Riyadh, I Hardly Know Her

If you’re as online as I am and if you also like comedy you’ve probably recently been made aware of the formerly, little known place of Riyadh. Pronounced "REE" + "ad" in case you were wondering. Jokes aside, it’s actually the capital of Saudi Arabia. 

For those who aren't, let me introduce to you the lineup for the 2025 Riyadh Comedy Festival. 'Punchlines and Palms' and well a healthy dose of censorship at the behest of Turki Al-Sheikh the current Saudi minister of entertainment. The lineup features all your favourite 'cancelled' comedians including Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart and Louie C.K alongside a couple I was genuinely surprised about including Aziz Ansari, Bill Burr, Pete Davidson and fucking Jimeoin?

According to the website Taj Rights, prior to organising a comedy festival, Turki Al-Sheikh was involved in arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, and acts of torture sometimes just for posting something on social media he didn’t like. He’s also good buddies with Saud al-Qahtani, a prime suspect in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The response to comedians taking the Riyadh Comedy Festival gig has been varied with Marc Maron responding with the below quote in the LA Times;

“I mean, how do you even promote that?” Maron said. “You know, like, ‘From the folks that brought you 9/11, two weeks of laughter in the desert. Don’t miss it!’”

Maron did also mention that it was easy for him to take the high road on this, as he hadn’t been offered a spot at Riyadh. Tim Dillion who did get a spot though, but then lost it for making a slavery joke on Joe Rogan’s podcast, also lost his alleged $375,000US performance fee. Some other comedians came to the conclusion that all money is blood money in entertainment, so why not go? I’d hate to think how much Chapple was offered to go perform. 

Prior to getting dropped from the lineup, Tim Dillion was at least pretty honest about what's happening, saying on his video podcast, “They're paying me enough money to look the other way”. 

Richard Osman from The Rest Is Entertainment podcast put it even better.

“If you're going over there, the reason you're being paid that much money to promote Saudi Arabia. So you're there to do PR for the Saudi government. We can argue about whether that's a good thing to be taking money for or not, but I think that has to be the starting point.”

Jim Jefferies tried to make the case that they’re ‘Free Speech Machines’ going to reach new audiences but according to comedian Atsuko Okatsuka, posted a screenshot of the censorship rules performing comedians had to agree to. 

This included a clause stating that the artist “shall not prepare or perform any material that may be considered to degrade, defame, or bring into public disrepute, contempt, scandal, embarrassment, or ridicule” the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia, its royals, the government or any religion or religious practice.

‘A lot of the "you can’t say anything anymore!" comedians are doing the festival,. They had to adhere to censorship rules about the types of jokes they can make." Atsuko Okatsuka.

The Riyadh Comedy Festival is part of ‘Vision 2030’ a plan to diversify Saudi Arabia’s economy and attract foreign investors and tourists. One of the key focuses is to ‘create more leisure and recreational options’ to ‘enhance the image of the Kingdom internationally’. Also known as artwashing from the previous term to sportwash.

The arts have pretty much always relied on the funding of various States and philanthropists or just straight up been used to launder the money of criminals. It’s no surprise that Saudi Arabia’s ruling class is fond of also using the arts to launder its reputation and with a glut of so called cancelled comedians looking for new audiences and pay checks they’ll do just fine.

Whoever said all money in entertainment is blood money, or more broadly the arts, isn’t exactly wrong but that doesn’t mean it needs to be accepted as a blanket hall pass for all. Much like supporting J.K Rowling is a direct support for the erosion of Trans rights globally, allowing Zionists into the arts is one way they can launder their reputation and suppress opposition to their genocidal regime against Palestinians. Separating the art from the artist is just as big an impossibility as separating them from the influence of those using them. 

Who’s funding the art and artists that you enjoy is as important as what those artists are purporting to say. Whether it's the Riyadh Comedy Festival or your local arts organistion cutting a check from the LNP, both can be examined through a similar lens and it's up to yourself to reconcile which compromises you’re willing to accept. Or who you’re okay with getting thrown under the bus so you can go see a show for a night. 

Just next door from Saudi Arabia is the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Home to the Sharjah Art Foundation and the highly acclaimed Sharjah Biennial. The UAE, like many colonial petrostates so called Australia included, isn’t a stranger to human rights abuses. According to Amnesty International this includes mass arrests of protestors, torture and the suppression of freedom of expression. Not to mention the UAE’s role in The Pandora Papers. 

The founder of The Sharjah Art Foundation is Hoor Al Qasimi, daughter of Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi and the current ruler of Sharjah. Hoor Al Qasimi is also currently the Artistic Director of the 25th Biennale of Sydney, which will be delivered in 2026. While it’s exciting to see Hoor Al Qasimi take on the Biennale of Sydney one can’t help but see the parallels between Sharjah Biennale and the Riyadh Comedy Festival. 

Albeit ones getting a lot more coverage and criticism for partaking in art washing, potentially because Dave Chappelle has a slightly bigger audience than any visual artist at Shajah ever will.

In 2011, Mustapaha Benfodil work ‘Maportaliche/Ecritures Sauvages’ was removed from the 11th Biennale and the festival's then director Jack Persekian was personally fired by Sharjah’s ruler, Sheik Sultan Bin Mohammad Al Qasimi. Hoor Al Qasimi’s father. Don’t go feeling too sorry for Persekian though, he’d proactively decided not to show the film work by Cavah Zahedi for being ‘completely disrespectful of Islam’. 

Hoor Al Qasimi responded to the removal of the work and Persekian dismissal by her father with the below.

“This work paired language that was sexually explicit with religious references in an overt and provocative manner. Like all organizations that present art in the public realm, it is the duty of the presenters of the art to work closely with the artist to determine if said work is suitable to the public context.” 

While the work was provocative, the installation by Mustapaha Benfodil of mannequins in T-shirts emblazoned with Arabic phrases in support of rape victims was removed in a country where male guardians’ still have a legal right to discipline women and martial rape is not criminalised. And the UAE, also has “morality offences” which criminalizes consensual nonmarital sex and abortions. 

Hoor Al Qasimi isn’t wrong that organisations have to determine the suitability of art in the public realm, especially when your father and ruler of the area funds said organisation.

The Sharjah Biennial is an important institution and platform specifically for artists outside of the ‘Global North’. It regularly provides a platform for artists from West, South and Central Asia, and extends to South America, Africa, the Middle East and First Nations artists from the Pacific and so called Australia. Al Qasimi and Persekian have successfully walked a tight rope between supporting freedom of expression for presenting artists, most of which are from outside of the UAE and in navigating the conservative views held by the State. And well, Al Qasimi's own father and ruler of Sharjah, Sheik Sultan Bin Mohammad Al Qasimi.

One can’t help but wonder which works were deplatformed and silenced in that tight rope walk. Which works won’t be seen because one of the most important platforms for artists outside of the West also sits in under the ideals and aspirations of a conservative religious State. During the opening of the 2011 Sharjah Biennial, the same event that removed Mustapaha Benfodil work, 500 police were sent to Bahrain , a sovereign country not in the UAE, to assist with the suppression of a democratic uprising.

This is the shared contradiction of Riyadh Comedy Festival, The Sharjah Biennial and so called Australia’s own National Gallery of Victoria secretly trying to name a hall after one of this country's biggest Zionist lobbyists and also arts funders. 

I bring so-called Australia into this because while it's easy to point at the Riyadh Comedy Festival and human rights abuses of Saudi Arabia or The Sharjah Biennial and its own countries' human rights abuses, these things are all happening here too. Artists and academics have been increasingly de-platformed and targeted, especially over the last two years. We have yet to reconcile or even really acknowledge our own genocidal past and its ongoing actions and impact on First Nations people. And we have journalists and whistle blowers fired, locked up and targeted by police all the same. In so called Australia we constantly like to point out from our little island nation, at all the terribleness occurring elsewhere and pontificate about living in the ‘lucky country’.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. If more artists and arts organisations demanded genuine transparency before accepting payments and platforms they can at least make more conscious decisions. Or better yet, turn them down until there’s an alignment with their own values. Artists could also educate audiences to stop supporting these platforms until they live up to their own purported values and instead support independent artists and arts organisations directly. I doubt the aforementioned offenders will reform or become accountable but maybe something better can emerge when they finally run out cash because art washing only works with bums in seats and international artists flying in and out.

Much like Maron, it's easy for my to take the high road on this because no ones offering to buy out my values. And in all honesty it would be pretty hard looking at my overdrawn bank account to turn down any substantial amount of money.

But instead of flying to Riyadh to hear Louie C.K complain about being cancelled and feeling free once the sexual abuse came out, you could just go to your local comedy night instead. Not all money in entertainment is blood money.