The movie that ushered in the downfall of modern cinema, according to Vince Vaughn
Before I practised yoga in my bedroom or walked laps of my park like a pet dog, I would find my psychological healing in one simple place, the cinema, and more specifically, watching a comedy.
Despite the thinly veiled misogyny that laced a sizable portion of the scripts, the 2000s were largely a golden era for the comedy film. Everything from dark irreverence to joyous slapstick was aired on the big screens, with flocks of hungry comedy addicts buying tickets in the knowledge that 90 minutes of shared giggles would untangle the web of anxiety we’d built up in day-to-day life, crippled by modernity.
It was as simple as the old adage goes: laughter is the best medicine. Studios seemed to realise this also, and so spent appropriate time and dedication into green-lighting scripts that honoured that mantra, written by burgeoning original writers who defined the era. SNL royalty like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were transferring their wit to the big screen, while Judd Apatow nurtured a generation of weed-smoking comedy stars in Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill and Jason Segel, but perhaps, larger than all of those was Vince Vaughan.
Towering over the rest of the industry, he cast a broad shadow of influence that, unfortunately, in the modern era of cinema, has slowly retreated. Irreverent actors like Vaughn, who furiously portrayed a catalogue of neurotic yet charming characters, are slowly becoming extinct, as studios slowly booted out comedy films and replaced them with brand-based movies, built around lucrative products with a distinct intellectual property.
While Minecraft, Barbie and Tetris have all profited off this new trend, ultimately, they are a product of a new cinematic culture dictated by the studio. While lamenting on this warped landscape, Vaughn singled out Battleship as the prime example of where cinema is heading and how studios have neglected comedy as a result. “They just overthink it,” Vaughn told Hot Ones, adding, “So there became some idea or concept, like, they would say something like, ‘You have to have an IP’”.
In keeping with his iconic comedy characters, who are known to spiral into maniacal monologues that turn Vaughn’s character red in the face, he continued to passionately yet clearly outline the problem at hand.
“The people in charge don’t want to get fired more so than they’re looking to do something great, so they want to kind of follow a set of rules that somehow get set in stone, that don’t really translate,” adding, “But as long as they follow them, they’re not going to lose their job because they can say, ’Well, look, I made a movie off the board game Payday so even though the movie didn’t work, you can’t let me go, right?’”
What does this mean for the future? Are comedies now consigned to the bins of history, while brand-based movies scorch further into the cinematic future? Well, as Vaughn rightly points out, no. Capitalism is clearly at its ferocious peak right now, but its meddling in art renders it subject to cultural trends and change. Styles come and go, whereas laughter, according to Vaughn, is permanent, and its permanency means a return to the R-rated comedy, at some point down the line.
“People want to laugh, people want to look at stuff that feels a little bit like it’s, you know, dangerous or pushing the envelope,” he said, “I think you’re going to see more of it in the film space sooner than later, would be my guess.”
