When you think R-rated comedies one actor comes to mind.
Vince Vaughn.
“Swingers.” “Wedding Crashers.” “Old School.” “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.”
The films became comedy classics in a heartbeat, but we don’t see their kind coming from Hollywood these days. And we all know why.
Turns out Vaughn does, too.
The versatile star opened up to The New York Times for a fascinating interview that ran the gamut from parenthood to creative expression.
Why speak out now?
Vaughn’s new Apple TV+ series “Bad Monkey” debuts Aug. 14 on the streaming platform.
The interviewer pressed the star on the sorry state of the R-rated comedy, knowing the term “woke” or “Cancel Culture” might come up as a result.
Neither did.
Instead, he dissected two reasons why we’re not seeing new “Schools” or “Crashers.”
RELATED: ‘RICKY STANICKY’ – A BLAST FROM THE R-RATED PAST
First, he blamed cowardly studio executives for not letting comedians be themselves.
The goal is not to get fired — they can defend why they greenlit something. The R comedies that took off was the studio saying to young people that were funny, “Go ahead.” They didn’t micromanage. We were on the sets changing lines and trying to make each other laugh. It’s not done as well by committee. They started managing everything too much and trying to control it all.
Next, he dismissed the claim that audiences have moved on from the unwoke comedies of yore. Just look at the palpable hunger for rebel comedians, he said. The biggest names in comedy don’t play by the rules, and they’re drawing huge crowds.
- Joe Rogan
- Shane Gillis
- Tim Dillon
- Andrew Schulz
- Ricky Gervais
- Dave Chappelle
Later, Vaughn skewered the woke mindset with a surgeon’s knife.
There was a moment of certain people feeling like they could be the judge and jury of what is a story or what’s too far. It’s a crazy thing as human beings to think that my ideas are the best and if I can just force people to do what I believe, the world will be great.
He brought up the John Hughes canon, so “problematic” that one of its mainstays serially attacks it. So why do the Hughes films endure? They’re honest, for starters. They explore complicated themes that resonate with audiences then and now.
Vaughn said we still hunger for those stories, which explains why old-school sitcoms like “Friends,” “Seinfeld” and “The Office” remain streaming hits. They all arrived before the Woke Gestapo took over Hollywood.
Cancel Culture scolds have bullied Hollywood into doing what they say.
…nothing has changed except you have a bunch of dumb people who think that they are somehow more righteous than their neighbor [emphasis added], who are going to impose through force that it’s somehow bad to explore human beings in the extremes.
Those “dumb people” often include journalists who pummel comics for telling the “wrong” jokes. Mostly, it’s the keyboard warriors who rise up to “cancel” artists for not towing the progressive line.
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