638
US comedians defend decision to play in Saudi Arabia: ‘They’re paying me enough to look the other way’
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2025
638 points (97.9% liked)
World News
52018 readers
2653 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
- Blogsites are treated in the same manner as social media sites. Medium, Blogger, Substack, etc. are not valid news links regardless of who is posting them. Yes, legitimate news sites use Blogging platforms, they also use Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube and we don't allow those links either.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF OCTOBER 19 2025
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Burr being on that list surprises me, but it said he’s also been to UAE. Davidson is pissing on his father’s grave.
Exactly.
Greedy fucks, all of them.
It's still kinda hard to understand that mindset for me. Like, if I were to become a public person - I'd probably care a lot about, for example, Wikipedia article about me.
Even ~10 years ago, while being a uni student, I declined some really good job offers, because that'd have me script bots for online gambling sites. That'd help my financial situation a lot, but I just said "nah, I'm fine".
We just don't cancel people enough and it shows. 🌝
Dave Chappelle, Louie CK, and Aziz Ansari were all on the list of comedians.
Cancelling isn't really a thing.
Well, it is a thing but it's also an integral part of being human rather than a "culture" that's somehow new. The difference is that it's a power wielded by the people now rather than tastemakers putting people on a blacklist.
Another thing that's happening with people that are "cancelled" is that they immediately get offered to join a group of "cancelled" public figures who bond over being disgusting pariahs and rebuild their careers by grifting to the right. Andrew Callaghan of channel 5 news (also All Gas No Brakes) talks about getting a job offer from InfoWars just a week after the sexual assault allegations against him went public. They anticipated he would respond by rebranding as "anti cancel culture" like so many others rather than admit fault and make a genuine effort to improve.
For those unaware of what happened with Andrew Callaghan, he had a habit of getting drunk and then pressuring/coercing women into having sex. His response was not perfect IMO, but he did confess that he had a problem and sobered up, which is more than can be said of most "victims of cancel culture."
It never was. It was always a juvenile response to criticism.
Out of all of the comedians asked only TWO had enough integrity to turn the offer down.
Who?
Shane Gillis and Stavros Halkias were the only two that turned it down as far as I know.
Mike Birbiglia apparently turned it down, but didn't make a big deal out of it.
There's no way that Nate Bargatze and John Mulaney didn't get offers. I have to assume they turned it down based on the fact they didn't go.
Do you know if they turned it down for moral or ethical reasons or if they only turned it down because they already had a schedule conflict?
I can't find it now but FWIW I just saw a video earlier today where Shane Gillis was dicsussing this. His reaction (at least in retrospect) was "You mean the 9/11 guys? No thank you".
Well I guess I don’t know for sure but based on their general reactions to other people doing the show it sure seems like they turned it down for moral or ethical reasons.