Joy Gorman Wettels is the founder of Joy Coalition, an impact producing venture with a focus on creating purpose-driven film and television content for a global audience. She executive-produced the newly-released UnPrisoned, and is currently working on a multi-part storytelling ecosystem inspired by landmark civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize. Her body of work includes, notably, the critically acclaimed series Home Before Dark, the influential 13 Reasons Why, created by Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning playwright Brian Yorkey and directed by Oscar-winner Tom McCarthy (Spotlight).
Other works include The Meddler, named Vanity Fair's #1 film of 2016, and the forthcoming adaptation of Little House on the Prairie. She serves on the Advisory Council for UCLA’s Center for Scholars and Storytellers and the Advisory Board for Hollywood, Health and Society at USC. As part of their commitment to social change, Joy Coalition works in collaboration with the Office of the Surgeon General in response to the youth mental health crisis. She’s accepted a Sentinel Award, Television Academy Honors for advancing social change, and the 2018 Mental Health America Media Award.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
UnPrisoned is not the usual story one sees about the formally incarcerated re-entering society. What's often neglected is what happens to the families during and after incarceration. Tell us about that process and why it was important for you to bring the authenticity of that story to screen.
JOY GORMAN WETTELS
With UnPrisoned and with really my whole body of work as a producer, I'm really drawn to stories that make people feel seen that take issues that have stigma and shame attached to them, and making those issues just more palatable and more human. And few people realize that 50% of American families are touched by incarceration. And when you meet someone like Tracy McMillan, who really is a miracle, this is a woman who's now in her fifties who grew up in 22 different foster homes because her father was incarcerated when she was so little. And yet for all of his mistakes, the fact that he was a career criminal, he still, when he could change her diapers, he was present when he could be there. He braided her hair, and there was real love there. But they were separated not only by his mistakes, but by a system that is really unforgiving and really unfair, especially to black and brown men. So, the idea that we could tell a story where a young woman who was raised that way and by that person turns out to be Kerry Washington. You know, turns out to be somebody who you want to be, turns out to be "Olivia Pope", this woman that we all see as so beautiful and such a hero and so strong and so powerful, I felt was just an incredible opportunity. And when we first put Tracy and Kerry in the same room, Kerry said to Tracy, "You know you're a miracle, right?"
And I don't think it really hit Tracy before that moment. When you really look at the data, when you look at the foster-to-prison pipeline, over 80% of males who age out of foster care end up incarcerated. So there are two broken systems that work hand in hand here. And we had the opportunity of a real success story.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
And Edwin played by Delroy Lindo, he's complex. He has a lot of wisdom and things to share, just because there's a stigma or sense of mistrust, doesn’t mean he can’t add value to society. We don't realize that some people in the foster-to-prison pipeline are born into circumstances where they find themselves incarcerated. They made certain choices, but some choices were made for them.
JOY GORMAN WETTELS
And you see these kids who are put away at 12 and 13 years old. I mean, what is the path for that child, rejected by your family, rejected by your community? There's so little hope there. And so I became drawn to stories of hope of men who were in that situation.
My friend Chris Wilson, I helped him sell a book called The Master Plan. He was put away for murder when he was 16 years old. And he was in prison for life, and he wrote a bucket list. He wrote a master plan when he was 18 about what he was going to try to achieve. And he was one of those exceptional stories. And he's now a really successful artist and entrepreneur who spends most of his time giving back to the community and hiring other reentering citizens. Our friend Louis Reed who consulted on Delroy Lindo's character. Louis is a senior director for Van Jones' Dream Corps, and he was 15 years incarcerated. And I see these people who had made one mistake, and usually it was to survive in whatever situation they were born into. And the folks who are these exceptional stories, who turn it around in such an unbelievable way that they can then coach and help 650,000 other people. Louis, our consultant who helped Delroy with his character, has worked on so much policy change with Van Jones with Cut50 and Reform Alliance, and you can't even quantify the amount of work that still needs to be done. But that has been done by the gentlemen who survived the system and devoted themselves to redemption and giving back to the community.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
It's really important because, as you say, there's this veil of shame where things get swept under the carpet. Tell us about some of the issues and important stories that you've been involved in bringing to the screen.
JOY GORMAN WETTELS
I'm big on if you ban a book that kids love, I'm probably going to come and adapt it. I'm probably going to come after it because adults fail children all the time. Because we are afraid of their feelings. We are afraid of what they can get themselves into until it's too late. And we're avoidant as a culture with them. And we've also left them a pretty screwed-up world where they're living in a terrible state of anxiety. They've got lockdown drills in kindergarten. They don't know if a gunman is going to walk into their school. And they've got so many images coming at them. good and bad.
There's a lot of good that comes from TikTok and YouTube as well. It's just we're still in the beta phase of knowing. iPhones only came out in 2007. We're still figuring out truly how it's going to affect our brain development. So I think that 13 Reasons Why came at a time when we had all been really concerned about mental health. Brian Yorkey is my dear friend. We went to college together. Brian and Tom Kitt wrote Next to Normal, which was the very first Broadway show that dealt with mental health and mental illness. I had a grandmother who was bipolar and institutionalized, and when Brian told me when we were like 21 years old that he was writing a musical about electro-shock therapy, I was like, great idea! 10, 12 years later, and many iterations and workshops later with Tom and Brian, the show went to Broadway and got the Pulitzer and 11 Tony nominations, and it was groundbreaking. And it was before you could put Broadway on YouTube. And we were the first Broadway show on Twitter, nobody even had Twitter. I remember signing up for Twitter because I had to follow the Next to Normal tweets. So we were always ahead of the mental health conversation among teenagers and parents and trying to break the silence in a way.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
13 Reasons Why dealt with teenage suicide and was an interesting and important show for breaking the silence.
JOY GORMAN WETTELS
So I think that 13 Reasons Why came at a time when we had all been really concerned about mental health. Brian Yorkey is my dear friend. We went to college together. Brian and Tom Kitt wrote Next to Normal, which was the very first Broadway show that dealt with mental health and mental illness. I had a grandmother who was bipolar and institutionalized, and when Brian told me when we were like 21 years old that he was writing a musical about electro-shock therapy, I was like, great idea! 10, 12 years later, and many iterations and workshops later with Tom and Brian, the show went to Broadway and got the Pulitzer and 11 Tony nominations, and it was groundbreaking. And it was before you could put Broadway on YouTube. And we were the first Broadway show on Twitter, nobody even had Twitter. I remember signing up for Twitter because I had to follow the Next to Normal tweets. So we were always ahead of the mental health conversation among teenagers and parents and trying to break the silence in a way.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
It makes me reflect on what the young Joy was like. You mentioned your grandparents. So I know you were partly raised by your grandparents. It seems like you must have been a storyteller from the beginning. When did you decide you wanted to make your home in the arts and that this is how you would make change in the world?
JOY GORMAN WETTELS
I watched things with my grandparents, and I read books with my grandmother. And my mother was obsessed with Sondheim and Neil Simon, and made me read the Arts & Leisure section of The New York Times and circled the Ninas and the Hirschfelds. And she took me to standing-room-only Broadway shows for $5. And she held me during A Chorus Line. So the lyrics I was singing when I was four years old were very inappropriate. We did community theater, and my mom had this incredible network of gorgeous gay men who would drink coffee and eat biscotti and listen to show tunes in my tiny one-bedroom apartment.
I think that I was surrounded by storytellers and hams and charming, charismatic people who sang beautifully. I still can hear my mom's friend Bobby Cipolla's voice. I hear him playing the leading player in Pippin in our community theater production of Pippin, and my sisters and I all sang. So we were very theatrical for a bunch of girls who shared a couple of bedrooms in an apartment in Yonkers.
But my mother also just always showed us how New York City was only 10 miles away, and like greatness was attainable. And you can do fabulous, cool, fun things. You didn't have to be rich to do them. And she would walk me around the Columbia campus and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and we would go to the nosebleed seats to the ballet. And so I think the storytelling came from a combination of that exposure to the arts and closeness to New York City.
This interview was conducted by Mia Funk and Claire Tolliver with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this episode was Claire Tolliver.
Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
