The Saudi Sell-Outs: Sportswashing and Cultural Laundering

FUNK !T | Mindful Media & Communication · Oct 5, 2025 · 19m

From WWE and UFC mega-events to comedy festivals and Formula 1, Saudi Arabia is buying global attention to rebrand repression as spectacle. This episode unpacks media events, Debord’s spectacle, Gramsci’s hegemony, Said’s orientalism, and Bourdieu’s symbolic capital to show how authoritarianism launders its image with pyros, punchlines, and billion-dollar checks. Authoritarianism, now available in pay-per-view.