Edgy A-list comedians selling out to Saudi Arabia
There's currently an ongoing comedy festival in Saudi Arabia that features some pretty big comedians such as Dave Chapelle, Bill Burr, Gabriel Iglesias, Kevin Hart and several others. Some of whom have come under some pretty strong backlash for the very notion of performing in Saudi Arabia, at a festival organized by the totalitarian Saudi government itself. Sure enough, each comedian performing at the festival had to sign a contract telling them what they can and cannot joke about. In fact, three essential rules of this contract were leaked online and goes as follows:
ARTIST shall not prepare or perform any material that may be considered to degrade, defame, or bring into public disrepute, contempt, scandal, embarrassment, or ridicule:
A) The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including its leadership, public figures, culture, or people;
B) The Saudi royal family, legal system, or government;
C) Any religion, religious tradition, religious figure, or religious practice.
A) The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including its leadership, public figures, culture, or people;
B) The Saudi royal family, legal system, or government;
C) Any religion, religious tradition, religious figure, or religious practice.
Any comedian agreeing to any sort of censorship is, ironically, a complete and utter joke, but it's especially disappointing seeing comedians like Dave Chapelle and Bill Burr agree to this. These guys built their entire careers on edgy and controversial humor, but now they're actually agreeing to watch what they say. And the damage control they're coming up with is just idiotic. In response to the backlash, Chapelle stated "It's easier to talk [in Saudi Arabia] than it is in America." Seriously? You just signed a contract forbidding you from joking about the government you're performing for. Go onstage at that festival and break just one of those rules and see how easy it turns out for you, genius. While the best damage control Burr could come up with is that the Saudi people are "just like us." Basically, that it's not that bad over there, but again, if he really believes that, then why did he agree to shut up about certain topics?
These guys should just say they're doing it for the money, since they all will be walking away from this with million dollar paychecks. Instead, they tried to bullshit people with excuses and just hurt their reputations even more. They could have easily saved as much of their integrity as they could by saying they agreed to it because they're being offered a lot of money to do it. These guys are still funny and great showmen, but they might want to change up their whole edgy, provocative anti-establishment act, because it's gonna be real hard to take them seriously after this.
