You may have noticed the controversy surrounding the inaugural Riyadh Comedy Festival. It was an event taking place in that city over the fortnight straddling September and October showcasing a range of stand-up, improv and sketch comedy, organised by Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority (GEA).
The line-up mainly consisted of American and British stand-up comedians (apparently the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has neglected to nurture home-grown artists) including household names like Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr, Pete Davidson, Omid Djalili, Jimmy Carr – hence the controversy in western media as fans and fellow comedians expressed various intensities of dismay that some of our most well-known comics were participating in what they saw as a whitewashing of one of the world’s most brutal regimes.
Among those to have publicly criticised the participating acts are US comedians Marc Maron and David Cross, the latter of whom issued a scathing rebuke on his website. Given that the intensity of the backlash appears to have surprised some of the performers, let’s briefly recap a few gems from Saudi Arabia’s recent record on human rights and freedom of expression.
Setting the record straight
The Saudi state faces credible allegations that it provided material, intelligence and ideological support to the Al-Qaeda hijackers responsible for the 9/11 attack on Manhattan’s World Trade Center, which killed almost 3,000 people, including firefighter Scott Davidson, father of Pete Davidson. Let’s hope Pete’s six figures of blood money is some compensation.
Saudi Arabia routinely imprisons and tortures religious or political dissenters, such as Raif Badawi, a liberal blogger arrested in 2012 on charges of insulting Islam and sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes, the first 50 of which were administered in 2015. Since his release from prison Badawi has been banned from travelling to join his family in Canada.
The kingdom carries out hundreds of executions a year – usually beheadings – some of which are public. Adultery can sometimes see women sentenced to death by stoning, as in the case of a Sri Lankan woman whose 2015 sentence was later commuted. But why should any of that put a dampener on Jack Whitehall’s regime-sponsored rant against plant-based milks?
Saudi Arabia only gave women suffrage in 2015, and prevented them from driving until 2018 – still, I suppose that meant that Jimmy Carr could dust off some old material about women drivers for his Riyadh set.
Since 2015, Saudi Arabia has been leading a coalition of states bombing Yemen, fighting the Houthi rebellion there and propping up the current Yemeni president. The toll of this war on civilians has been extreme, both from direct causes and from consequent malnutrition and disruption to health and sanitation infrastructure. Notwithstanding the current situation in Gaza, Yemen remains among the direst humanitarian crises in the world, with Saudi Arabia at the forefront of criminal culpability.
A journalist walks into the Saudi consulate…
Following the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul’s Saudi consulate in 2018, a UN investigation concluded that the state of Saudi Arabia bore responsibility for his extrajudicial killing, and the CIA later concluded that with ‘medium to high likelihood’ the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had personally approved the murder. Perhaps Jeff Ross’ Riyadh set had a pithy one-liner about what was stuffed inside his suitcase.
The latter is unlikely though, as despite the assurances of the attending comedians that their sets were not censored, they haven’t denied that they were contractually prevented from joking about religion, the royal family or human rights – a pretty large no-go area in a theocratic absolute monarchy. But hey, at least Bill Burr and Dave Chappelle pushed the envelope with some sexually explicit and LGBT+ material – notwithstanding that homosexual activity remains outlawed and may incur the death penalty in Saudi Arabia.
The comedians have pursued various strategies in response to the widespread criticism of their participation. Burr has opted for belligerent obstinacy, accusing his critics of being sanctimonious and phoney and claiming that Saudi Arabia is a nice and welcoming place because Riyadh has a branch of Cheesecake Factory. Yes, really. It seems that booking him was money well spent by the GEA.
Are they broadening what is thinkable and sayable?
Omid Djalili attempted to justify himself with slightly more nuance and self-awareness, arguing that bringing comedy to a country like Saudi Arabia ‘broadens what is thinkable and sayable in a society’. Perhaps, maybe, but at what cost? He took a large fee from a repressive regime to participate in whitewashing its reputation, and signed a contract that narrowed what was sayable by him.
The next time that Louis CK complains that he lands fewer bookings since it was revealed that he masturbated in front of women without their consent, people should ask him what he thinks would be the consequence of such behaviour in Saudi Arabia. When Chappelle claims he was ‘cancelled’ because people criticised his transphobic $20m Netflix specials, he should be reminded that in the UK or US we have (for the time being) the democratic freedom to speak against injustice and defend marginalised minorities, and are proud to live in pluralistic societies.
There’s a reason that even among those who have attempted to appear more thoughtful in their own defence, their arguments drip with desperation and intellectual dishonesty. Like those artists who violated the UN resolution for the cultural boycotting of apartheid South Africa in order to play cushy concerts in Sun City, the avarice of these comedians is indefensible.
They shouldn’t be allowed to live it down. Let’s just hope that Jimmy Carr at least pays tax on his fee.
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