herself for speaking out. And then here it's like solemn and, you know, the gravity of the situation. And isn't she a hero for the next generation and standing up to the bullies? You know, it's just remarkable.

0:53:27 Thomas: Yeah.

0:53:36 Matt: She's a plaintiff, so you know, that's changes things. Well, have we learned? I've learned a lot about California labor law, but

0:53:38 Lydia: Yeah.

0:53:42 Thomas: Well, Yeah, I'm surprised. It sounds like you don't have a firm prediction for what's going to happen, but I guess it'll depend on we're waiting for Disney's response.

0:53:52 Matt: Think that that she's going to lose. I mean, I don't think it's ultimately going to work out for her. I don think that this is a great precedent if she does win. Yeah, no, I mean it is, honestly, I will say, okay, I'm not going to defend her, but I will say that I was expecting when I started reading this that the things that she had said were worse. It's gentle, that's not really true. Was she insensitive in multiple ways. But I understand though, in aggregate, when you're looking at all this, why Disney wouldn't want to be associated with her and why they don't have to be. I wouldn't keep her around either.

0:54:11 Lydia: Yeah.

0:54:20 Thomas: Pretty straightforward. Well, thanks so much, Matt. Where can people find you, Matt? If they want to check out more or Matt Cameron, that sounds

0:54:26 Matt: A little show called Opening Arguments, having some fun there.

0:54:29 Thomas: Amazing I better go check it out.

0:54:31 Matt: It's pretty good. It was pretty good, but otherwise I'm on Twitter at Matt Cam, Matt underscore Cam. And I don't know, I'm around. I'm easy to find.

0:54:31 Lydia: Downloading now.

0:54:34 Thomas: Well, thanks so much for the breakdown and have to this up when Disney responds. Yeah.

0:54:44 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:54:45 Matt: Right. I'm not going to say may the force be with you. I mean, it's just not going say that. I can't think of any other Star Wars sign off, but I'm going to, I can say that that. Live long and prosper.

0:54:49 Lydia: And

0:55:14 Matt: Whatever happened to that Cara Dune? I heard she slipped and fell into the Sarlacc pit or