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Comedian, actor and director Aziz Ansari defended his decision to appear at the Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia during an awkward interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. Ansari was on the show to promote his new film Good Fortune.
While on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to promote his new movie Good Fortune, which he directed in addition to starring in alongside Keanu Reeves, Seth Rogen and Keke Palmer, Aziz Ansari was questioned about his decision to perform at the Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia earlier this month.
According to host Jimmy Kimmel, the Saudi Arabian regime aren’t “good people” and they’ve done a lot of “horrible things,” specifically mentioning the grizzly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Ansari replied with a lengthy response, saying he “put a lot of thought into” and sought out advice from his aunt who used to live in Saudi Arabia.
Aziz Ansari defended his decision to perform in Saudi Arabia during an awkward interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
“There’s people over there that don’t agree with the stuff that the government’s doing, and to ascribe like the worst behavior of the government onto those people, that’s not fair,” Ansari reasoned. “Just like there’s people in America that don’t agree with the things the government is doing.”
“I was just there to do a show for the people. Whenever there’s repressive societies like this, they try to keep things out — whether it’s rock and roll music or blue jeans — because it makes people curious about outside ideas, outside values,” he continued.
“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.”
Ansari’s defense — that there are regular people in Saudi Arabia who do not deserve to be held accountable for the actions of their oppressive regime — is essentially the same as Bill Burr’s, who was similarly defiant. What both comedians are ignoring, however, is that the money they were paid to perform there came directly from said regime and is quite literally blood money.