Small-Minded Oscar Producer Brett Ratner Issues Micro-Apology For Gay Slur

Director Brett Ratner's resume doesn't have the girth of other A-List directors, but his tiny output does include the Rush Hour film series, X-Men: Kill The Franchise, and new under-performing, soon-to-DVD Tower Heist.

It was at a Q&A Friday night for Tower Heist that Ratner delivered this flaccid response to an innocuous question:

Q: So you get this entire group of actors together -- what was rehearsal like?

Ratner: Rehearsal? What’s that? Rehearsal’s for fags. Rehearsal. Not much. A lot of prep, preparation, complex action sequences, visual effects. Storyboards, animatics. The process was I made the actors stick to the script. And they wanted to, because the script was great.

Ratner issued an apology this morning:

“I apologize for any offense my remarks caused. It was a dumb way of expressing myself. Everyone who knows me knows that I don’t have a prejudiced bone in my body. But as a storyteller I should have been much more thoughtful about the power of language and my choice of words.”

While I'm certain that no Ratner bone is cause for concern, I do have to question the wisdom of having him produce this year's Academy Awards. My eyebrow was already raised with the announcement that Eddie Murphy was going to host the "Gay Super Bowl," and now both brows are arched with concern.

So what do you make of his apology?