BRETT RATNER APOLOGIZES FOR SAYING FAG!

Brett Ratner might want to call cut on his offensive statements.
On Friday, the director shocked the audience attending a Q&A session for his new film, "Tower Heist," at L.A.’s Arclight Cinemas when the moderator asked whether he rehearses with his actors before shooting a scene.

"Rehearsal is for fags" he allegedly said .

"The audience was stunned," one attendee told TheWrap.

After word spread about what happened, Ratner issued a mea culpa on Monday.

"I apologize for any offense my remarks caused,” Ratner, 42, said in a statement. “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."

Though Ratner was quick to squash his mistake, the director may be facing complications when he takes on the role of producer for the upcoming 84th annual Academy Awards.

Several entertainment writers have since called for Ratner’s firing from the Oscars telecast.

Mark Harris, a columnist for Entertainment Weekly and the Oscars columnist for ESPN's Grantland, wrote: “There’s not really a long, nuanced debate to be had about this. If he had used an equivalent racial or religious slur, the discussion would go something like, 'You’re fired.' Apology or not. The same rule applies here. You don’t get a mulligan on homophobia. Not in 2011.”

Salon movie writer Andrew O'Hehir took a similar approach in his article titled "Why Oscar producer Brett Ratner has to go."

"He should quit or be fired, and the Academy needs to hear that loud and clear from the press and the public," O'Hehir wrote. "This isn’t the first time Ratner has revealed himself to be an arrogant and insensitive creep, and quite likely a homophobe, and no doubt it won’t be the last."

Amidst the negative attention, Academy president Tom Sherak told Deadline that Ratner’s use of a gay slur was “inappropriate … dumb and insensitive.”

“This won’t and can’t happen again,” Sherak said, noting that he believes Ratner’s apology was genuine.

“If I didn’t believe it, I would do something about it,” he continued. “This is about integrity and honoring the Academy Awards, but we all make mistakes and I believe he didn’t mean it.”

This isn’t the first time Ratner has stuck his foot in his mouth.

Last week, he bragged on a cable talk show that he "banged" actress Olivia Munn before she was famous - or as he puts it, "before she was Asian."



SOURCE