Dave Chappelle was in Saudi Arabia this week, where he was one of the biggest names—and also, one can only assume, the biggest paychecks—at the controversial Riyadh Comedy Festival. Per The New York Times, Chappelle did his single set at the festival back on Saturday, where he made the assertion that the comedy festival, held in a country, and by a government, that has been heavily criticized for human rights abuses and attacks on free speech, was actually a freer place to talk about American politics than the United States. “Right now in America, they say that if you talk about Charlie Kirk, that you’ll get canceled,” Chappelle remarked. “I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m gonna find out.”
And at the risk of being reductive, can we just say, no shit? It’s obviously easier to talk about an oppressive political regime when you’re outside the immediate control of said regime and, say, its efforts to use its power over TV network licensing to silence comedians it doesn’t like. No one has been giving these guys guff for signing up for the big bags of cash because the Saudi regime is cracking down on American political dissent. But given that this is a regime that’s been accused of “canceling” people who speak out negatively about it in the most extreme terms possible, we’re fairly sure Chappelle would have felt a bit less freedom if he’d decided to use his platform at the festival to criticize Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the guy signing both the checks and the arrest orders for critics of the government. (Indeed, last week comedian Atsuko Okatsuka shared the restrictions on speech she’d been given before turning down the festival, including being told not to do jokes about the government, royal family, or religion in general.) Despite the stances of many guys of Chappelle’s ilk, free speech issues are not just about being able to say whatever you want, wherever you want: They’re about what power does to you when you try to speak truth to it, something Chappelle avoided judiciously during his highly paid set in Riyadh.
The last few weeks have seen lots of criticism of comedians accepting positions at Riyadh, including from inside the industry. (The Times uses the phrase “artwashing” to describe allegations that the ostensibly liberal values of a comedy festival featuring appearances from guys like Chappelle, Kevin Hart, or Bill Burr simply serve as cover for abuses like the ones outlined by Human Rights Watch in its coverage of Saudi Arabia’s government.) For his part, Chappelle was unabashed, joking during his set that “It’s easier to talk here than it is in America.”
