By default, Bill Burr exists in a chapped state, but it’s clear that he feels more chapped than usual. The comedian keeps revisiting his decision to perform at the Riyadh Comedy Festival, but he still can’t decide which lazy excuse he wants to use.
Last week, Burr recapped his trip to the festival and attempted to explain his decision to take money from the Saudi government. Part of the explanation was that the experience made him less racist. “My whole fucking idea of Saudi Arabia is what I saw on the news,” he said on his podcast. “I literally think I’m going to land and everyone is going to be screaming ‘Death to America,’ and they’re going to have fucking machetes and want to cut my head off, right? Because that’s what I was fed in this part of the world, right?”
This specific point is correct: Bill Burr previously thought so. In a 2016 episode of his podcast, he responded to a fan letter asking when he would perform in Saudi Arabia. “I’m not going over there to get kidnapped and have my head chopped off on fucking YouTube,” he replied. “You should say something. No, you couldn’t, because then you’d be afraid they’d do something even worse to you.”
But it turns out that Bill Burr must have received a huge check to understand that Western culture has actually been adopted by Saudi Arabia. He expected hook-nosed, heavily armed swordsmen, but he found they had a McDonald’s there. Can you believe it?
Since this trip recap didn’t do much to shake things up, Burr continued to respond to criticism that his participation was part of a concerted effort to make Saudi Arabia look good, and he did so by talking about how great Saudi Arabia is. On Sunday, he appeared as a surprise guest for a live taping of Conan O’Brien’s podcast. Conan O’Brien needs a friendand you can guess what the main topic was. Via the Hollywood journalist:
“The general consensus is, ‘How dare you go to this place and make these oppressed people laugh, you fucking piece of shit. I can’t believe you went to this place. I can’t find it on a map, and this robot said I was upset about it, so now I am,'” Burr said, summing up the outrage. “It’s one thing to wear clothes made by sweatshop workers. It’s another to go to the factory and make them laugh. I can’t believe how angry I got about this issue after it went viral.”
Isn’t it interesting that many of those who criticize Saudi Arabia tweet on their iPhones or while wearing Nike shoes? This is basically the same as Bill Burr being paid by the Saudi monarchy.
If the comedian’s incoherent analogy is to be believed, he’s not playing for the sweatshop workers: he’s making the sweatshop owners laugh. Migrant workers in Saudi Arabia are not the ones buying tickets to the Riyadh Comedy Festival. And in response to other comedians who criticized Burr, he framed his trip as an act of diplomacy. He was one of the few truth-tellers brave enough to strengthen international ties through the power of gay jokes. Also, they have other fast food places there. More than THR:
He went on to note that he was one of the comedians who received “the most crap” about his appearance from other comedians who he declined to name. “All these sanctimonious assholes out there…who honestly don’t care,” he said. “If you really care about these people and how they live there, there’s going to have to be something like that to attract them. And I’ll tell you, the Cheesecake Factory in Riyadh, it’s amazing. It’s right next to Pizza Hut and KFC, and if you want a pair of Timberlands, it’s across the street, next to the Marriott, on the corner of the fucking Hilton.”
Holy shit, are there American hotel chains in Saudi Arabia? It’s crazy.
This is all a deflection by Burr. He wanted the check and jokingly struggled to find a good reason to accept it. What’s funny about this whole fiasco, aside from the phrase “Riyadh Comedy Festival”, is the way in which Burr (and other comedians who have been there) have reduced the entire region to long-outdated stereotypes about Arabs that would have been commonplace 20 years ago. They signed contracts stating that they could not make fun of the Saudi royal family or any religion, so they had to resort to broader enforcement of racism. To these useful idiots, there is no difference between the oil tycoon, the migrant worker, and any average brown person who lives there. They all function as cheap material for the stupider segment of Burr’s audience, a way to avoid actually answering the questions. any business decision. If anyone else had said they could use the power of comedy to improve relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia, Bill Burr would have happily laughed at them.
