Actor Vince Vaughn criticized late-night talk shows on Theo Von’s This Past Weekend podcast for becoming overly “agenda-based” and political, losing authenticity and humor. He agreed with Von that targeting “white redneck kind of people” tanked ratings and noted that podcasts thrive with less production because audiences crave genuine content.
For context, Vaughn said shows shifted from comedy to evangelizing, making viewers feel scolded, like in an unwanted class. He compared the experience to sitting next to a preachy person on a plane and said all shows now feel identical, focused on politics and labeling “who’s good and who’s bad.”
In any case, the interaction began with fellow comedian Theo Von describing how mainstream media lost its way. “Because the only person they could make fun of at a certain point was just like white redneck kind of people. And it f**king tanked [ratings],” Von asserted.
Vince Vaughn fired back, “See, they never get it right. The podcasts have gotten so much more popular with less production, less writers [and] less staff, because people want authenticity. And I think that the talk shows, to a large part, became really agenda-based.”
“They were gonna evangelize people to what they thought, and so people just rejected it because it didn’t feel authentic. It felt like they had an agenda. It stopped being funny, and it started feeling like I was in a f**king class I didn’t want to take,” the famous actor noted.
“They all became the same show,” he added, “They all became so about their politics and who’s good and who’s bad. Imagine sitting next to someone like that on a f**king plane. You’d be like, ‘How do I get out of this f**king seat?’”
Slamming the biased mainstream media, he continued his all-out assault on the far left, saying, “You don’t want to become part of a group and feel like you’re a champion for one ideology. You want to make fun of everybody.”
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Wrapping up his comments, Vince Vaughn skewered the Hollywood mindset. “We’re smart and got it figured out, and if you don’t agree then you’re an idiot… There was definitely a culture that if you didn’t agree with these ideas, you were looked at as bad,” he added.
Vaughn is far from the only famous comedia to make this point. Speaking last year, Conan O’Brien declared, I think some comics go the route of, ‘I’m going to just say, ‘F Trump’ all the time,’ or that’s their comedy. Well, now a little bit you’re being co-opted because you’re so angry. You’ve been lulled into just saying ‘F Trump. F Trump. F Trump. Screw this guy.’ And I think you’ve now put down your best weapon, which is being funny, and you’ve exchanged it for anger.”
“Any person like that would say, ‘Well, things are too serious now. I don’t need to be funny.’ And I think, well, if you’re a comedian, you always need to be funny. You just have to find a way to channel that anger, because good art will always be a perfect weapon against power, but if you’re just screaming and you’re just angry, you’ve lost your best tool in the toolbox,” the late-night host noted.