Ep. 24 - International Privilege & Resisting with Comedy ft. Quinn Wilson

GUEST
Quinn Wilson is a Chicago-based award-winning filmmaker/comedian
with a focus on comedy and social justice-related work. He is the
founder of What Matters Productions, where he takes his gift of
filmmaking and passion for global equity to focus on telling
stories that MATTER. Wilson is formerly the Creative Director for
the iO Comedy Network (Improv Olympics), of the famous iO Improv
Theater where he lead a team pitching TV pilots, creating comedy
web videos, teaching video production classes, and doing branded
work all along-side the legendary comedic talent produced by the
iO Theater. Commercially, he is rep’d as a comedy director with
Big Spoon Industries. Wilson has a strong interest in global
non-profit volunteer work, and is using this medium
transformatively to change the world, as is evident in his work
with Echo 100 Plus, and All Chicago. He has spent years mentoring
LGBT youth surviving homelessness, volunteering at refugee camps
in Greece, and helping drill water wells in Burkina Faso, West
Africa. He enjoys building community and friendship with people
all over the world from all walks of life.


OVERVIEW
Quinn begins with his background in comedy, from stand-up in high
school to his work with iO. With this, he breaks down the current
comedy environment telling how younger, more consciously
intentional writers’ rooms and comedians vie to “punch up”
systems of oppression rather than play to stereotypes and
problematic notions of the old guard. The conversation
consistently circles back to the role of social justice-geared
film, movement media, and the intersections of popular culture in
resisting problematic institutions in America and abroad. The
gang examines different forms of privilege—American, whiteness,
gender, class, etc.—as well as historical and geographic examples
of local and global issues with the help of Quinn’s international
experiences. From anti-white flight public policy in Oak Park,
Illinois to the Western world destabilizing the Middle East for
control and economic profiteering, Quinn and BrownTown relay why
media-makers, social entrepreneurs, and (many) non-profits are
important cultural influencers in resisting in traditional and
non-traditional ways.


Quinn shares his personal journey of politization through
authentic, close relationships with passionate activists and
folks surviving extreme circumstances. Through those experiences
and his passion for film, he explains the origins of What Matters
Productions with the inaugural project Calvin’s Story and later
Americans United Against Destructive Driving (AUADD) (SoapBox
collaborations). As the second white, straight, cis male on
Bourbon ’n BrownTown, Quinn implores folks who have been “dealt a
good hand” to use their easier access to spaces and resources to
amplify voices and challenge the very systems which they benefit
for the betterment of our global community.


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Find more on Quinn and What Matters Productions at
QuinnWilsonFilm.com and WhatMattersProductions.com.


Follow him on Facebook and What Matters Productions on Facebook,
Instagram, and Twitter.


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CREDITS: Intro/outro music by Fiendsh. Intro
soundbite from Quinn's comedy routine from 2013. Audio engineered
by Genta Tamashiro. Episode art and Bourbon 'n BrownTown logo by
Desirae Gladden.


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