MANAA and JACL meet with Paramount

From JACL:

(Left to right: Bill Imada, Katie Martin Kelly, Guy Aoki, Adam Goodman, Craig Ishii, Floyd Mori)

On Thursday, the JACL was represented at a meeting with Paramount Pictures by Floyd Mori, National Executive Director, and Craig Ishii, Regional Director of the Pacific Southwest District. Paramount Pictures President and CEO, Adam Goodman had invited Mori to meet to discuss problems of racial stereotyping and racial casting by Paramount. Bill Imada, CEO of the IW Group (formerly Imada Wong Communications Group), and Guy Aoki, co-founder of MAANA (Media Action Network for Asian Americans), also attended the meeting that included Paramount executives, Sharon Keyser and Katie Martinelli. The meeting was a result of a letter Mori wrote to Goodman condemning the negative stereotype portrayed in the Paramount movie, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard.

Goodman, who became the CEO of Paramount after the filming of the movie, had apologized for the racially demeaning scene and with this meeting had made good on his promise to meet with Mori and other community leaders. In the meeting Goodman committed to further dialog and requested that ongoing meetings be held to monitor and evaluate Paramount's performance in providing a diverse platform in their productions.

Mori was pleased with the outcome of the meeting and stated, "Adam Goodman was receptive to our concerns and expressed an attitude of further cooperation to make Paramount a model for reflecting the diversity that exists in contemporary society. We look forward to a close working relationship with the studio in eliminating the perpetuation of negative stereotyping of ethnic minorities. Through this dialog, we hope to avoid the type of debacle which resulted from The Goods."