Ellen DeGeneres on Vegas shooting: ‘it’s easy to lose hope, we cannot do that’

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Ellen DeGeneres is skilled at reassuring people. I don’t always buy what she’s selling but when calamity strikes, I generally find comfort in Ellen’s message. So when she offers a message of hope for some reason I believe it, even if only briefly. As we unfortunately know, one such instance befell us Monday as we woke to the news of the Route 91 Harvest festival tragedy. Ellen tapes her shows a day in advance so yesterday she aired the show that she taped on Monday. Unlike some of the more somber openers we saw, Ellen asked us to keep hope alive.

Ellen DeGeneres opened her show on Tuesday with a reminder of love and compassion in the wake of the horrific Las Vegas mass shooting that left at least 59 people dead and more than 500 others injured over the weekend.

“I am hoping we can fill this room with love, and prayers, and hope,” DeGeneres said in her opening monologue. “That’s what I want right now. This show is airing on Tuesday, but we are taping on Monday, and we all woke up this morning to the news of the horrific shooting in Las Vegas. My heart is broken for everyone affected by what happened there.”
She continued, “I mean, we were just in Las Vegas a few weeks ago, and when you think of Las Vegas, it’s a place to escape and have fun and you never imagine anything like this could ever happen.”

DeGeneres noted that “there’s so much going on in the world right now,” naming the devastation in places like Puerto Rico and Mexico following recent natural disasters, “and on top of all that, something like this happens,” she said.

“I don’t know about you, but I feel sad, I feel anxious, I feel helpless,” DeGeneres said. “And it’s very easy to lose hope, but we cannot do that. We cannot do that.”

“I always say that there’s a lot more good in the world than there is bad, and I continue to believe that,” she added. “And that is what we have to focus on. I see it everywhere. You look in Las Vegas, and people were helping each other. People lined up at 4:30 in the morning just to donate blood.”

Concluded the host, “The world is full of amazing people. Good will always win. Love will always win. We will continue to shine a light on those people on our show.”

[From People]

I know this can be read as a little Pollyanna-ish but I don’t think Ellen’s asking us to turn a blind eye to hate, just to remember hope. And as hard as it is to see any hope right now, I appreciate her attempt. I’ve included the full opening at the bottom of this post because to bolster her argument that good still exists, Ellen played a montage of people she said inspired her. Some stories are big, like the people who lifted a burning car off a motorcyclist trapped under it and some are smaller like a woman who paid some firefighters’ check. (Plus a bonus clip of Chris Hemsworth meeting the guy who returned his wallet.) It won’t mend a grieving heart but it does offer a moment’s reprieve during an ugly time.

With all that has happened, we’ve seen that good people rose above the tragedy. In Vegas, there are countless tales of people who saved a person they’d never met, shuttled victims in their vehicles or loaned their trucks to strangers so they could. Jonathan Smith is credited with 30 rescues and he took a bullet to the neck while doing so. Out of Houston, Florida and Puerto Rico there are countless stories of neighbors reaching out. San Juan mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz was photographed wading through floodwaters with a bullhorn to find trapped citizens. When Diego Luna appeared on Conan last week, he spoke about the Mexican earthquake. Although he stressed how devastating it was, he also emphasized the fact that the moment the ground stopped shaking, Mexicans rushed to each others’ aid, with no thought of what it would cost them. It sucks right now. It really sucks and it just takes one rotten person to cause devastation. And we can’t forget that but I don’t mind reminders of how many good people are out there too.