Round up the usual suspects, the public cried, as Hollywood promised to clean all the sexual harassers, bullies and general examples of toxic masculinity out of its closet. This turned out to be even easier than it sounded because all we needed to do, it transpired, was to round up the actual Usual Suspects, as in the star and director of The Usual Suspects, Kevin Spacey and Bryan Singer. Chazz Palminteri, I reckon even you could have solved this one without smashing your coffee cup, given that Gabriel Byrne recently revealed that the production of The Usual Suspects was briefly shut down because of “inappropriate sexual behaviour by Spacey”. The Usual Suspects, incidentally, was made in 1994, meaning it took – gets out calculator – 23 years before Spacey was finally called out on his widely known behaviour. Remind me again, guys, how unfair life is for white men these days?

Anyway, if there was one person in Hollywood who was the subject of more rumours over the past decade than Spacey, that person is Singer. The late and increasingly lamented Gawker, which dropped large and largely ignored hints about a lot of the male celebrities now being revealed as sexual pond scum, went after Singer with a vengeance in its day, accusing him of being a predator and worse. Amy Berg’s 2014 documentary, An Open Secret, about child sex abuse in the film industry, alleged that Singer attended parties held by Marc Collins-Rector, known for throwing hedonistic parties where underaged boys were in attendance. Collins-Rector later pled guilty to transporting minors across state lines for the purpose of sex, but the various lawsuits filed over the years against Singer alleging child sex abuse were all dismissed. So news from the set of the beleaguered Queen biopic (Queen as in Freddie Mercury, not Elizabeth Windsor, for the record) that Singer had thrown what was described as “an object” at star Rami Malek sounded, quite frankly, like a relatively wholesome infraction allegedly committed by the director. Although, to be fair, we don’t actually know what the object is. Suggestions on a postcard and then thrown in a septic tank, thanks.

Bryan Singer with Kevin Spacey in the mid-1990s. Photograph: The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

The official story is that Singer was fired from the Queen biopic on Monday for “unexplained absences”. Singer has retorted that the problem was that Fox refused to give him time off to care for “a sick parent”. A third person – a very cynical person, one whose cynicism has built up around her personage like a hide to protect her from the endless tales of toxic male garbage fires emerging from every industry in the world – might counter that chucking Singer is rather convenient for Fox, given that having a man on your payroll about whom there have been rumours for literal decades is not such a great look for a company right now.

Whatever the truth, Singer is out and will now have as much time as he wants to care for his sick parent and … Dexter Fletcher is in. That’s right, Spike from Press Gang is now directing the Queen biopic. I think we all felt a twinge of sadness that Freddie Mercury is no longer around so we can’t actually see his facial expression upon hearing that news.

Perhaps you’re thinking: “Whether it’s Dexter Fletcher or Steven Spielberg” – and I’m pretty sure those were the two options for the Queen movie before Fox opted for the former – “swapping directors midway through production doesn’t bode well for this film”, and you would be right. But rest assured that this film has always sounded thrillingly bad. Last year, Sacha Baron Cohen appeared on The Howard Stern Show after he dropped out of the movie (do keep up here) to say that, actually, he should have dropped out a lot sooner. After the first meeting, in fact, when a member of Queen told him that Freddie dies in the middle of the movie. “So I said: ‘Wait a minute. What happens in the second half of the movie?’ And he said: ‘Well, we see how the band carries on from strength to strength,’” Baron Cohen recalled. Let us all take a five-minute pause and savour that sentence again, and then let’s wish, again, that Freddie were still with us so we could see his expression at hearing THAT particular quote. “Brian May,” Baron Cohen concluded, “is an amazing musician, but he’s not a great movie producer.”

Rami Malek Freddie Mercury in the Queen biopic. Photograph: Nick Delany/Twentieth Century Fox

So, really, the fact that one always clearly unsuitable director has been swapped for Dexter Fletcher is pretty much the least of this movie’s problems.

But let’s get back to Singer, because substituting Fletcher for him raises an interesting possibility. Perhaps all American celebrities accused of sexual predation could simply be swapped for unthreatening British versions thereof: bring on Ant and Dec for Matt Lauer, Hugh Dennis for Spacey, Andrew Castle for Garrison Keillor, et cetera and so forth. Think of it as being like when they remade The Office with attractive Americans, but in reverse.

Or, hey, here’s another idea! How about if only women get the big top jobs for the next, let’s say, 1,000 days? This is for the protection of employers, really. After all, no woman has been accused of feeling up subordinates in theatres, or raping people in hotel rooms, or throwing objects at actors on set. Think of all the money, time and bother companies would save by not having to deal with endless rape and harassment allegations! And to all the men out there already furiously emailing me to insist that it’s sexist to rule out an entire gender for powerful employment opportunities, I say: welcome to being a woman in Hollywood for the past hundred years, bitches. Just be grateful Harvey Weinstein isn’t also literally trying to screw you while his industry simultaneously screws you out of jobs.

So, in conclusion, another probably awful man has been sacked in Hollywood. Once, this would have been big news. As it is, we just call it Monday now.