The recent Saudi Arabia comedy festival sparked significant debate across social media and within the comedy community. During a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, host Joe Rogan and comedian Andrew Schulz addressed the controversy directly, offering their unfiltered perspectives on performing in the Kingdom and the backlash that followed.
When Schulz brought up the topic, he immediately dismissed the manufactured outrage: “I’ve performed in the Middle East before”
Rogan responds: “You’ve done a bunch of shows out there.”
Schulz confims: “Yeah. Like it’s just not…Everybody make this big thing like, ‘Oh my god, it’s going to be so crazy, blah, blah.’ I post them. I posted my set because people were saying all this s**t ike, ‘Oh, I didn’t change anything and all these comics were doing”
He continues defending himself by saying: ‘I’m like, ‘All right, well, I’ll show you. This is what I did. You tell me if I took it easy on them.'”
Schulz emphasized his commitment to his fans regardless of location: “I’ll perform wherever my fans are. I don’t give a f**k. Like, that’s my take on it. I don’t give a f**k what their governments do. I’m going to perform for my fans. Simple as that. That’s what it is. I just happen to have fans over there.”
The comedian also addressed critics who claimed they would never perform in Saudi Arabia: “There are a lot of guys who like can’t perform outside of Brooklyn who are like, ‘I would never go.’ It’s like no one was asking you, right? No one’s inviting you.”
Regarding the supposed restrictions on material, Schulz was blunt: “And people made all this s**t big deal about like, ‘Oh, they made you sign a list of things you can’t say.’ And it’s just like, do you really think the f**king King cares about the clowns coming to the festival? Like, you think he really gives a f**k about that s**t? No.”
Rogan then responds: “Like, well, he would care if it was humiliating.”
Schulz says: “It’s some middle guy who’s like, I don’t want to get in trouble. So I’m going to say they do that s**t anywhere you go. They did that s**t when I was in UAE. I didn’t f**king look at it. I’ll never look at a list once in my life.”
When discussing the financial aspect, Schulz shared a joke from another comedian at the festival.
He said, “This comic out there said the funniest s**t. It’s f**ked up. He said the funniest s**t now. So, what do you think about them, you know, chopping up that journalist? He goes, ‘They chopped up one journalist so women can drive.'”
Schulz noted observable changes in the Kingdom: “There are chicks driving now, obviously. You know what I mean?”
Rogan asks: “How are they doing?”
Schulz jokes: “Well, we got one accident, two female drivers.”
Rogan says: “They’re new at it.”
Schulz then went on to talk about selective outrage. As Schulz observed, major sports figures and entertainers regularly perform in Saudi Arabia without facing similar criticism.
He said: “I don’t even know if people care because, like you see this s**t online and like everybody feels like they need an opinion on it. I even see comics going like a lot of people have been asking my opinion on so like I need to give your f**king opinion. Have they really been asking like what are you talking about? Nobody’s asking a f**king opinion.”
“It’s almost to the point and then I ask like any regular people they’re like they don’t really care because they’re watching like the six best tennis guys perform in Saudi this weekend and golfers and race and boxing and everything.”
Throughout the episode, Rogan remained quiet on the matter, mostly agreeing with Schulz. Both Rogan and Schulz talked about the manufactured controversy that represented another example of internet outrage divorced from reality.
