The comedy world has been in an uproar over the Riyadh Comedy Festival, which ended today after two weeks of performances in Saudi Arabia’s capital. Extremely popular comics including Kevin Hart, Dave Chappelle, Louis C.K., Aziz Ansari, Bill Burr, Pete Davidson, Whitney Cummings, Wayne Brady, Hannibal Buress, Jessica Kirson, Andrew Schulz, Sebastian Maniscalco, and others were paid exorbitant fees to do standup in Riyadh. They’ve faced widespread scrutiny for participating in Saudi Arabia’s attempt to “comedy wash” the image of a country that assisted with the 9/11 attacks, imprisons activists, and executes journalists, among other human rights abuses. Just last night Jimmy Kimmel was grilling Ansari about it, and Marc Maron has been an especially outspoken critic. This video by Zach Woods summed up the critiques quite effectively:
