Inside Move: Drawing a line

Posted by Aldo Pusey on Wednesday, September 4, 2024

Al Jazeera nixes spot by 'comedy terrorist'

It always sounded too good to be true.

The news that self-styled “Comedy Terrorist” Aaron Barschak — who first gained notoriety by gate-crashing Prince William‘s 21st birthday party in 2003 while dressed as Osama Bin Laden — had secured a 30-second ad slot on Arab news net Al Jazeera to promote his new comedy show, “My Passion for Art,” turned out to be false. The station declined to run the promo.

Jihad Ballout, Al Jazeera’s director of communications and media relations, says, “We do tend to make some mistakes here, but I’d be surprised if we actually entertained such a request from a character who is exploiting this gimmick.”

Ballout confirmed that the station had indeed received a tape from Barschak, but says the net politely refused it on the grounds that the material contained “wasn’t suitable for us.”

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Barschak remains undaunted. “We’re still talking to them,” he says. “They wanted the subtitles to be done more professionally, but what’s funny about that? We wanted them to have a Python-esque feel to them.”

After his show runs in this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August, Barschak will create an art exhibition from the footage and submit it for consideration for the Turner Prize. He’s also shopping his self-made docu, “Rebel Without Applause,” which chronicles his exploits over the past year.

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