Art is dead (in Malaysia)

The situation is FUBAR now. Some guy by the name of Yusuf Azmi, the leader of some Muslim consumer rights association decided he could gain some mileage from the Crackhouse situation and has been riling up the angry mob. They made a police report on Rizal's jokes and now Rizal is being investigated and he has no income from gigs or his club, and people have vandalised the club and have sent threatening messages to him and his wife, even mentioning the name of their two year old.

And to be honest, most of the jokes they are offended by, aren't critical of any religion, but instead laughs at human folly. In one discussion, Mo Sidik showed us this clip of an Indonesian comedian saying Insha Allah, a very habitual saying among Muslims. He was not in trouble. There were no police reports. The video went viral. Indonesians understood that the joke was about how people fall into habits and don't always think the meaning of what they say. It's like that old joke or meme where a waiter says "Enjoy your meal" and we say, "You too!"

Anyway, I hate breaking down jokes, because nobody is entertained and everybody's just bummed out afterwards.

The idea of a free market is that you sell something and people who like it will buy and people who don't like it won't buy. But now, we have people who would never come to a comedy show insisting on how comedy shows ought to be run and how jokes ought to be written.

Today, the music venue Angkasa Space, has closed down because the city council started requiring a 30,0000 deposit for every live event. The owner tried to keep it going by paying the deposit, but it takes him 4 months to get the deposit back. It feels like Kuala Lumpur, and Malaysia in general, is one of the worst places for live arts right now.


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