This is the story of two actors, one female and one male, both hugely successful in the 80s and 90s, and both blighted with what Wikipedia would euphemistically call “legal controversies”. These largely happened in the early years of this century, when the woman was caught shoplifting in 2001 while under the influence of prescription drugs; and the man, while being arrested for drunk-driving in 2006, ranted antisemitic garbage at the arresting officer.

But where she had to wait 15 years to be given another starring role, and even then it was as a kitsch 80s novelty in Stranger Things, he was out of work for only five years after the DUI incident, and not for a minute after he was recorded shouting racist and threatening abuse at his then girlfriend in 2010; he also pleaded no contest to a misdemeanour charge of battering her that same year. Instead, he was blessed with an Oscar nomination this year and has starred in big-budget comedies. In other words, his career continued exactly as it always would have done whereas hers was blighted for ever.

The careers of Winona Ryder and Mel Gibson, both of whom are currently back on our screens (Ryder in Stranger Things 2 and Gibson in Daddy’s Home 2), serve as an excellent retort to some concerns voiced with increasing urgency today. Seemingly every day, another celebrity or politician is accused of sexual harassment, or worse, and a common response is, “Yes, but is it really worth destroying the man’s career over this?” To which I point to Gibson yukking it up on Graham Norton’s sofa last week, and insisting in another interview that he, actually, was the victim of “an unscrupulous police officer” who recorded him “illegally”, and I say: I don’t think we have to worry about that, guys. Because if Gibson can run around shouting “the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world”, tell his girlfriend that she deserves to be raped, insist he was the wronged party in all this and still get the star treatment, then I think we can rest assured that it takes an awful lot to destroy a high-profile straight white man’s career. Start saving up for Louis CK’s comeback tour now!

Alcohol and drugs are seen by many, still, as incriminatory in a woman but exculpatory in a man: a woman who was drunk can’t be trusted if she says she was raped; but a man on the lash can’t possibly be held responsible for his actions. This partly explains the bizarre double standards Ryder has endured in her career. She admitted that she was on painkillers at the time of her arrest, prescribed by a doctor who later lost his medical licence. This confirmed her in the eyes of the public and her industry as an unstable flake; other film-makers later said they wanted to cast her in movies, but couldn’t get the insurance. Meanwhile, Ryder’s ex-boyfriend, Johnny Depp, whose career-long fondness for booze and destroying hotel rooms were depicted as part of his sexy machismo, has carried on working since his ex-wife, Amber Heard, accused him last year of abuse, which he denied. He has since turned up looking completely sloshed at everything from movie premieres to the Graham Norton Show last month, where he, too, took his seat on the sofa of absolution.

If Harvey Weinstein’s career really is dunzo, then that, at long last, answers the question of what a successful man in Hollywood has to do to put himself out of work: be accused of raping women for the past 30 years (which he has denied). By contrast, the African-American director, Nate Parker, saw his career end just as it was beginning, when it emerged last year that he was acquitted of a rape charge in 2001. By way of further contrast, Casey Affleck, who was accused of sexual harassment as recently as 2010, won the 2016 best actor Oscar.

For this reason, I suspect Kevin Spacey’s career is probably finished while producer Brett Ratner’s might not be: both have been accused of multiple sexual assaults, but whereas Ratner allegedly preyed on young women, Spacey allegedly went after young men, and it is in no way a defence of Spacey to say that there has been a distinct air of homophobia around his hasty banishment. After all, just ask yourselves if Roman Polanski would still be getting lifetime achievement awards if he’d sexually assaulted a 13-year-old boy instead of a girl.

It takes a hell of a lot for a straight white man to destroy his own career. And to be honest, it somewhat undermines all the promises I’ve read about the new no-tolerance attitude towards assault, claiming that men have “learned their lesson”, when Gibson is there, grinning unapologetically from my local multiplex. When it comes to protecting its most prized assets, it’s still business as usual in Hollywood.