Vince Vaughn, the 55-year-old actor best known for films like “Wedding Crashers” and “Old School,” sat down with comedian Theo Von on the Tuesday, March 24 episode of Von’s podcast “This Past Weekend” and delivered a wide-ranging critique of Hollywood’s cultural arrogance, the collapse of late-night television, and what he sees as a comedy industry that lost its nerve.
Vaughn opened fire on what he described as a pervasive attitude inside the entertainment industry.
He characterized the Hollywood mindset as, “We’re smart and got it figured out. And if you don’t agree, then you’re an idiot.”
The actor drew a sharp distinction between holding strong opinions and believing one’s views supersede those of others.
“You can be like ‘I feel strong about this,’ but it’s a strange thing when you start going like, you know better than someone,” Vaughn said. “That’s when it gets weird.”
Vaughn said the problem becomes clear when people move from expressing their views to lecturing those who disagree.
“It’s one thing to say ‘This is where I’m at. And then here’s someone else’s point of view. Disagree or agree.’ It’s another thing to be like, ‘I’m so right, and I’m going to help you or condescend to you’… I mean, no one wants to hang out with that,” he said.
The actor also addressed what he sees as an industry that has trapped itself through a misguided attempt to cater to everyone.
He stated the entertainment world has “put themselves in a corner with trying to please everybody.”
Vaughn noted that his own social circle operated by different rules. Among his comedian friends, debate and disagreement were handled differently.
“People my age, we disagree, agree, we’d change our minds, we’d laugh, we joke,” he said.
Despite that personal experience, Vaughn acknowledged a cultural enforcement mechanism existed inside Hollywood at large.
“There was definitely a culture that if you didn’t agree with these ideas, you were looked at as bad for sure,” he said.
On the topic of celebrity political activism, Vaughn rejected the idea that stars have grown more political as a recent development.
Instead, he argued they “got rewarded for it.”
He added, “They started to come out there and do it and I don’t even know how much everyone even is informed on everything, but they really like to get out there and do it.”
Vaughn also pointed to hypocrisy as a defining trait of politically outspoken celebrities. “And they’re hypocrites, too, a lot of times, like anybody is,” he said.
He drew on a well-known cultural reference to make a broader point about people who stop thinking independently.
Vaughn compared those who blindly follow prescribed social rules to Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz.” “That’s the problem if you’re going through life trying to check boxes like Dorothy in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ Like, ‘let me get the broom. Let me do this. What is the wizard?’ You’re not thinking for yourself. You’re just trying to do the things you’re supposed to,” he said.
In contrast, Vaughn offered what he sees as the correct approach. “It’s always better if you get quiet and do what’s in your heart and do what you think is right,” he said.
“That’s when you carve out stuff and make your own path… and have the courage, I think, to be honest.”
Vaughn connected that failure of courage directly to the decline of feature film comedy. He argued that stand-up comedy grew stronger precisely because it operates under different constraints.
“That’s why I think stand-up got stronger,” he said, explaining it “was easier to give someone money for a special and say ‘We’re going to not — that’s their special,’ but the studios weren’t going to produce a comedy [movie] and be more responsible for supporting the making of that film.”
Despite the industry’s retreat from broad comedic films, Vaughn maintained that audiences have not changed what they want. “Most people, they want to laugh,” he said. “They don’t want to see stuff be precious that you can’t talk or joke about. Most people can make fun of themselves.”
He said the inability to laugh at oneself creates a kind of social isolation. “You know, you got to be able to laugh at yourself,” Vaughn continued.
“You can look back at stuff that you believed so strongly a few years ago and laugh about it. So, I think you got to have that quality, and comedy is that — being able to laugh at stuff.”
Vaughn said the studio system ultimately backed away from comedy films because executives became paralyzed by the fear of causing offense. “They got too complicated not to offend anybody with going and making a movie,” he said. “They were trying so hard not to offend anybody.”
WATCH:
