Yesterday, I wrote about the fact that Hollywood lacks standards for what acts make someone unemployable. But part of the problem is also that while we have a sense of what behavior we don’t want to see treated as if it’s acceptable, there isn’t a clear standard for what constitutes making amends, not just to the people who were directly harmed by celebrities’ actions or remarks, but to the rest of us who have to deal with those people as public figures.

The way director Brett Ratner’s behaved in the wake of his comments last fall that “rehearsal is for fags,” which lost him a chance to run the Academy Awards, is an instructive example of what celebrity redemption might look like. At the time, he promised that “I will be taking real action over the coming weeks and months in an effort to do everything I can both professionally and personally to help stamp out the kind of thoughtless bigotry I’ve so foolishly perpetuated.” And he’s lived up to that promise, committing to produce a new ad campaign for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. It’s an experience that both sounds like it’s been educational for Ratner, and that’s letting an organization that represents the people he offended derive a substantive benefit.

Now, there will always be people who judge someone who’s in the process of redemption. But I think this offers a pretty reasonable standard for deciding if someone should be eligible not just to work, but for career-enhancing slots at an event like the Grammys or a production deal at FX that’s going to require a lot of promotional heavy lifting. Has the person who broke the law or committed the sin against decency educated themselves? And have they made a substantive contribution—whether it’s a donation of their services or raising money for a cause—to make public recompense and reinforce the idea that what they did was wrong, not just for them, but for anyone? If Chris Brown or Charlie Sheen had committed to raising a very serious amount of money for domestic violence charities and followed through on the work, I’d be much more inclined to consider forgiving them. It would be an acknowledgement that they understood that their behavior was wrong, and connected to larger issues in society, and that they were committed to remedying them both.

This sort of got lost in our conversation yesterday, but now that Brett Ratner has done the classiest thing he’s accomplished and ages and pulled out of his Oscar producing gig after making remarks insensitive to both gay people and the craft he purports to work in, I’m curious to see who the Academy picks to replace him. What would have been interesting about Ratner actually doing the job is it would be an acknowledgment that Hollywood’s biggest celebration of itself is about its actual core values — popular and commercial success — rather than its stated core values — artistry, innovation, and social progress. As much as I’d like to see a reconciliation between those two sets of values, if Hollywood’s going to stick to the former, I’d rather be honest about it. Maybe have some explosions and Eddie Murphy in a body suit that makes him look like a heavy woman. And then force a lot of folks in uncomfortable designer clothes sit through it for four hours live while the rest of us watch them get bored, uncomfortable, and a little sick from movie theater popcorn in the comfort of our own homes. That seems about fair, doesn’t it?

Brett Ratner, charming as always, apparently said, and then quickly apologized for saying, that rehearsing to play a part, something that one would assume is part of performing your job diligently and well if you’re an actor, “is for fags.” There’s something hilarious, given the quality and subtlety of stories Ratner usually tells (though I stand by Tower Heist) in his apology, in which he says “It was a dumb and outdated way of expressing myself…as a storyteller I should have been much more thoughtful about the power of language and my choice of words.”

This would all be another crude entry in Ratner’s crude legacy, except for the fact that the man is producing the Academy Awards this year. As Mike Fleming wrote in Deadline, “Director and Oscarcast producer Brett Ratner needs to conduct himself with more class in public appearances or risk screwing up his dream…He has fielded questions with a lack of understanding that as Oscarcast producer, he is something of an ambassador for the Academy and a prestigious Oscar tradition.” To a certain extent, this is absolutely true. Comments like this are tacky, jarring on a night when the movie industry likes to present its best self, not just because they’re homophobic, but because they’re stupid. I think there’s an open debate about whether it’s OK to make people uncomfortable at awards shows by calling them on their biases, their wealth, or their politics, and whether the host has an obligation to the audience in the room or at home. But no matter where one comes down on that question, I think we can all agree that tackiness and unfunniness are a no.

On the other hand, the Academy Awards are a night when the movie industry professes in public to care very much about things that it as a whole doesn’t invest very much in on a day to day basis. Whether it’s stories about people of color, sexual minorities, and strong women; the folks who make technical and non-acting artistic contributions to what we see on-screen; movies that don’t make an enormous amount of money, the Academy Awards sometimes feel like an apology to techniques, priorities, and people who are ignored for most of the year in Hollywood. Inviting someone like Brett Ratner to produce the Oscar telecast may be treated as if it’s an opportunity for a mediocre but profitable popular director to class himself up for the occasion. But if you’re getting affirmation for being crude most of the time, it probably takes more than a single job for you to rewrite your brain to not say stupid, homophobic nonsense.