You can’t joke about anything anymore.
It’s a refrain we’ve been hearing from certain comedy circles for the last decade. The danger of cancel culture is a running theme of “The Joe Rogan Experience.” Dave Chappelle has repeatedly spoke up for free speech in the face of fierce criticism over his jokes about trans issues or the politics of Israel. The world’s richest comedy nerd, Elon Musk, told us comedy had become illegal.
Now that the talk shows of Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel — two late-night hosts who made jokes about President Trump the centerpiece of their programs — have been canceled and suspended, respectively, what are the heavy hitters of the comedy community doing? Would you believe they are heading to Saudi Arabia?
Starting next week, many of the most popular American stand-up stars (Chappelle, Bill Burr, Kevin Hart) will perform at a huge new festival in Riyadh, hosted by a government not exactly known for its openness to dissent. The optics were never great, but the timing is now especially awkward.
Tim Dillon, a comic and podcaster with an aggressively nihilistic sensibility who boasted on Rogan’s show about getting paid $375,000 to perform at the festival, announced yesterday that he was fired from the event for comments on his podcast. In a grim echo, he also addressed the crackdown on comedy in this country, criticizing the suspension of Kimmel. “It’s wrong to pretend it’s because the show sucked or because it was losing eyeballs or money,” Dillon wrote, likely aiming his comments at right-leaning comedians who didn’t like Kimmel. “Clearly it was a politically motivated hit job.”
Credit to him for straightforward bluntness.
It’s easy to roll your eyes at late-night comedians getting applause for mocking the president. Many people, myself included, found some of those jokes pandering. But that now seems a little glib. When Kimmel joked about the president, he knew that a target was on his back. President Trump, who has already effectively mounted pressure campaigns against universities, law firms and media networks, had made this clear, calling for Kimmel’s show to be canceled long before ABC’s decision Wednesday to pull him off the air.
In his first monologue after “The Late Show” was canceled by CBS, which cited a “purely financial” decision in an explanation that looks less and less credible, Colbert responded to the president’s social media reference to his fellow talk show host (“I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next,” Trump posted) by waving his finger at the screen: “No, no, absolutely not Kimmel,” he said. “I am the martyr. There’s only room for one on this cross.”
Apparently not. At this point, no one can say for sure the size of the cross. We are living in unprecedented times and comedians are going to have to adjust to new challenges. What is a network comic to do when faced with threats like these? What will Lorne Michaels do with the cold open of “Saturday Night Live” when it returns in two weeks? How will Jimmy Fallon steer “The Tonight Show”?
On Thursday night’s “Late Show,” Colbert called what happened to Kimmel “blatant censorship,” but Fallon adopted a more evasive approach. Before praising Kimmel and expressing hope that he returns, Fallon said: “To be honest with you all, I don’t know what’s going on — no one does.”
Really? Anyone paying attention should have some idea what is going on, but the temptation to play dumb is surely real. To be fair, Fallon does not portray himself as the kind of man who broods over the responsibilities of the artist in an age of authoritarianism. He has never seemed especially interested in politics, but that hasn’t stopped him from becoming entangled in it. He was blamed for helping to usher in the first Trump presidency because he infamously ruffled his hair on “The Tonight Show” in 2016. That always struck me as unfair. Trump (and hair jokes) had been a hallmark of popular culture for decades. Fallon was just following the crowd.
But there have lately been signs that Fallon is trying to get ahead of it, to avoid attacks from the administration by playing nice, downplaying political comedy, working both sides of the aisle. A recent “Tonight Show” guest was Greg Gutfeld, the Fox host who, on his own show, sounded distinctly unbothered (to no one’s surprise) by the suspension of Kimmel. Fallon’s guest list didn’t stop Trump from responding to the news about Kimmel’s suspension by saying that Fallon would be next.
As I watch comedians navigate this thorny moment, I’ve been thinking about parallels from the recent past. This hasn’t led me to any American late-night controversies, but it did immediately bring to mind a trip to Moscow for one of the first articles I wrote for The Times. It was a 2003 feature about a spate of Russian artists introducing American musicals to their country for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Vladimir V. Putin had been president for a couple of years, but the government had not cracked down on free expression to the extent that it has since. But I heard hints of caution from talking to many Russian artists, including a wildly famous and flamboyant pop singer named Philipp Kirkorov, who was producing the giddily cynical Kander and Ebb musical “Chicago” and playing the slippery lawyer Billy Flynn to packed houses. Interviewing him backstage after a show, Kirkorov stopped me when I referred to him as a star. “I am not a star,” he corrected me, through a translator. “I am a Kremlin star.”
This confused me. At the time, I had no idea what it meant. But now I think what he was doing was playing it safe. He was making sure that his loyalties to the regime were clear. In the two decades since, after Russia annexed Crimea and invaded Ukraine, all the artists I talked to for the piece have either died or left the country — except Kirkorov. He remained, and refrained from criticizing the government. But it’s not easy to be a Kremlin star.
In 2023, he drew fierce criticism from legislators and pro-government bloggers for the transgression of attending a private party filled with scantily clad celebrities during a time of war. Once photos of the event circulated, attendees were jailed and fined. Perhaps because of his fame, Kirkorov was made an example of. His concert dates were canceled. In embarrassing acts of penance, he publicly apologized and, last year, visited wounded Russian soldiers in a hospital in the Donbas region, where he sang them two songs.
Kirkorov tried to work within the system, avoid commenting on the war and steer clear of politics. But in a country run by strongmen, politics has a way of finding you.
In an unexpected culture clash, Fallon did a comic bit on “The Tonight Show” about Kirkorov this May, responding to a fan letter saying he looked like the singer. After showing his crowd a photo of Kirkorov, known for wearing glittery costumes and bushy hair, Fallon put on a wig and handlebar mustache in an attempt to look like him.
In imitating Kirkorov, Fallon got a few chuckles out of what seemed like the obvious contrast between the boyish late-night host and the campy singer. But in a rapidly shifting climate for comedy and free expression, where Jimmy Fallon could well be the last host standing at 11:30 p.m., he might discover that he has more in common with him than he thinks.