Does the Controversy Over the Riyadh Comedy Festival Actually Matter?

The Silicon Valley actor went granular on the Saudis in his dripping-with-sarcasm viral video, where he sharply called out Saudi Minister of Entertainment Turki Al-Sheikh’s history of human rights abuses. His crackdown on critics of the regime has been so prolific it earned him a wing in al-Ha’ir prison named after his own nickname. Human Rights Watch also weighed in on the festival, claiming that the comedians who went to perform in Riyadh are guilty of “whitewashing abuses” of the Saudi state. The non-profit’s campaign against the event shone a light on the dissidents who are currently detained in Saudi prisons, sometimes for minor offenses like speaking out for women’s rights, as well as the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was dismembered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

“The seventh anniversary of [slain Saudi journalist] Jamal Khashoggi’s brutal murder is no laughing matter, and comedians receiving hefty sums from Saudi authorities shouldn’t be silent on prohibited topics in Saudi-like human rights or free speech,” HRW Researcher Joey Shea said in a press release on the eve of the festival. “Everyone performing in Riyadh should use this high-profile opportunity to call for the release of detained Saudi activists.”

None of the comics who performed in Riyadh made a mention of the detainees in Saudi prisons. They didn’t talk about the Saudi Royal Family. Local human rights abuses didn’t make it into anyone’s set either. And despite the increased visibility of the festival after the controversy erupted, few repercussions for the comics who attended were immediately apparent as the comics started to return home. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Chairman of  Reputation Management Consultants Eric Schiffer said that as comedians, these performers need not worry much as they reserve the right to tell their Riyadh story through their lens and with their perspective — in a manner to which their specific audience can relate. And this seems to have already begun. 

By Oct. 1, with the festival in full swing some 10,000 miles away, the backlash to the backlash began. Fresh off his Saudi sojourn, marquee comic Bill Burr told his own podcast audience his experience in KSA was great; he then blasted what he called all of the “sanctimonious” criticism: “Everybody’s phony about this stuff,” he said. “You go to China, Dubai, Saudi Arabia — it’s all complicated. But meeting audiences who just want to laugh? That’s real.” 

Soon Louis C.K. fessed up about his mixed feelings regarding performing there, which in the past he’d rejected; the onetime top U.S. comedian who a few years back found himself canceled over inappropriate sexual conduct, said to Bill Maher in his first TV interview in eight years that there were “only two restrictions” in his contract and neither were in his set or even close to his wheelhouse. On deciding to join the festival, the comic recalled thinking that it “just feels like a good opportunity. And I just feel like comedy is a great way to get in and start talking.”

But the controversy was still gaining traction in the U.S. as the opposition began to go for the jugular. David Cross posted to his website a letter addressing his contemporaries who were headed to the Middle East: “Unless you open your sets with: ‘This is dedicated to all of the widows and widowers and kids orphaned by this bloodthirsty oppressive regime, especially from the zany shenanigans on 9/11. Never Forget, motherfuckers! Alright, so it’s great to be here. I’m gonna be killing it tonight! But in a good way! Straight up. No MbS.’ Then your hypocrisy will never not be noted.”

Cross’s accusations pointed out the hypocrisy he saw in a cancel culture-averse comedian like Dave Chappelle performing in a country that so harshly curtails free speech. And with perhaps a little too on-the-nose timing, this whole debate overlapped with another free speech issue rippling across the U.S: half of the nation seemed to be in mourning over the late MAGA conservative Charlie Kirk, while the other half of the country was biting their tongues to avoid saying the wrong thing about the late young firebrand and Trump ally.

Mocking the U.S. for the cracks currently appearing in the First Amendment, Chappelle’s set conjured some howling, whoops and hollers from the 6,000-person Saudi crowd, according to a New York Times report. “Right now in America, they say that if you talk about Charlie Kirk, that you’ll get canceled,” Chappelle said on Saturday. “I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m gonna find out.” 

This grabbed him loads of publicity and, like some past iron-willed comics, provided a moment to display the strength of his brand and gave him the swagger that may have led him to believe, “I can even endure the backlash if I, say, headline a festival for the Saudis.”

Ditto for Burr, who, critics be damned, decided to double down on his pro-Saudi statements this week — although, he did seem slightly rattled by the backlash he said followed him to his return stateside. Burr told Conan O’Brien in a podcast interview that he had “no fucking idea” his Riyadh gig would lead to such controversy (“I’ve been going through this bullshit the whole week”). 

So, with this major controversy over a massive global event in the rearview, the question today is whether the whole thing was worth it, for the performers or for the Saudis? 

Schiffer says it’s an obvious win for the Saudis and their plan to bring in events to the Kingdom but also for their plan to create brand equity —  and the Riyadh Comedy Festival is merely a piece of that layered plan that’s been in the works for several years. “They are positioning themselves as a mecca for cultural excellence across sports and entertainment, and we’re in early innings of this,” Schiffer explained. 

The nation has already invested billions in LIV Golf, an upstart player-focused golf league set to hold a season-opening event in Riyadh in February. While critics have similarly made accusations of the Saudis’ “sportswashing” their human rights abuses, LIV Golf manages to peel off PGA players each year. They are also launching a new international basketball league, dubbed Project B, to compete with the NBA. 

Events like comedy festivals and the Red Sea Film Festival, launched in 2019 to promote Saudi cinema, are now just other tentacles of this initiative, which is likely to grow in the coming years and eventually will be normalized, as will performing at them. Schiffer believes that, given the lack of memory for such perceived grievances, Chappelle, Burr, and the rest of the comics who made the trip can rest easy and focus on their next projects. 

“There are few comedians that will ever be materially affected in a lasting way because of this move — if any,” he predicted. “If we pan out six months to a year, very few will even talk about this, nor remember it. What they will remember are all the latest, newest projects that many of these comedians will be involved in. And that’ll occupy the space. 

“What will further occur, in my opinion, is an ongoing set of investments in these cultural and entertainment connections that, in time, will dissipate many of the critics,” he added. “I think that what will occur is a perception of inevitability. And that’s already cemented.”