Comedian Russell Peters during a Globe and Mail interview in November, 2017. Peters is one of many high-profile comedians set to perform in Saudia Arabia for the Riyadh Comedy Festival.Fred Lum/the Globe and Mail
In a 2023 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, comedian Whitney Cummings talked about free speech and the state of comedy.
“It’s a tricky time to be a comic,” she said. “There’s certain things you can’t even say on YouTube any more. They’ll demonetize you, they’ll age-restrict you. So, comedians are kind of looking for a home to be filthy pigs again.”
First, it’s always a tricky time to be a comic. Part of the job is to push boundaries. Secondly, more than ever, Jimmy Kimmel knows about tricky times. The late-night host was briefly suspended last week by Disney-owned ABC after his monologue mentioned the killing of conservative podcast host Charlie Kirk.
And thirdly, Ms. Cummings and more than 50 other prominent comedians, such as Bill Burr, Dave Chappelle, Aziz Ansari, Andrew Schulz, Louis C.K., Kevin Hart and Canadians Russell Peters and Sugar Sammy have indeed found a home this week at the controversial Riyadh Comedy Festival, in Saudi Arabia, where hypocritical comedians are happier than pigs in slop.
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Free-speech advocate Ms. Cummings and the other comedians signed a contract agreeing to restrictions on their material at a festival held in a country with a dismal human-rights record. According to Asian-American comedian Atsuko Okatsuka, who turned down an offer from the festival, performers are not allowed to “degrade” or “ridicule” the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Saudi royal family or any religion.
“The money is coming straight from the Crown Prince, who actively executes journalists, [people] with nonlethal drug offenses, bloggers, etc., without due process,” Ms. Okatsuka posted on Threads. “A lot of the ‘you can’t say anything anymore!’ comedians are doing the festival.”
One of the “you can’t say anything anymore!” comedians is Mr. Peters, who in 2023 told W-Five’s Sandie Rinaldo he would no longer play university campuses because of politically correct students: “We’re not going to play by their rules. You’re ruining free speech.”
Mr. Peters signed on to the festival, which runs through Oct. 9, in a country where freedom of speech is notoriously unprotected. In 2018, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a writer with The Washington Post and critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
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That international incident was referenced recently by podcast host Marc Maron, one of the comedians (along with Ms. Okatsuka, Shane Gillis and Zach Woods) who has blasted the festival.
“I mean, how do you even promote that?” Mr. Maron said during a stand-up appearance. ”’From the folks that brought you 9/11, two weeks of laughter in the desert, don’t miss it!’ I mean, the same guy that’s going to pay them is the same guy that paid that guy to bone-saw Jamal Khashoggi and put him in a [suitcase]. But don’t let that stop the yuks, it’s going to be a good time!”
It should be noted that of the comedians performing at Riyadh, only three are women, and none are Jewish.
Saudi Arabia was implicated in the Islamist suicide attacks of 9/11 that cost the life of New York firefighter Scott Matthew Davidson, father of Pete Davidson, one of the Riyadh chuckleheads. The former Saturday Night Live cast member shruggingly explained his sellout to the Saudis on Theo Von’s This Past Weekend podcast.
“I just, you know, I get the [flight] routing and then I see the number and I go, ‘I’ll go.’”
By “the number,” Mr. Davidson meant the paycheque.
Like the LIV Golf men’s tour, financed by a sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, the comedy festival is part of efforts by the Saudi monarchy to whitewash its corruption and human-rights abuses.
To the participating jokesters, as with the golfers, going for the green is all that matters. Punchlines are negotiable. Apparently, the times for some comedians aren’t so tricky after all.
