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Liberal talk show host Jimmy Kimmel grilled comedian Aziz Ansari on Monday for performing at a comedy festival in Saudi Arabia, noting he is one of many to be scrutinized for taking money from Saudis.
The entertainment world has been rocked in recent weeks by a massive comedy festival in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, featuring many of the world’s best-known working comedians. The performers have been accused of normalizing or “artwashing” the Saudi Arabian regime with their entertainment.
One comedian who refused to participate in the festival, Atsuko Okatsuka, shared purported screenshots of a contract that performers allegedly had to sign ensuring their content did not violate the guidelines of the Saudi Arabian government.
The contract reportedly prohibited “any material considered to degrade, defame, or bring into public disrepute, contempt, scandal, embarrassment, or ridicule” the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
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“This is, obviously, something that’s become a big part of the news because people, a lot of comedians especially, are very upset, because the people who paid the comedians to come to this are not good people. It’s a pretty brutal regime. They’ve done a lot of horrible, horrible things,” Kimmel told Ansari, asking him why he’d done it.
Ansari answered that he put a great deal of thought into his choice to attend, noting an aunt of his who lived there for some time argued there are plenty of people in Saudi Arabia who don’t agree with what their government is doing, just like in the United States.
While Kimmel agreed in theory that “we’re doing horrible things over here” in America, he argued the Saudi Arabian government is clearly on a different level.
“They murdered a journalist. These are not good people over there,” Kimmel said, in reference to the infamous state-sponsored murder of Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey in 2018.
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“I was just there to do a show for the people,” Ansari replied. “Whenever there’s repressive societies like this, they try to keep things out — whether it’s rock ‘n’ roll music or blue jeans — because it makes people curious about outside ideas, outside values. And this is a very young country. Like, half the country is under the age of 25, and things can really change. And, to me, a comedy festival felt like something that’s pushing things to be more open and to push a dialogue.”
He said he hoped he’d pushed things “in a positive direction.”
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