Academy apologizes for Asian joke at Oscars, announces new leadership roles

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has apologized for a racially insensitive joke about Asians during the February 28 Oscar telecast.

The move came in response to a letter from Asian academy members who were offended by a skit during the Oscar show in which host Chris Rock introduced three Asian kids as academy accountants — as well as "the kids who built your iPhone."

Asian-American members challenge Academy on diversity, 'racist stereotypes'

"I can understand the feelings and we are setting up a meeting to discuss, because as you well know, no one sets out to be offensive, and I'm very sorry that has happened," Cheryl Boone Isaacs said in a phone interview with The Associated Press late Tuesday. "I think so much is achieved with dialogue, so much is achieved. And that is what we'll continue to do: have dialogue, listen and just keep fixing."

Other news emerging from Tuesday's board meeting:  The Academy has added three new governors to its 51-member board and appointed six minority members to other leadership positions. It also approved other voting-rights changes intended to improve membership diversity following the #OscarsSoWhite controversy that permeated the 2016 awards season.

The new governors include Oscar telecast producer Reginald Hudlin and Kung-Fu Panda 3 director Jennifer Yuh Nelson. Meanwhile, Mexican-born, Golden Globe-winning actor Gael García Bernal (Y Tu Mamá También, Mozart in the Jungle) is coming on board as a committee member, as is African-American producer Effie Brown, whose credits include Dear White People and But I'm aCheerleader.

Boone Isaacs told the AP's Sandy Cohen, "Now the board has much more of a diversity to it ... It's always good to have some newness, someone who comes into the conversation that has been rolling along, just a different perspective ... We set out, even a few years ago, of having more inclusion and certainly have stepped it up. We just want to keep this process going, and so were really happy that were able to announce these additions."

She also described the discussions regarding voting changes as "positive" overall. The best approach, they determined, was to let the individual branches of the academy determine their own voting-rights criteria. "It's not such a one-size fits all," she explained.

Responding to a past academy president's criticism that it would be impossible to double the female and minority membership without relaxing standards, Boone Isaacs said, "The thing is we want to set goals and we're going to work our damndest to meet them all. That's our goal. The goal is to have one, and then do everything you can to meet it ... Everything about us is setting our standards high, and we're going to continue that."

The most encouraging sign so far for Boone Isaacs? "I think that this conversation really has picked up around the industry as a whole. You see different companies — whether its Bad Robot or Ryan Murphy or Plan B or the program that Warner Bros. just set up — this conversation is really, really rolling. So absolutely: Let's set it, let's work for it and do everything we can. That is the goal."

Contributing: Sandy Cohen, The Associated Press