Apologies are all about $$$ nothing more....

With Isaiah Washington's apology, the Official Entertainment Remorse
Machine has kicked in -- and nothing is solved

'GREY'S' AREA After Washington's on-set slur, ''why did it take a
producer, a show, a network, and a corporation such an unconscionably
long time to locate their sense of the right thing to do?'' Harris asks
Photo Credit: Karen NealBy Mark Harris Mark Harris
Mark Harris is a writer and former executive editor of EWFor a while,
Isaiah Washington was actually going to get away with it. I'm talking
about how things felt before the Official Entertainment Remorse Machine
kicked in - the denial, then the half-baked small apology, then the
more impressive, bigger, ''I'm scared'' apology (the one that goes, ''I
have sinned, I must look deep inside myself and deal with my issues, I
shall summon leaders of the offended community to meet with me'') with
a side order of official corporate rebuke, presumably followed by
regret-soaked on-air interviews and a group hug. For three months, all
the evidence suggested that everyone - Washington, Grey's Anatomy
creator Shonda Rhimes, Touchstone TV, and ABC - had decided it was no
big deal for an actor to refer to a gay colleague as a ''faggot'' on
the set and that if everyone just averted their eyes, the word would
become a tiny speed bump that a show could bounce over without looking
back.

Forgive my skepticism, but I'm not a huge fan of apologies that come
only after an evident threat to one's livelihood; I have difficulty
believing that they spring spontaneously from a troubled soul. After
all, it wasn't until Washington used the word again (during his
''denial'' at a press session after the Golden Globes), and two of his
castmates called him on it, that a public outcry forced the issue.
After Mel Gibson's Driving While Anti-Semitic bust, he was probably
still looking for a post-mug-shot clean shirt when acts of contrition
started flying out of his publicist's fax machine. And Michael Richards
still had his own racist slurs ringing in his ears when he threw
himself on the mercy of David Letterman. So why did it take a producer,
a show, a network, and a corporation such an unconscionably long time
to locate their sense of the right thing to do?

If I sound grudging about Washington's apology, it's not because I
don't believe him (I suppose time will tell if he's sincere). It's
because now that he's started the Machine, everyone is reading from the
same script, and we already know how this trite old plot plays out. Pop
culture (and that includes all of us who are pop culture consumers) has
become addicted to a cycle of misbehavior followed by regret followed
by a warm wallow in forgiveness in which we agree to pretend that
saying you're sorry undoes whatever was done. And anyone who isn't
willing to play that game gets labeled a bad sport or a sore winner.

So, at the risk of sounding uncharitable, let me hold off on accepting
that apology for a moment. Considering that everyone in a position to
do something about it was content to let the word faggot hang in the
air all winter, I'm sure they'll indulge me if I mention a few regrets
of my own. I'm sorry that the first time this happened, Shonda Rhimes,
whose commitment to on-air diversity is evident (even if the evidence
stops short of including an actual gay staffer at Seattle Grace),
thought it was okay to write this off as a private affair rather than
immediately let the many offended fans of her show know how hateful she
thought that epithet was. I'm sorry that T.R. Knight, the target of
Washington's slur who came out following the incident, didn't have the
instant, unqualified, and loudly public (because that matters) support
of every one of his colleagues. I'm sorry that the overall non-reaction
to Washington's behavior helped to reinforce a perception that some
quarters of the African-American community tolerate homophobia, a
stereotype that is only going to divide us more unless both groups
fight it at every turn. I'm sorry that it took ABC half the TV season
to remind itself of its corporate responsibility. I'm sorry that not a
single sponsor of Grey's Anatomy had the guts to speak up, even last
week. I'm sorry that we in the gay community didn't make a lot more
noise about this a lot sooner. I'm sorry that so many actors choose -
and it is, whatever they tell themselves, a self-serving choice - to
stay in the closet, since the more out actors there are, the less okay
homophobia in entertainment becomes. I'm sorry that there aren't more
gay characters on television: I don't want quotas or tokens, but I do
think that shows like Grey's Anatomy and Lost and Heroes, which pride
themselves on the variety of their ensembles, could expand their vision
to better reflect their world, since series ranging from The Office to
The Wire have shown that it's not so hard. Most of all, I'm sorry that
the rerun ritual that Washington's apology invites us to watch is
likely to obscure all this.

Anyone who calls a colleague a faggot and manages not to get fired
should count himself lucky. But Washington's use of the word didn't
break anything that wasn't already broken, and his apology won't fix it
any more than his dismissal. For all the progress that has been made
fighting homophobia, and for all the ways in which the entertainment
industry has led that fight, we clearly have miles to go. The problem
is a lot bigger than Isaiah Washington, and the solution doesn't come
gift-wrapped in the words ''I'm sorry.''