Hollywood’s Selective Outrage over the Tragedies of Uvalde and the Truck Migrants

Los Angeles—A galaxy of Hollywood stars reacted with horror and outrage over the tragic deaths of more than 50 migrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries whose bodies were found trapped inside a semi-truck near San Antonio this week. 

Matthew McConaughey, a native Texan, traveled to the site where the bodies were discovered to make a personal plea to President Joe Biden. “This has to stop now,” said the Oscar-winning actor. “Your administration must put an end to its disastrous open borders policy because it is literally killing people.”

Meanwhile Jimmy Kimmel, Judd Apatow, Mark Ruffalo and Amy Schumer joined other A-list celebrities in signing an open letter calling for beefed-up border security and an end to the flood of illegal immigrants pouring into this country. 

“The drug cartels have taken over,” said a fiery Schumer. “Drug trafficking and human trafficking are out of control. And now, this horrible loss of life is the result.”

All right, none of this happened. We made it all up. These are all manufactured quotes, sort of like the testimony of star witness Cassidy Hutchinson at the Jan. 6 show trials in Washington.

Nevertheless the question does arise: Why isn’t Hollywood’s glitterati expressing more indignation over what has been called the “deadliest human trafficking incident in American history?” Some of those who died were teenagers. All the victims likely paid thousands of dollars each to be secretly transported across the border, only to be stacked on top of one another in that tomb on wheels “in conditions unfit for animals.”

A terrible human tragedy that shocks our senses and demands compassion. Like another terrible human tragedy that also occurred in Texas not long ago: the fatal shootings of the 19 schoolchildren and two adults in Uvalde.

In the latter case McConaughey, a native of Uvalde, did in fact react with horror and outrage over the loss of so many innocent lives, traveling to his old hometown to make a plea for more gun control in his state and the nation.

And an equally shocked and outraged Jimmy Kimmel, Judd Apatow, Mark Ruffalo and Amy Schumer did indeed join other show business figures in signing an open letter calling for a change in the glorification and widespread use of guns in movies and television, as a means of reducing violence in the U.S..

There is an old axiom in show business: Sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

So this is not to say that McConaughey and the others are not sincere. But has anyone else noticed that their sincerity always seems to have the same leftward tilt?

On the usual witches’ brew of leftist issues—gun control, climate change, abortion rights, Black Lives Matter, Jan. 6, Trump—Hollywood liberals stand poised and ready with their Twitter spoons, eager to stir the pot. But on another sort of issue—one that exposes the inhumanity of our current border policies and the gross negligence of those in charge—they present a little different look. More like a performing street mime. Very quiet.

There is nothing new about any of this; it’s a tired old rerun with predictable plot points. The selective outrage of Hollywood is virtually always in conformity with the talking points of the mainstream media and Democrat Party, whatever they happen to be at any given moment. As long as the stars do their part and follow the script, everybody wins.

The Democrats get their message reinforced and glamorized through its association with Hollywood stars. The media get oodles and oodles of Hollywood star clickbait, and the stars themselves get what they (and their PR people) crave most of all: attention.

This endlessly repeating Democrat-media-Hollywood loop, brilliant in its way, also provides the stars with something else, something they cannot buy on Rodeo Drive: feelings of virtue and moral superiority.

These feelings of self-righteousness are also shared by their liberal colleagues in the industry, people who might conceivably offer them jobs that pay millions of dollars and that will make them even more famous than they already are. What could be better than that?