While accepting the Norman Lear Achievement Award at the Producers Guild Awards on Saturday night, Mara Brock Akil reflected on lessons she’s taken from the legacy of the award’s namesack.
“What I’ve learned, and what Norman understood, is this. Stories are infrastructure. They shape how we see ourselves. They shape how we see each other, and they shape what we believe is possible,” she said. “As producers, we are architects of imagination. That is not small work. The characters we center, the worlds we normalize, the dignities we extend, those choices ripple.”
It is “a profound privilege,” Akil said, “to tell stories about love: love of family, love of friendship, love of co-workers, ambition, vulnerability, and joy. Stories that insisted on nuance for stereotypes once lived. That work was never about representation. It was about expansion.”
At this stage of her journey, she continued, “I feel called to build differently, to create structures where the next generation of storytellers don’t have to push as hard just to be heard, to create ecosystems, not just shows. I think about this not only as a producer, but as a mother.”
Now young men, her sons are watching the show tonight.
“They are forming their ideas about leadership, partnership, power, and integrity. And one day, they and their generation will shape whatever comes next. What are we leaving them with?” she asked. “I don’t want them to inherit an industry that requires extraordinary resilience just to belong. I want them to inherit one that assumes their brilliance from the start.”
“If I have done anything worthy of this honor, I hope it is this — that I helped make room,” Akil continued. “Room for more voices. Room for fuller humanity. Room for stories that once waited quietly at the margins. Because stories change culture. But space, space changes, who gets to tell it.”
Akil began her remarks by paying tribute to one of her great mentors, Ralph Farquhar, who presented her with tonight’s honor.
“Ralph, thank you for being with me tonight. It’s an honor to thank you in front of this illustrious audience for teaching me how to make television,” she said. “You told me, one part talent, two parts integrity, and three parts hard work, especially when no one is looking. Mix it up. Bake it at joy. Add some gratitude. And for those last 15 minutes, turn that bad boy up until I’ve exhausted the privilege of telling the story, but still have enough energy left to be thrilled, in awe even, that the little idea I have could rise into a television series worth watching. I am so proud to be a part of your family tree.”
Countless talents have come up under Farquhar’s stewardship, she said, naming the many occasions where she worked with him. “34 years ago, as your stage PA on The Sinbad Show, 32 years ago as your writer’s trainee on South Central, 30 years ago as a staff writer on Moesha, you gave me a place to develop and shine,” she shared. “I pitched nonstop, but you never told me to shut up. You did tell me to save it for my pilot, and I did. And it’s called Girlfriends. You recognized my gift for placing music, and I still owe you receipts for all those CDs I bought at Tower Records. They’re out of business, but thank God you’re still here.”
Akil remembered being terrified the first time Farquhar asked her to “laugh the show,” explaining, “for those of you in earlier generations, that’s where you enhanced the laughs on a comedy show.”
What Akil didn’t realize when Farquhar entrusted her with this responsibility, she said, was that it marked “the beginning of my journey as a producer.”
She said she takes that title seriously and is “filled with tremendous gratitude for this once-in-a-lifetime honor” from the PGA.
Continued Akil, “Ralph, when you hired me when I was young, ambitious, and probably a little impatient, you didn’t just give me a job. You gave me proximity to possibility. You taught me that producing is not about power, it’s about stewardship, protecting the story, protecting the people who make it, and sometimes protecting the truth from fear. Thank you for seeing me before the industry fully did.”
Speaking further of Lear, Akil told the crowd, “Nothing can be more meaningful than to be honored in the name of the late, great Norman Lear. Norman didn’t just produce television, he produced conversation. He disrupted comfort. He invited America to see itself sometimes beautifully, sometimes uncomfortably, but always honestly. That standard shaped me.”
Elsewhere in her remarks, she said, “I have spent over three decades working inside systems that were not built with me in mind, learning them, navigating them, stretching them, and I am deeply grateful to every collaborator, every writer in every writer’s room, every cast and crew member who trusted me with their talent, their time, and their dreams.”
Known for creating series like Girlfriends, The Game, and Forever, Akil is one of three big honorees tonight, the others being Amy Pascal (who’s receiving the David O. Selznick Achievement Award) and Jason Blum (who is getting the Milestone Award). The ceremony is taking place at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles.