Most of the post-podcast focus centered on Vaughn\u2019s criticism of late-night talk shows, with the Swingers<\/i> actor telling Von they are becoming \u201cthe same show\u201d and \u201creally agenda-based.\u201d The Wedding Crashers<\/i> star continued, \u201cThey all became so about their politics and who\u2019s good and who\u2019s bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
But his main point, an overarching observation about the current state of American culture in the wake of cruelly divisive politics permeating every facet of entertainment, is that we have lost a deep, authentic sense of commonality. When we can\u2019t share laughter, what can we share?<\/p>\n
\nThe truth is most people, they want to laugh. They don\u2019t want to see stuff be precious that you can\u2019t talk or joke about. Most people can make fun of themselves. You know, in the real world, if you don\u2019t have a sense of humor about yourself, then it\u2019s a lonely experience. You got to be able to laugh at yourself. 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.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Vaughn\u2019s observation, so simple and truthful that it was easy to overlook, earns him the title of Everyman Hero \u2014 especially in an industry increasingly dominated by shallow moral preening and risk-averse, viewpoint-reinforcing clique hierarchies that make junior high cheer squads look like bastions of meritocracies and courageous champions of individuality (no offense to junior high cheer squads).<\/p>\n
Vaughn, who grew up in the Midwest and never went to college and put his career on the back burner after getting married and having kids, is the heir apparent to the late actor and comedian John Candy. What these two share is an unapologetic view of the good in people and a refusal to engage in the chest-thumping applause mills that get attention from bobble-heads at award shows, glossy write-ups, and fawning interviews by mainstream media outlets. These hacks would rather rattle their tin cups for pennies like an organ grinder\u2019s monkey than find some connection with the average working-class American.<\/p>\n
You\u2019d never hear Kimmel, Steven Colbert, or Jimmy Fallon echoing Vaughn\u2019s sentiments about the Pledge of Allegiance: \u201cWe were super pro-America, too. Everything was. It was taught in that way. I thought it [The Pledge of Allegiance] was good. Hell, yes. I liked it. By the way, I love it \u2026 I still feel the same way. I still feel like [America] it\u2019s the best out there. Not that it\u2019s perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, we get television \u201cstars\u201d who trash half of America so they can keep paying their kids\u2019 private school tuition. Just after Vaughn\u2019s truth bomb, Jimmy Kimmel illustrated his point by targeting Sen. Markwayne Mullin in his sermon<\/span> monologue, not for any gaffe or silly political grandstanding on the senator\u2019s part, but because he used to be a plumber<\/i>. Gee, hard not to find the laughter in that.<\/p>\nJimmy Kimmel had to keep his career afloat somehow. You didn\u2019t think he was coasting along on his\u2026talent, did you?<\/p>\n
The late-night shows had one rule: be funny. To participate, you didn\u2019t have to be a part of the Cool Kids Comedy Club, which isn\u2019t about comedy at all but about signaling your superior intellect or esteemed opinion over the hoi polloi knuckle who (gasp) just want to enjoy some lighthearted entertainment and honest fun before a night\u2019s sleep ahead of a backbreaking or mind-numbing job the next day.<\/p>\n
Vaughn understands this concept \u2014 that comedy works when shots are taken at everyone and comedians are actually doing comedy<\/i>. Ratings for these shows are tanking because the people in charge of them aren\u2019t doing their jobs. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to become part of a group and feel like you\u2019re now a champion for one ideology. You want to make fun of everybody.\u201d What Colbert, Kimmel, and Fallon are selling is \u201cthe same show,\u201d but in the sense that it\u2019s entirely predictable. People are tuning out because they know exactly what they\u2019re going to see, night after night: basically, an MS NOW show with a studio audience. People don\u2019t want to turn on a comedy show and get an hour\u2019s worth of condescension and mean-spirited, mindless snark. If they did, Joy Reid might still have a TV gig.<\/p>\n
What defined the golden era of late-night was that it offered Americans equal opportunity to laugh, no matter one\u2019s race, sex, religion, socioeconomic status, or political persuasion. \u201cUltimately,\u201d says Vaughn, \u201ccomedy is a big tent.\u201d It used to be. \u201cWe used to be a proper country,\u201d the saying goes. We will be again when we can all laugh about it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Actor and producer Vince Vaughn might have cultivated a certain reputation based on his popular roles as the \u201cVegas, Baby!\u201d wingman, frat boy who never grew up, or any number of smart-mouthed, fast-talking bros who always seem to land on their feet. It wasn\u2019t a surprise, then, to hear him talking earlier this week with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-current-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}