Jon Stewart Reflects on Comedy, Integrity, and the Riyadh Question

In a wide-ranging interview between David Remnick and Jon Stewart at the New Yorker Festival yesterday, Jon Stewart touched on several issues, including his thoughts on the changes at Paramount under its new leadership. He wants to stay — and is working on it — but not without reservations. “They’ve already done things that I’m upset about. But then if I had integrity, maybe I would stand up and go, I’m out. Or maybe the integrity thing to do would be to stay in it and keep fighting in the foxhole.”

He also discussed, at length, the current state of politics in America, the dangers of social media, his interview with Donald Rumsfeld, and the comedians who took money from the Saudis to perform in Riyadh. “I thought the only person who should have done it was probably Pete Davidson, because they owe him money,” Stewart joked.

But he said he’s not interested in gatekeeping other comedians. “Here’s the thing, man. I want to fix my house. I want to operate with integrity, but I don’t want to gatekeep. Like, I’m not — I don’t go to the tree of hilarity and get visited by the fathers of — and I think a lot of comics who came out and really sh** on those guys. Like, I know a couple of them, and I know them actually to be, like, garbage humans.”

I read that last line a couple of times before realizing that the “garbage humans” he was referring to weren’t necessarily the comics who performed in Riyadh. He was talking about the comics who criticized those performers — probably Marc Maron, with whom he doesn’t have a good relationship.

But he didn’t go easy on comics like Bill Burr and Louis CK, either. “So, like, it’s hard for me to watch that sort of thing. It was like, I would have preferred if they’d just come out and said it’s money and not, like, it’s a way to start a conversation. Like, would you have started the conversation for $2,500? Well, then that’s, you know, that’s the difference.”

And that’s exactly right. Am I disappointed that Pete Davidson did it? Yes. But at least he was honest about the reason.

“Look, I worked for Apple,” Stewart continued. “There are a lot of people who believe that Apple is exploitative in a way that’s horrific. You know, we all have our lines that we’re willing to cross. None of us are Diogenes. We get into a problem when we’re unforgiving in any way.

“We offer no grace. And that doesn’t mean that I don’t have lines that I draw, that if people cross them, I won’t do. But I do try not to be so rigid in the way that I think society has become.”

And that’s mostly where I land, too — somewhere between disappointment and “cancellation.” We should be able to criticize comedians and express our disappointment without being accused of trying to “cancel” them. Again, this doesn’t necessarily change my relationship with Pete Davidson or Andrew Santino, who aren’t necessarily political comedians in the first place. But someone like Bill Burr, who’s spent the last few years railing against this sort of thing? It absolutely changes how I perceive his comedy. Because it means he was never honest about it in the first place.

As for Stewart and Maron, I’m guessing, based on that comment, that Stewart’s animosity runs deep — and given the things Maron said about him back in the day, both publicly and privately, I get it.