This Friday marks the kick-off of the first Riyadh Comedy Festival, a pretty concerted effort by the government of Saudi Arabia to rebrand the capital city as an international comedy destination. To that end, organizers from the Saudi General Entertainment Authority have reportedly thrown around quite a bit of cash to bring in some of the biggest names in the comedy world to perform at the festival, including Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, Bill Burr, Aziz Ansari, Gabriel Iglesias, Louis CK, and several more. It has also, correspondingly, brought some critique: Most notably from comedian Marc Maron, who posted a stand-up clip to his social media this week blasting comics for signing on for a festival being put on by a government with a pretty lengthy list of human rights abuses detailed by Amnesty International.
In the clip (posted to the WTF comics’ Facebook page), Maron opens by asking his audience “How do you even promote that?” Referencing both 9/11 and the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Maron pulled no punches: “But don’t let that stop the yuks, it’s gonna be a good time.” (True to form, Maron also did a bit of self-deprecation, noting that he wasn’t personally invited to the festival: “Easy to maintain your integrity when no one’s offering to buy it out.”)
Maron isn’t the only comic who’s spoken out about the Riyadh Festival: Shane Gillis has made comments on various podcast appearances, stating that he turned down a reportedly large amount of money to perform at the fest due to his discomfort with Saudi politics. Comedian Tim Dillon was also reportedly fired from the festival this week, allegedly over jokes he made about his decision to sign on for it in the first place, claiming at the time “They’re paying enough money to look the other way.” (He also joked, “Get over it, so what they have slaves,” referencing a long litany of allegations of forced labor imposed on migrant workers in the country.) Dillon said on a more recent episode of his show that his management told him “They heard what you said about them having slaves. They didn’t like that.” Dillon said on the earlier podcast that he was being paid $375,000 for the single show, and that some comics were getting more than a million, it’s worth noting that those numbers haven’t been confirmed by any other sources.
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