Left-wing Hollywood actor Ben Stiller found himself publicly embarrassed on Thursday after lashing out at the White House over a social media video that briefly featured one of his films.
According to Gateway Pundit, the White House posted a slick, self-congratulatory montage on X celebrating the recent bombing campaign against Iran, splicing together scenes from blockbuster action movies and television shows to dramatize the strikes and boost engagement. The compilation drew from a long list of popular titles, including Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Deadpool, Transformers, John Wick, Top Gun: Maverick, Iron Man, and Stillers own satirical war film Tropic Thunder.
Stiller, incensed that Tropic Thunder appeared in the edit, publicly demanded that the Biden administration remove it and attempted to lecture officials on the nature of warfare. Hey White House, please remove the Tropic Thunder clip, Stiller wrote. We never gave you permission and have no interest in being a part of your propaganda machine. War is not a movie.
Social media users, however, quickly unearthed photos of Stiller beaming alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during the height of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, where he eagerly played the role of celebrity activist. That same war has dragged on for years, claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, and consumed tens of billions in U.S. taxpayer dollars, yet Stiller had no apparent qualms about being associated with that cause.
For many observers, the contrast was glaring: a Hollywood liberal who eagerly endorsed one foreign conflict now posturing as morally outraged over a brief movie clip tied to another military action. As the Biden administration continues to project cinematic bravado abroad while Americans grapple with economic strain and border chaos at home, Stillers selective outrage only underscores the hypocrisy and moral preening that have come to define much of the entertainment elite.
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