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In the last few months, Matthew McConaughey has waxed poetic on podcasts by Russell Brand, Joe Rogan, Mikhaila Peterson and Gary Vaynerchuk. From these appearances, we can deduce that Matthew McConaughey is not in tune with the predominant leftist mentality in Hollywood.
In his recent appearance on the Russell Brand podcast, the actor, who won an Oscar for the Dallas Buyers Club in 2013 called the extreme left “patronizing” and “paternalistic” to those who did not think like them.
“There are many people on the extreme left who are absolutely condescending, paternalistic and arrogant towards the other 50%,” the actor said, in response to a comment from his interlocutor about how people in the entertainment industry condemned and criticized working class people who had voted for Donald Trump or supported the Brexit.
Matthew McConaughey said he felt more comfortable in the middle of both ends of the political spectrum. While this equidistant position might be considered diplomatic and safe, it is actually quite risky and unusual for a Hollywood industry figure, dominated by a growing leftist bias and under constant threat from the culture of cancellation for those who do not show total adherence to the extreme left’s postulates.
A few months earlier he had developed this same argument against the left in Joe Rogan’s podcast, when he asked about the treatment he received from his Hollywood colleagues for openly defining himself as a devout Christian.
“Some people in our industry, not all, but some, are so far to the left that they are patronizing and paternalistic about the fifty percent of the world that they need the empathy that Progressives have.”
Films by Matthew McConaughey with conservative and classic liberal values
Some of the best films in his filmography are considered reference works in classical liberal and conservative circles. In Free States of Jones (2016), a film about the Civil War, the Democratic Party is shown as openly racist and the Ku Klux Klan as the armed wing of this party, showing that they carried out electoral fraud to prevent blacks from voting for the Republican Party, which was the party that promised them their emancipation.
Dallas Buyers Club (2013), the film for which he won an Oscar and which consecrated him as a serious actor, is a veritable ode to the values of the free market, which is at the antipodes of the economic thinking prevailing in the current Democratic Party, devoted to the Green New Deal of the most left-wing wing.
Like the protagonist of the Dallas Buyers Club, in Gary Vaynerchuk’s podcast, Matthew McConaughey proved to be a fervent admirer and user of the tools provided by free market capitalism.
Matthew McConaughey and the values of capitalism
In it he explained how in 2009 his career seemed to be limited to playing the role of the handsome boy in romantic comedies in which he appeared shirtless showing off his pecs. Far from complaining about being objectified or content with making more money, he decided to think long term refusing to play these roles no matter for how many millions the checks were written for.
For 18 months, he didn’t accept any of these scripts, despite pressure from his representatives and his entourage that depended on his income. He did not walk around the television sets or the media pouring out political diatribes, but trusted his acting skills and worked hard to improve in his profession, to the point that he was willing to change careers if they no longer satisfied him.
Finally, he began to receive scripts with better characters and is now one of the most valued actors in the industry, having given a lesson in the workings of supply and demand to all those who confuse “capitalism” with “making and spending a lot of money.”
Ignacio Manuel García Medina, Business Management teacher. Artist and lecturer specialized in Popular Culture for various platforms. Presenter of the program "Pop Libertario" for the Juan de Mariana Institute. Lives in the Canary Islands, Spain // Ignacio M. García Medina es profesor de Gestión de Empresas. Es miembro del Instituto Juan de Mariana y conferenciante especializado en Cultura Popular e ideas de la Libertad.
Social Networks: @ignaciomgm