Ryan McMahon (comedian) facts for kids

Ryan McMahon is an Anishinaabe comedian, podcaster, and writer from the Couchiching First Nation. McMahon was born in Fort Frances, Ontario, the oldest of three siblings. McMahon was the first in his family to graduate from high school. He attended the University of Minnesota on a full hockey scholarship and graduated from the Second City Training Center.

He was the host of the 2018 Canadaland podcast Thunder Bay, and its upcoming television documentary adaptation, also titled Thunder Bay.

Early life and education

In his September 20, 2018 The Walrus Talks Success presentation in the Isabel Bader Theatre in Toronto, McMahon said that he was the oldest of four children and that he was the first person in his family to graduate from high school. McMahon completed his degree in theatre at the University of Minnesota. He then completed a two-year program at the Second City Conservatory in Toronto, Ontario, with a full scholarship granted by the Toronto Theatre Alliance.

Career

By 2008, McMahon had begun his standup comedy routines. In May 2010, his live performance of Welcome To Turtle Island Too was filmed in St. Albert, Alberta for a CBC television comedy special. In the same year he was included in the New Faces of the Just For Laughs festival in Montreal. In February 2015, CBC Radio 1 national aired an hour-long comedy special of Red Man Laughing , that had been recorded live in 2014 in Edmonton, Alberta. Guests on the show included author Joseph Boyden. McMahon did an hour-long comedy special called Reconcili-Nation that toured in 2015.

McMahon was also featured as the host of Toronto Indigenous Film-maker Michelle St. John's Colonization Road whose documentary was partially filmed at Lang Pioneer Village. The documentary examined First Nations and settler relations through Ontario's first roadways. The roads were built to make the land accessible for settlers, but ultimately split up and cut off First Nations communities. The program won the Yorkton Film Festival's Golden Sheaf Award for Best Documentary – Historical/Biography, and was nominated for a 2018 Canadian Screen Award.

In June 2019, CBC Comedy included McMahon on their list of "15 Canadian comedians to watch in 2019".

Podcasts

McMahon began podcasting in 2008. His 40-minute podcast Red Man Laughing had 20,000 listeners by 2012.

McMahon created the podcast Stories from the Land. In 2016 he began to co-host Canadaland's political show, The Commons.

As advertising revenue proved inadequate to sustain McMahon's indigenous-themed podcasts, in 2014 he began organizing a member-supported podcast network called Indian and Cowboy. As of 2022 the network had 149 patrons and earned a monthly income of US$1,126 on Patreon.

Thunder Bay projects

McMahon proposed a series about Thunder Bay to Jesse Brown, the founder of Canadaland. The series was intended to resemble the American National Public Radio (NPR) "longform storytelling model". Thunder Bay was largely informed by Toronto Star reporter Tanya Talaga's award-winning book Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death and Hard Truths in a Northern City, which investigated the deaths of seven Indigenous youth in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Canadaland launched a fundraiser and surpassed their goal of about C$27,800 a month from supporters. According to a Canadian Press article, by July 2019, McMahon, Jesse Brown, and Northwood Entertainment's Miranda de Pencier were working together to develop the Thunder Bay podcast into a television drama series.

Opinion essays

McMahon has written opinion pieces for Vice News and The Globe and Mail. Walrus magazine published a speech that McMahon presented at an event called The Walrus Talks Success held in Toronto on September 20, 2018.

On May 26, 2017, as Canada prepared for its sesquicentennial, McMahon's "12 Steps to Decolonizing Canada" aired on CBC Radio's Day 6 program. McMahon charted a "course for the next 150 years" to avoid the mistakes of the previous 150 years in Canada's relationship to Indigenous people. The show received the Sam Ross award for Opinion and Commentary at the 2018 RTDNA awards. McMahon reportedly refused to attend any celebrations of Canada's sesquicentennial.

Activism

McMahon has used his writing and podcasts as a platform to express ideas on various subject matters.

In a 2015 interview with Rabble, McMahon said that the Idle No More movement was a turning point for him. By that time, he had 20,000 listeners to his Red Man Laughing podcasts, and he decided to use his platform to speak about Idle No More. In a 2013 podcast shortly after the Idle No More movement had been launched, McMahon said that, for Anishinaabe, everything you do is political.

McMahon has been outspoken against colonial harm to Indigenous women.

In a June 7, 2019, CBC radio interview, McMahon discussed the June 3 release of the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the disappointing response to the report by the media.

In June 2020, CBC recommended Michelle St. John's Colonization Road, which featured McMahon, as one of ten documentaries by Indigenous "activists" who are "advocating for change."