Vince Vaughn is no longer a fan of late-night television, he said on an episode of Theo Von’s podcast “This Past Weekend.”
The two got to talking about how comedy has become more political in recent years, with Vaughn saying it’s “part of the job because you’ve got to talk about current events, but 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.”
Von said Hollywood is a “liberal place” and Vaughn added an addendum: “But not really. It’s more like, ‘We’re smart and got it figured out, and if you don’t agree then you’re an idiot.’” He continued, “There was definitely a culture that if you didn’t agree with these ideas, you were looked at as bad.”
This attitude, said Von and Vaughn, bled into the late-night TV landscape, plaguing the programs hosted by Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and more. (Vaughn and Von did not name names.)
“A lot of the late shows have struggled because … the only person they could make fun of at a certain point was white, redneck kind of people, and then everything tanked after that,” said Von.
“The podcasts have gotten so much more popular with less production, less writers, less staff. And the reason is … people want authenticity,” added Vaughn. “The talk shows, to a large part, became really agenda-based. They were going to [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 fucking class I didn’t want to take. I’m getting scolded.”
While many believe the reason late-night shows are in decline is shifting viewing habits and the move away from linear television, Vaughn thinks the main problem is the shows themselves.
“The phenomenon isn’t what they say. They always blame technology, but the reality is it’s the approach,” he said.
“People are going to tune into a podcast more so because they want to feel like people are having a real conversation. It’s interesting to them,” Vaughn added. “But if you look at what happened to the talk shows and why their ratings are low, it’s got only to do with the fact of what you just said, which is they all became the same show. They all became so about their politics and who’s good and who’s bad.”
Von asked Vaughn — who has previously identified as a “libertarian” and visited Donald Trump in the Oval Office — if he ever felt “ostracized” in Hollywood.
“I always got along with people … and try to be honest about who I am,” Vaughn said, adding, “I have opinions on both sides” of the political aisle. He said his early relationships in Hollywood were not colored by politics because “we weren’t 23 sitting around talking about fucking taxes.”
He added, “If you’re constantly worried what someone else thinks of you and you’re only around them a couple hours a day, you’re miserable most of the time. You’ve got to find the way to be yourself, but be respectful.
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