By default, Bill Burr exists in a state of his ass being chapped, but clearly it’s been feeling more chapped than usual. The comedian has continued to address his decision to perform at the Riyadh Comedy Festival, but he still can’t settle on which lazy excuse he wants to employ.
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 fuckin’ idea of Saudi Arabia is what I’ve seen on the news,” he said on his podcast. “I literally think I’m gonna fuckin’ land and everyone’s gonna be screaming ‘Death to America,’ and they’re gonna have fuckin’ machetes and want to chop my head off, right? Because this is what I’ve been fed about that part of the world, right?”
This specific point is accurate: Bill Burr did previously think that. On a 2016 episode of his podcast, he answered a fan letter asking when he’d perform in Saudi Arabia. “I’m not going over there and getting kidnapped and getting my head sawed off on fucking YouTube,” he replied. “You’d have to say something. Nah, you couldn’t, because then you’d worry that they’d do something even worse to you.”
But it turns out that Bill Burr had to receive a huge check to understand that Western culture has actually been embraced by Saudi Arabia. He was expecting hook-nosed swordsmen armed to the teeth, but instead he discovered that they have McDonald’s there. Can you believe it?
Since that travel recap didn’t move the needle much, Burr continued to address the criticism that his participation was part of a concerted effort to make Saudi Arabia look great, and the way he did that was by talking about how great Saudi Arabia is. On Sunday, he appeared as a surprise guest for a live recording of Conan O’Brien’s podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, and you can guess what the main topic was. Via the Hollywood Reporter:
“The general consensus is, ‘How dare you go to that place and make those oppressed people laugh, you fucking piece of shit. I can’t believe you went to that place. I can’t find it on a map, and this bot said I was upset about it so now I am,” Burr said in recapping the outrage. “It’s one thing to wear clothes made by sweatshop labor. It’s quite another to go to the factory and make ’em laugh. I can’t believe how much anger I had about this issue after it went viral.”
Isn’t it interesting that many of these people criticizing Saudi Arabia are typing tweets on their iPhones, or while wearing Nike shoes? That’s basically the same thing as Bill Burr getting paid by the Saudi monarchy.
Going by the comedian’s own incoherent analogy, he’s not performing for the sweatshop labor—he’s making the sweatshop owners laugh. The migrant workers within Saudi Arabia are not the demographic buying tickets to the Riyadh Comedy Festival. And in response to fellow comedians who criticized Burr, he presented 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 over there. More from THR:
He continued by noting that he was one of the comedians who got “the most amount of shit” about his appearance from other comedians whom he declined to name. “All of these sanctimonious cunts out there…who don’t really sincerely give a shit,” he said. “If you actually give a fuck about those people and how they’re living over there, there’s gonna have to be these types of things to pull them in. And I will tell you, the Cheesecake Factory in Riyadh, it’s incredible. 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, catty-corner to the fucking Hilton.”
Holy shit, there are American hotel chains in Saudi Arabia? That’s crazy.
All of this is deflection by Burr. He wanted the check and is struggling to joke his way into a good reason for taking it. The funny thing about this whole fiasco, aside from the phrase “Riyadh Comedy Festival,” is how Burr (and other comedians who went) have flattened the entire region to long-outdated stereotypes of Arabs that would have been common standup material 20 years ago. They signed contracts stipulating that they couldn’t make fun of the Saudi royal family or any religion, so they have to resort to a broader application of racism. For 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 dumbest segment of Burr’s audience, a way to avoid actually answering for any business decisions. If anyone else had said they could use the power of comedy to improve relations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, Bill Burr would have eagerly made fun of them.
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