Update at 10:30 am:
Calls for Brett Ratner's firing from the Oscar telecast are growing as word of his gay slur and raunchy remarks on the Howard Stern show are circulating.
Mark Harris, a columnist for Entertainment Weekly and the Oscars columnist for ESPN's Grantland, called for Ratner's dismissal on Monday. Tuesday morning he was joined by Salon movie writer .
Harris wrote in Grantland: “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.”
Also Read: 'The Academy Should Fire Brett Ratner,' Writes EW's Mark Harris
O'Hehir took a similar tact in his Salon essay titled "Why Oscar producer Brett Ratner has to go," arguing that Ratner's apology doesn't go near far enough.
"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."
Earlier:
Brett Ratner may have been a bold and unconventional choice to produce the 84th Academy Awards, but the bad boy director is rapidly becoming a figure of controversy among Academy members who worry that Ratner might not be the right choice to shepherd a cherished, historic and generally conservative property like the Oscar telecast.
"The Oscars are a brand, and this is tarnishing that brand," one longtime Academy member told TheWrap.
The Academy issued a statement chastising but supporting Ratner on Monday night, but their producer's outspoken and often uncouth behavior is clearly creating pressure to rein in (or even dismiss) him.
His latest mess began at the ArcLight in Hollywood, in which he used the word "fag" at a Q&A following a screening of his new movie, "Tower Heist." On Monday morning he apologized in a statement to TheWrap, calling it "a dumb way of expressing myself."
Also read: Brett Ratner Apologizes for Gay Slur at 'Tower Heist' Screening (Exclusive)
That same morning, though, he also went on Howard Stern's show on Sirius XM Radio to apologize for recent comments in which he implied a relationship with actress Olivia Munn – whom, he told Stern, was just a friend.
(Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
In the process, though, the conversation veered into a discussion of sex, masturbation, cunnilingus ("I'm probably the best in the world at it"), pubic hair, the size of his testicles, the sex habits of Hollywood moguls, condoms (he doesn't like them but now he uses them) and how he sends women to his doctor to be checked for sexually-transmitted diseases "before I go all the way."
