Whatever happened to shaming people for selling out?
Comedian Jimmy Carr is performing in Saudi Arabia. Somewhere along the way, we stopped being ashamed of selling out and flaunting wealth. Picture Conor McCabe Photography.
As I type this, several famous comedians are in Saudi Arabia, to perform at the Riyadh Comedy Festival. Kevin Hart (estimated net worth, US$450m), Aziz Ansari ($25m), Dave Chappell ($70m and many more Western comics are performing this week in a country that holds an “abysmal” human rights record, according to Human Rights Watch.
Other comedians performing at this festival include Louis CK, Jack Whitehall, Chris Tucker, and Irish-born comics Jimeoin and Jimmy Carr.
These comedians are already rich. As Bob Dylan sang in 'Masters of War', all the money you made will not buy back your soul.
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that carries out beheadings as an official method of execution. People can be beheaded (or killed by firing squad) for a diverse range of crimes, including adultery and sorcery. Residents have received lashes for tweeting about religion and even brewing alcohol at home.
Torture, suppression of dissidents, slavery, and gender apartheid are other widely known problems in the country. And that’s before we get to the execution of journalists, which should be concerning for modern comedians, who are professionally invested in free speech.
Atsuko Okatsuka, who turned down the invitation to perform, recently shared rules for comedians. “[Artists] shall not prepare or perform any material that may be considered to degrade, defame, or bring into public disrepute…The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including its leadership, public figures, culture, or people; B) The Saudi royal family, legal system, or government, and; C) Any religion, religious tradition, religious figure, or religious practice.”
One comic, Tim Dillon, had signed up, but was removed from the list of performers because of jokes he made on a podcast about slavery in Saudi Arabia.
Just in case there was ambiguity about motivation, some of the comics have admitted that greed is the reason for this gig. “I just, you know, I get the (flight) routing and then I see the number and I go, ‘I’ll go,'” said Pete Davidson in a recent podcast.
In a standup set, Marc Maron put it more bluntly: “The same guy that's gonna pay them is the same guy that paid that guy to bonesaw Jamal Khashoggi and put him in a fucking suitcase. But don't let that stop the yuks, it's gonna be a good time!”
How did we get here? My theory is that we don’t shame people enough for selling out and flaunting wealth. I'm old enough to remember the 1990s, when 'sellout' was the insult of the time. Bill Hicks, Kurt Cobain and other public figures built careers on perceived authenticity.
Films about selling out were an entire subgenre, with movies as diverse as , , , and questioning the capitalism machine.
And some of these creators walked the walk, too, refusing commercial or career opportunities. Helen Childress, the writer of , turned down an opportunity to appear on , as it clashed with her principles. “I could’ve met Oprah,” she ruefully said on a recent podcast.
There were even hit songs that specifically called out musicians for selling out. “I ain’t singing for Coke,” Neil Young crooned on 'This Note’s For You', shortly after Michael Jackson filmed a high-profile soda commercial. In the late ‘80s, Tom Waits successfully sued Doritos for imitating him in a commercial.
On the few occasions when western celebrities made commercials, they usually did so in faraway places, especially Asia. Japan-based spokespeople include Tommy Lee Jones (coffee), Nicholas Cage (slot machines) and Cameron Diaz (English lessons).
Why didn’t you do these ads in your home country, Tommy, Nick and Cameron? I suspect it’s because, at the time, it was bad for their brand.
Influencers happily take money to endorse just about any product. The fact that Kim Kardashian is a billionaire is something to celebrate, supposedly. Celebrities share pictures of their private jets on social media. Dave Chappelle (him again) introduced Elon Musk as a special guest for a standup show, with the comic excitedly describing Musk as “the richest man in the world”.
Closer to home, Maria Steen announced her failed bid for presidency while holding a bag that’s so eye-wateringly expensive, that nobody is sure how much it costs. Estimates put it between €9,000 and (brace yourself) €40,000. She told : "I wanted to expose the hypocrisy of the left who don’t love the poor; they just hate the rich."
Consumption in today’s world is fraught, and moral compromises are inevitable. But at the same time, some bars are easy to clear.
During a cost of living crisis, don’t flaunt your bag that costs a year’s salary. Don’t make ads if you’re already insanely rich. And don’t perform for autocracies when you’ve built a career on free speech. These are embarrassingly low bars, and people are stumbling on them. Let’s aim higher.
- Joe Griffin is a freelance writer
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