A word...or an interview?

Billy Crystal will be a good host.   He's funny, dependable, uncontroversial.    He will not help the sagging ratings, though.    That's why the Academy went with someone who they thought would be outrageous, 'relevant', hip (if not younger, but you can't have everything.)    They need more 18 to 35 males.     So they hired Eddie Murphy and his friend as producer.     That would be Brett  Ratner, he of the (now infamous) big offensive mouth.    But the headlines have become misleading.    He was not pushed to resign because of his off-handed homophobic slur "Rehearsal is for fags."    The Academy was willing to forgive him for that (!)     He apologized and the Academy went a well-worded version of 'he shouldn't have done that, we don't condone that, he said he was sorry, and you know how guys can be.'    The interview where he talked about sexual prowess, veneral disease, and Lindsey Lohan was the final straw.    (Closer to a bale of straw.)   Eddie Murphy 'resigned' closely thereafter, though no offical reason was given.    Most people I have read assume it's because he didn't want to be the host without his friend.    That seems to have been a requirement for his acceptance.    I suspect he didn't want the scrutiny.    All guesses, though.    Nothing offical.    The truth on that will proably never be told.    So Ratner is out, Murphy is out, Crystal is in, and a completely safe producer is in place to keep things in line.   (I'll leave him nameless, out of sympathy.    He will have a completely ungrateful, unfair job to do.)    It's easy to just say it was the slur to gay men that brought down the 'savior' of The Oscars.    It makes for a better headline.    And that does have some worth: he should have been fired for that.    Alas, he was not.    Had he not given the later interview, he would still have his job.    That, dear folks, is (still) show biz.