How a Controversial Saudi Festival Has Divided the Comedy World

A controversial state-sponsored comedy festival in Saudi Arabia has divided the comedy world, with comedians attacking their peers for accepting giant sums of money from a government that is accused of brutal repression of free speech. Some of the most prominent names in comedy are scheduled to perform at the two-week-long festival, including Pete Davidson, Bill Burr, Aziz Ansari, Hannibal Buress, Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, Jessica Kirson and Andrew Schulz. Performers have reportedly been paid between $350,000 and $1.6 million for their appearances, but according to an offer shared by one comedian, the money comes with stipulations barring jokes that could “defame” Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Royal Family, the Saudi legal system, the Saudi government, or religion. Read More: Jamal Khashoggi Murder: One Year Later What Has Changed The Saudi government has said the event is part of its “Vision 2030” program, which is a plan to diversify the government’s economy into sports, arts, and culture, and introduce liberal social reforms to Saudi society. But comedians have spent the past week criticizing their peers in the industry who are willing to look past the government’s human rights violations. “From the folks that brought you 9/11, two weeks of laughter in the desert, don’t miss it,” comedian Marc Maron, who hosts the “WTF” podcast, said in a stand-up bit posted to Instagram, also discussing the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The U.S. government officially blamed the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for Khashoggi’s murder. Maron continued, “Full disclosure: I was not asked to perform at the Riyadh Comedy Festival, so it’s kind of easy for me to take the high road on this one. Easy to maintain your integrity when no one’s offering to buy it out.” Zach Woods, known for his role in the sitcom “The Office,” also criticized fellow comedians who accepted the festival deal on social media. “Now there’s a lot of drips, killjoys and dweebazoids who are saying, ‘Oh, they shouldn’t do comedy over there because it’s whitewashing a regime that just in June killed a journalist and killed Jamal Khashoggi,’” Woods said. “Shut up. Name one comedian who hasn’t whored themselves out to a dictator.” Comedian Shane Gillis, unlike Maron, said he was invited to the festival, and that he turned down a “significant bag”—a bag that was doubled after he first declined the offer. “I took a principled stand. You don’t 9/11 your friends,” he said on his podcast “Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast.” Tim Dillon was originally scheduled to perform, but he says the government fired him from the gig after joking about the country’s alleged use of forced labor on his podcast “The Tim Dillon Show” earlier this month. Dillon said on his podcast that he was “being paid a lot of money to not care about what they do in their country,” claiming he was offered $375,000 to perform, and that some headliners were paid over one and a half million. Making up the money Another comedian, Nimesh Patel, posted on Instagram that he pulled out of the festival after Jimmy Kimmel’s show was removed from the air, sparking a debate over free speech in the U.S. To make up for the money lost, Patel said he scheduled a 40-date comedy tour. “I’ll just do 40 shows that I had not planned on doing, here in the perfectly clean, moral, above everyone else United States of America…to make up for the lost bag,” Patel said in his post. Read More: Jimmy Kimmel Champions Free Speech and Calls Out Trump in Late-Night Comeback  Comedian Atsuko Okatsuka also said on social media that she turned down the festival, posting her offer she received to perform, which included restrictions on jokes that comedians would make, including not criticizing the government. “A lot of the ‘you can’t say anything anymore!’ Comedians are doing the festival,” Okatsuka said. “They had to adhere to censorship rules about the types of jokes they can make.” Saudi Arabia has been criticized for years for its treatment of journalists, its limiting of free speech and suppression of women’s rights and activism. ‘White-washing’ Michael Page, deputy director of the Middle East division of Human Rights Watch, says that some of the comedians engaging in the festival “go beyond everyday hypocrisy,” and enter the territory of “abandonment of any kind of core principle.” “A lot of these incredibly prominent stand-up comedians have often made it a part of their act to talk about free speech, saying ’we have the right to offend, and we need to be able to say what we want without being cancelled,’” Page told TIME. “These same individuals who are then attending this Riyadh Comedy Festival are doing so in a place where free speech is not only explicitly prohibited, but where journalists are executed for it.” Page argues that these comedians are “self-censoring,” which he calls a “textbook definition of white-washing.” A Human Rights Watch report on the comedy festival said that the government of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman organized the event  “to deflect attention from its brutal repression of free speech,” and urged those participating to use their sets at the festival to urge Saudi Arabia to release activists who have been detained. Several of the comedians performing in Saudi Arabia have spoken out about free speech in the past.  Burr has critiqued “cancel culture,” arguing that it is the work of sensitive Millennials. Chappelle has also been outspoken about cancel culture, and when receiving the Mark Twain award in 2019, made an impassioned speech in support of free speech.. “I, personally, am not afraid of other people’s freedom of expression. I don’t use it as a weapon. It just makes me feel better,” he said.  “The First Amendment is first for a reason. Second Amendment is just in case the First one doesn’t work out,” he said of the Constitutional right to free speech, which does not exist in Saudi Arabia. In a statement announcing the event, Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority described the festival as “the largest of its kind globally,” adding that it “reflects the efforts to amplify Riyadh’s status as a leading destination for major cultural and artistic events.” TIME attempted to reach the comedians mentioned in this story for comment.