How has Hollywood reacted to Mel Gibson's latest Jew-hating remarks?

By: Aliza, Boca Raton, Florida

A.B. Replies: Outrage. Outrage, I say! Hollywood's elite is shocked, just shocked and appalled and disgusted by his anti-Semitic remarks. What a pain! Now, everyone in town will have to wait weeks, maybe even months, until Mel's publicist has arranged enough junkets to Jewish graveyards and Holocaust memorials to make that twitchy-eyed bigot sanitary again in the eyes of the public.

As sick as it may seem, this B!tch has concluded that the odds of Gibson losing his entire career--his ability to make films, finance films and act in films--are close to 0.000001 percent. Hollywood is filled with feckless climbers. As long as Mel pretends to be sorry for a reasonable amount of time, some desperate producer will always give him something to do.

This bile-coated cur of a man may never work with Hollywood's best or brightest again, and he may have trouble distributing any plodding Christian opuses he has planned for the future, but remember: Mel is also a millionaire. He's a millionaire who cushions himself with chittering yes-people whose sole purpose is to shield him from any fallout resulting from his utter looniness. Gibson may face new professional disappointments, but if his people do their jobs, he'll never have to directly face the wrath of those he has hurt and offended.

How do I know this? History! In movie circles, an apology is a rare event, worthy of awe and praise and special dispensation.

"In the last 25 years, I could only find 9 or 10 instances of film [celebrities] really apologizing," says Paul Slansky, author of a book and blog on public apologies. Unlike politicians or other public figures, Slansky says, most movie types "never get to the point where they apologize."

So, when an apology is made in Hollywood, people usually forgive, even if it's just out of shock. Hugh Grant, Russell Crowe and Johnny Depp have all recently apologized for one screwup or another--minor compared with Gibson's hateful, hateful--and did I mention hateful?--slurs. But even hate-based behavior is subject to forgiveness out here.

Exhibit A: Mark Wahlberg. Children, you may not remember, but before he became famous, a teenage Wahlberg beat up on minorities. Sent them flying through the air like hair extensions at a Nicole Richie house party. In the '80s, he served 45 days of a 90-day jail sentence for a racially influenced attack on two Vietnamese men.

Seven years later, when he was a famous underwear model, Wahlberg went to Hawaii and sent his manager out into the middle of Times Square and made him apologize on his behalf. "In 1986, I harassed a group of schoolkids on a field trip. Many of the students were African-American," the statement read. "In 1988, I assaulted two Vietnamese men over a case of beer. Racist slurs and language were used during these encounters. And people were seriously hurt. I am truly sorry for what I did."

Cut to 2006, and HBO doesn't have any problem with Wahlberg. He has his own show. It's called Entourage, and it even has an Asian castmember.

So, here's what will happen with Gibson: He will crawl on his knees into Auschwitz, trembling with carefully researched awe, and he will briefly extend his arms outside of his private bubble of fabulousness, and he will place a towering wreath of roses on the spot where his publicist's intern tells him a tiny girl named Rachel or Rose or Rozzie starved to death at the hands of the Nazis. And Mel will repeat what he has learned about Rozzie or Rose or Rachel to the cameras from CNN and Fox. And a single tear will roll down Mel's cheek. And at least some people in Hollywood will shed their own crocodile tears, and forgive.