In recent weeks, a graphic featuring all of the comedians hired for the controversial Riyadh Comedy Festival has made its rounds on social media.
While names like Pete Davidson, Dave Chappelle or Bobby Lee appearing on the list may be disappointing to some, the most disheartening of the bunch is undoubtedly Bill Burr.
You see, Bill Burr is supposed to be different.
While Chapelle is a complete narcissist and Davidson is just a sellout, Burr was an inspirational voice in the comedy scene.
Burr has built the foundation of not just his comedy but his legacy on his criticism of billionaires and corrupt institutions.
In the past, he’s never shied away from cracking jokes about how the 1% is ruining the very fabric of our society.
And Burr always maintained his everyday guy persona despite his growing fame.
The audience could relate to Burr. He seemed like that friend or coworker who never failed to get a laugh, no matter the crowd.
He was never pretentious about his comedic style.
He was just the type of guy who loved the Red Sox and hated billionaires.
He was different. And while other prominent comedians like Theo Von and Joe Rogan bent the knee, Burr spoke out.
And now that’s all over.
Burr decided to forgo his legacy and reputation for some extra cash from a theocratic dictatorship.
Going into the human rights atrocities of the Saudi government would be its own subject.
It’s a regime that murders journalists and jails indiscriminately. Not to mention its systemic mass murder of the people of Yemen.
And Bill Burr, the guy who has criticized the Donald Trumps, Elon Musks, Bill Gateses and Peter Thieles of the world to no end, took money from them.
While some may want to get into the moral ambiguity of taking money and turning a blind eye, that argument is irrelevant.
Burr is not some guy down on his luck who needs the money to survive. He’s a literal millionaire.
But that’s not the worst part.
The worst part is that Burr is a man who had built himself up on supposed principles of working-class solidarity and human rights, only to unnecessarily betray them all.
It’s the most abhorrent form of hypocrisy. And it shows that we are in an age of weakness.
An age where the supposed heroes of the day are simply cowards who will abandon their “beliefs” for the promise of the dollar bill.
While we may not feel as though we need heroes to look to as examples of strength and resistance, we do.
Every movement needs its popular figures to drive narratives to a wider audience and Bill Burr was that for the everyman.
Burr used humor as a way to criticize those technofascists who look to turn the United States into a hyper-surveillance Orwellian nightmare.
But he abandoned all of that. So now we are left with no one to look to for funny quips about the problems that secretly horrify us. And that’s a shame.
