Social commentary with a laugh.
PREVIEW
Red Man Laughing CBC Special taping Starring: Ryan McMahon Where: Capitol Theatre, Fort Edmonton Park When: Friday and Saturday, 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $20 through fortedmontontickets.com As a comedian, Ryan McMahon is mischievous and skilled, cutting through tricky subjects like a surgeon. His Ojibwe/Métis blood arcs straight into his jokes, including about his looks.
Describing growing up with a mixed background, he’s said onstage: “Everyone at my dinner table is brown, and I’m just a gross shade of pink, hotdog pink.”
Another bit has him at a protest rally chanting in chorus, “Screw the white man!” until the natives around him stop dead, staring at this braying pink creature in their midst, accidentally sexually propositioning them.
McMahon’s Red Man Laughing podcast (rmlpodcast.com) has thousands of subscribers, mixing humour, topical rants and conversations with “indigenous ass-kickers,” as he puts it. As genuinely funny as it is, it’s also front-line social commentary.
His upcoming two-night taping for CBC Radio 1 is a big deal to him, and he’s aiming for the sky, hoping for TV. Guests both nights include Thunder Bay singer-songwriter Nick Sherman, singer and hand drummer duo Fawn Wood and Dallas Waskahat, and Dene author Richard Van Camp.
“It’s likely if something doesn’t hit on Friday, we might be presenting a whole new show Saturday. Nobody should come Friday,” he jokes, or rather didn’t joke, he says, if any of his producers are reading this.
The national CBC show will be recorded in front of a live audience Friday and Saturday at the Capitol Theatre in historic Fort Edmonton Park. The run date on CBC Radio 1 has not been set yet.
“The first shot that goes through your head is, it’s a reclamation. We’re not leaving, all that kind of stuff.”
“But we are recording it for radio, and with a CBC special, there’s a lot of ‘special’ that comes with an — in finger quotes — ‘native comedy special.’ You have to walk the line in a responsible and good way and try to find out what’s funny about the truth.
“I can go in there and say whatever I want. It doesn’t mean that’s going to make it to air.”
Besides his wit and soul, part of the 35-year-old’s main charm is shining a spotlight on the elephant in the room. He talks about his material being potentially uncomfortable. Fending off bullies as a kid, for example, he jokes, “You wanna fight anyone, fight my mom. She’s the one that slept with a white guy that wouldn’t afford a condom.”
“She loves it,” McMahon notes of his mother’s reaction. But the reception by others “depends on where you go, where you are. If I threw a big native comedy show in Calgary right now, how well would that go over? The one thing we don’t entirely acknowledge in this country is how deeply ingrained the racism is, on both sides.
“I’m not out to entertain people or make them feel good about the situation we find ourselves in politically. I don’t really see that as my job.”
McMahon frequently uses the word “Indian” without hesitation. “Some people go so far as saying this is as bad as the N-word, and it’s not. Indian was not used the same way the N-word was. I’d rather be called a ‘drunken Indian’ than an ‘aboriginal person.’ Aboriginal was created by the government to let everyone off the hook so that you didn’t have to know where we came from.
“When I say ‘Indian,’ I mean it in a brotherly way, as a way to bring us together. When I hear non-native people say it, I don’t get too hung up on it. I know some people do, but there are way larger fights.”
He adds: “I don’t want the audience to come in Friday and be worried about what to call us. If we can’t get over that first part, how can we really talk about politics or land? That, to me, is where comedy really holds its power. Every time I’m onstage, I have a chance to share ideas with a few hundred people.
“It’s the most fun, nonthreatening way to break down these things. It’s why I’m so grateful to CBC. For better or worse, we’re here together, and we really need to figure it out. I don’t want my daughters to be tasked with this.
“When we’re not in each other’s company, it’s difficult to figure it out. Comedy gives us that foot in the door.”