Guess everyone has a price after all…. I hope they sleep well on their millions now.
They better be funny or they may be killed and cut up into tiny pieces…
Jim Jefferies disappeared from the Riyadh festival lineup after he said on Theo Von’s podcast: ‘One reporter was killed by the [Saudi] government – unfortunate, but not a fucking hill that I’m gonna die on.’
What a fucking loser. He threw his soul away AND lost the payday. Lose-lose fucking loser.
The rest is even more cringy
“arguing it is for the greater good that “freedom-of-speech machines” such as himself bestow their “edgy” material on the kingdom and its subjects.”
It is one thing to sell your soul for money (or try anyways lol) but it is an entirely another level of loser quality to pretend like you are fighting for freedom while doing it.
My thought about the whole thing was that if someone went there and, in spite of the agreement they signed, teed off on the Saudis and whatever else they were forbidden from discussing, I’d have had respect. Was honestly hoping that’s what Burr was intending to do. I’d have donated to the GoFundMe for them to fight the inevitable lawsuit from the Saudis.
Obviously didn’t happen. We live in a difficult world, and when presented with the choice between fighting (hard) and rolling over (easy), people take the obvious choice. I don’t know if I’m doing it differently.
Are these sets even recorded and able to be viewed somewhere, or were they essentially private? If they’re private, I dunno, I get it.
I wouldn’t get so annoyed if they just took the easy path and went along with it. My only reaction would be to perhaps not watch their shows. But taking the easy path while pretending like it is actually virtuous… It just feels very slimy… Now I feel like making fun of this person every time I hear his name.
We really got the worst era of comedy. Bunch of court jesters dancing for a king while the city burns
American comedy is become irredeemably lame. Though Jimmy Carr is on the list there too but at least him being a spineless whore is kinda his schtick
There are definitely exceptions. All of the comics mentioned here are people who peaked a decade or more ago, and most of them are extremely out of touch. There are a lot of more contemporary comics who are doing a great job. I don’t see Josh Johnson or Ashley Gavin or Gianmarco Soresi or like the people on Dropout showing up to something like this. There’s a whole generation of great comics, a lot of them coming out of UCB, who are funnier, wittier, and wiser than any of these clowns.
They were funded by these large groups and that isn’t talked about enough. It wasn’t just SA blood money they chased. They took it from hertiage foudation and other conservative groups. Most probably didn’t even realize they were doing it. They’d just get booked through agents. It just happened that these agents were working with groups who probably paid for personality profiles of the lamest comedians who could benefit their cause if they were actually popular.
“Wayne Brady makes Bryant Gumbel look like Malcolm X.” - Paul Mooney.
Super disappointed in Burr.
Unsubscribed.
There’s really no defense that is morally good in my opinion . F these people. At least they self identify as amoral assholes.
Not all
arguing it is for the greater good that “freedom-of-speech machines” such as himself bestow their “edgy” material on the kingdom and its subjects.
Yeah…
Yet as a country they buy their oil and supply them weapons, but this is a bridge too far I suppose.
Argh I’m so upset by this betrayal I’m going to type something on the internets.
That’ll solve it.
US imports of Saudi oil have not been significant for awhile now, North American oil production has increased massively over the past several decades. The US has actually been energy independent and a net exporter for around 5 years or so I think.
I don’t think many Americans are happy about the US relationship with Saudi Arabia but it doesn’t get shoved in their faces often so when comedians act like this it becomes an avenue for that anger to be expressed. Many Americans have parasocial relationships with comedians, and/or have this idea that they are “fearless truth-tellers”, so it hits a lot different compared to abstract foreign policy and people get a lot more easily riled up about it.
and/or have this idea that they are “fearless truth-tellers”
They kinda were… some 50 years ago.
Inb4 they whine in their next comedy specials that they’re ‘being cancel cultured again by Gen Z’ and this time its ‘just for working’.
Cue laughs from conservatives.
Likewise we’re not paid enough to be their audience. Grifters, kindly fuck off the stage.
‘They’re paying me enough to look the other way’
That is at least an honest approach instead of “We’ll change things over there with our comedy”.
Just stfu next time it’s about politics (hint: they won’t).
The only guy that is surprising for me is Bill Burr. Not exactly financially hanging on by a thread but still selling out like that.
Same, very surprised by Bill Burr and that it wasn’t a bit for him to tell the Saudis some hard truths either.
Instead, he gives us a weak-ass “they are the same as us” response because they have the same crappy fast-food…
It’s always about the money for these pricks.
Don’t fool yourselves into thinking entertainers are your friends. They’re not.
Mr. Rogers weeps.
What’s with people in here expecting comedians to be moral paragons? Especially Bill Burr. Dude’s whole claim to fame is being a piece of shit.
You don’t need to be a moral paragon to recognize that taking money from the fucking bone saw guy to whitewash his shitty dictatorship is bad and will piss off your audience. Where is the line for you? If you think Burr is excused for this because his claim to fame is being a piece of shit, could he do anything you actually find unacceptable?
By that logic, Bill Burr and every single other comedian should leave the US and never perform there again, as the country currently engages in material support of genocide of Palestinians. I agree with that logic, I’m not playing devil’s advocate
Theyre comedians, dude. They do corporate gigs all the time, and always have. And no one gave a shit. Even though many of those corporations would be evil as fuck as well.
But in the case of this, you could at least make the argument that theres a greater good being served, in so much as that the country is being exposed to new ideas and views through comedy. Bill Burr said “theyre just like us” when talking about the people, and social media crucified him for it. Why? Because they hold the people to account for the actions of their leaders. Which to give it context, would be like calling someone a Trump voter because they happen to be American.
The whole outrage is fucking stupid. The focus should be on the Saudi leaders, who are once again trying to wash their image on the global stage. But instead, all we hear about is how much of a piece of shit Bill Burr is… Tell me, do you go this hard on City group? Man City, New York City teams are sports washing pure and simple. Wheres all the outrage about that, which has been going on for more than a decade?
I am trying to think of a corporate gig that would be comparable. Being a murderous dictator who has journalists butchered is generally viewed as being significantly worse than your average CEO by most people. Maybe you could say taking money from Erik Prince is sort of on par? I would expect there to be a somewhat equivalent level of outrage in that scenario. Bill Burr whoring it out for a more normal corporate overlord who isn’t directly involved in torturing and murdering people isn’t going to draw the same kind of condemnation though.
I agree that the only slightly compelling argument in this is that there is some greater good being served here, but it is impossible to ignore the reality of the situation. MBS is directly paying them, there are rules about what they are allowed to say, the audience is a bunch of wealthy elites who already have easy access to anything they want, and the intent of the whole thing is very obviously part of the larger image rehabilitation campaign that MBS has been attempting to pull off for the past few years by throwing his blood money around. Burr got crucified for what he said because it is exactly what MBS wants him to say. Burr saw a bunch of fast food places and that was enough for him because he is being paid, and he knows if he said some real shit about MBS it would be a problem.
I do tend to go this hard on whoever. If they want to associate with someone like MBS I am going to judge the shit out of them for it just like I would anyone else. It’s disgusting behavior whoring yourself out to a dictator. I don’t need people like that in my life and I regret that I have to share this planet with them.
It’s not that black and white. Initially, the government wanted to closely police everything that was said. But they softened their stance after some back and forth. So Saudis who attended the shows were exposed to some mildly sacrilegious stuff. Religious fundamentals could frankly use a lot more of that in this world, and hopefully they will be less crazy as a result.
idk, i’m just getting tired of this hyper-fixation on holding performers to some lofty standard. He did something that isn’t remotely enough to land him in prison, so I’m going to not care at all and keep enjoying his comedy. Seems fairly reasonable to me.
To me this does not feel like an especially lofty standard. Particularly for someone like Burr who is already wealthy and established enough that a $1m paycheck isn’t life changing money.
I do agree that religious fundamentalists could use more exposure to people speaking freely and openly, but that is not what this is. Besides the government imposed restrictions on topics they were allowed to mention in their sets, the audience itself is the wealthy elite from Riyadh who are the least religious and most secular segment of Saudi society. These are a bunch of rich folks who can fly to NYC whenever they want to catch any comedy show they want to see.
The reason that performers and comedians in particular piss people off is because of the whole free speech thing. It is a gross look to be someone reliant on freedom of expression for your career to take money from the guy who notoriously had a journalist brutally tortured and chopped up with a bone saw. And it’s not like that is the only horrific thing MBS has done either, it wasn’t even the first or last journalist he has murdered. If they were just performing in Saudi Arabia for some kind of private org and the money wasn’t being paid directly by MBS there would be significantly less anger or sense of betrayal from their fans. MBS is a notorious psychopath directly responsible for horrific crimes and anyone who associates with him is going to be tainted by it, there is no getting around that.
Literal blood money bruh
Nice for these people to be so open about their shittiness, it removes the benefit of the doubt and makes it easier to weed them out
Don’t make celebrity performers your idols, folks. They’re mostly psychologically damaged, amoral, backstabbing, money grubbing narcissists.
I don’t disagree with you, but this is isn’t exactly “idol” level expectations, either. “Not selling out to horrific regimes” is basic decency I’d expect of everyone, not just those I look up to. Most of the names I see here make sense, but there are a few I expected to be better than this.
Especially comedians… it’s a defense mechanism.
People: Billionaires are the problem
Also people: OMG Taylor Swift’s new album just dropped! Let’s go buy 3 different versions of it
You don’t get it, she’s a good billionaire because she’s a girl and owns her music. Who cares that she takes a private jet flight for what could be an hour long drive - she could never fly economy due her popularity!
Comedians are probably the most disingenuous ones too, as idols. thier job is to Joke, and you know personally they are either what they joke about(they become the jokes themselves this default for right winger comedians they become thier own jokes, or doing the opposite of what they are joking.
