This isn't the first time someone's landed in hot water for suggesting Hollywood is a Jewish protectorate. In 1994, Spectator magazine published an article on this theme by a Los Angeles-based freelancer entitled Kings of the Deal. The Daily Telegraph had decided it was too hot to handle, but Spectator editor Dominic Lawson (Nigella's brother) ran it on the basis that the story was as old as Hollywood itself and the assumption that his own Jewishness would minimise the fallout. It didn't.
On the face of it, it's not that big a deal: Hollywood is, after all, the epicentre of the global entertainment industry and exerts a huge influence on popular culture. It's not like saying Jews control the illegal ivory trade or trafficking in human organs.
It does, however, hark back to historic anti-Semitism, particularly the pernicious claim that Jews control the international financial system, a core tenet of Nazism.
Oldman might have thought he was making a self-sacrificial gesture: "Mel, I'll draw their fire so you can make a getaway."
If so, phase one certainly went according to plan, but it remains to be seen whether the heat's now off Gibson. More likely though, Oldman decided to get a few things off his chest without first engaging another body part: his brain.
The retraction and apology were swift and grovelling. Oldman insisted he was "deeply remorseful" and had an "enormous personal affinity" for the Jewish people who "are the first to hear God's word and surely are the chosen people".
I suspect many people will feel that last bit was a bridge too far.
Some may feel that, in a roundabout way, it proves Oldman's point: that political correctness is "crap" or, to be more specific, a form of tyranny.
Oldman slurs Jews in Hollywood but a withdrawal and apology aren't enough: in order to prove he isn't prejudiced, he must virtually embrace Judaism.
(The irony here is that resentment of the Judaic belief in "chosenness" — that the Jews have been chosen by God for a purpose — has historically been a cause of anti-Semitism.)
It's a shame that Oldman went overboard because there are legitimate questions to be asked about the application of political correctness and the appropriate consequences for breaching it.
Is it right and proportionate that a contrite individual can be effectively blackballed for the best part of a decade for a drunken outburst?
Hollywood's blacklisting of left-wing actors, writers and directors in the 1950s is now rightly regarded as both sinister and shameful.
The wider question is whether, courtesy of political correctness, we are living in an era in which words speak louder than actions.
It's interesting to compare the shunning of Gibson with the apparent indulgence of fashion photographer Terry Richardson. Since 2005, Richardson has been attracting — and denying — accusations of inappropriate conduct during shoots but they appear to have had scant effect on his reputation or earning power. He recently directed Miley Cyrus's Wrecking Ball video and has stated for the record that his daily rate is US$160,000 ($182,000).
It's troubling that Gibson's offensive words have led to him being cast into the outer darkness while the barrage of accusations of predatory behaviour levelled at Richardson have, until recently, been largely ignored.
Is it because Richardson's a powerful figure in the fashion world and his accusers aren't, or a case of his work being so overtly sexual that the industry has adopted an attitude of "you have been warned"?
Perhaps too there's an element of political correctness becoming a blunt instrument that lumps all forms of racism together and thumps all transgressors equally hard.
