During the thick of award season, The Producers Guild of America held their annual ceremony celebrating the best in film and television. One of the highlights of the Producers Guild Awards was Mindy Kaling being the recipient of the highly coveted Norman Lear Prize for Achievement in Television making her the first South Asian personality to do so!
The Norman Lear Prize for Achievement in Television is named after the iconic ground-breaking writer/director Norman Lear who broke barriers with his incredible roster of shows including The Jeffersons and All In The Family.
With her honour this makes Mindy Kaling the 6th woman to have received the award and the 2nd person of colour and the very first South Asian woman making all sorts of history.
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The multi-Emmy award winning writer, actor and producer gave a heart warming speech followed by an introduction by her “best friend” (and former The Office co-star), BJ Novak in which she attributed her success to her upbringing ““Like most people, everything goes back to parents. I’m a child of immigrants and that unexpectedly became my secret weapon.” She continued on “I owe it to my parents but also to luck. I won the lottery in mentors with Greg Daniels and Howard Klein the producers of The Office.”

Traditionally a male dominated space for the past 60 years or so, the television comedic space has definitely progressed where women are being celebrated for their decades long contribution to the art. Past honourees include Greg Berlanti, Marta Kauffman, Amy Sherman-Palladino, Ryan Murphy, Shonda Rhimes, Dick Wolf, Jerry Bruckheimer, Lorne Michaels, Aaron Spelling, David E. Kelley and Norman Lear himself.
Main Image Photo Credit: www.instagram.com

Hina P. Ansari
Author
Hina P. Ansari is a graduate from The University of Western Ontario (London, Ontario). Since then she has carved a successful career in Canada's national fashion-publishing world as the Entertainment/Photo Editor at FLARE Magazine, Canada's national fashion magazine. She was the first South Asian in...