Oscar season has begun. But how will Hollywood tackle Harvey Weinstein?

Yesterday The Wrap published a story citing quotes from several industry players, all of whom have described the recent sordid stories “a nightmare”, one that has placed a damper on awards season enthusiasm.

Ignoring the almost comedically ghastly fact that rape allegations have made people attending a variety of expensive parties feel a little bummed out, the story does paint a picture of an industry in freefall – with PR firms and talent agencies obsessively exhuming old nondisclosure agreements and past client indiscretions to try and get on top of an unfolding scandal. One that seems to be taking down industry giants at an exhausting rate.

Recent events, somewhat understandably, have left the awards season in a difficult position. Hollywood award shows are historically a mess: events that like to wink at the industry’s failings and its politics, while largely embodying all of its worst qualities. For the scandals currently engulfing the industry, it will be near impossible to position Weinstein and Spacey et al as “other”, and equally awkward to pretend none of it exists.

And with the voluminous horror of many of the allegations over the past month, any lighthearted treatment of the scandal (even at the expense of the alleged perpetrators) is likely to go down about as well as a lead balloon.

Just ask perennial apology-maker James Corden, who opened a recent Aids charity event dinner with jokes about Harvey Weinstein and his alleged proclivities. Online condemnation was swift, with Rose McGowan, one of the most vocal anti-Weinstein crusaders, notably calling him a “motherf------ piglet” in response.

But it’s saying something that Corden felt comfortable making Weinstein jokes in the first place. Spoken of in jest at a time when it seemed as if women were coming forward with horrifying Weinstein allegations on a daily basis, it was a striking indication that gags revolving around alleged sexual assault weren’t just “edgy”, but patently wrong.

The Oscars may have found some good fortune in the form of Jimmy Kimmel, who will host next year’s ceremony. Kimmel has emerged as one of the USA’s most unexpected cultural commentators of late, regularly delivering articulate, non-sensationalist political monologues, and ought to recognise the right approach to the unfolding scandal – or at least learn from the errors of comics like Corden.

Then again, few would have anticipated that Stephen Colbert, former bastion of liberal satire, would be one of the brains behind quite literally wheeling out for a comedy set piece at September’s Emmy Awards the former White House press secretary Sean Spicer.

Or, as actor Jason Isaacs described him in a masterfully ruthless Instagram post: a “modern day Goebbels, who was the thuggish face of Orwellian doublespeak just moments ago.” Corden, magnetised to public displays of embarrassment as he seems to be, was involved in that mess, too.

While Spicer’s rapid embrace by the Hollywood establishment sparked outrage online, it spoke to the ugly reality that the industry has a tendency to ignore the very behaviour they publicly seem to abhor – that the allure of taking a selfie with a recognisable person trumps all supposed morals.

This is, after all, the same industry that lauded Roman Polanski despite his conviction for child rape, up to and including a now-infamous petition to release Polanski from a Swiss jail in 2009. Several signees, including Emma Thompson and Asia Argento, have since claimed they were not told the full extent of Polanski’s history when being encouraged by others to sign.

Similarly open arms were extended to Dustin Hoffman at last night’s Hollywood Film Awards, the actor greeted warmly by the audience and subsequently becoming the subject of two gushing diatribes by awards winners Adam Sandler and Gary Oldman. That in spite of the two women who came forward last week alleging sexual harassment at Hoffman’s hand.

In many respects, the moral reaction to allegations seems to be being guided by their volume. Two sexual harassment allegations? No big deal. Industry power players being accused of harassing hundreds of women? Or A-list actresses like Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow coming forward? Then there’s a problem that we can’t quite ignore.

So far, Hollywood has only seemed visibly concerned with their bottom line, and not necessarily the moral implications of supporting those engulfed in scandal. Look no further than the anxiety over several traditionally Oscar-primed movies.

Benedict Cumberbatch’s baity Thomas Edison biopic The Current War, produced by the Weinstein Company, has already been pushed to an unspecified date next year, while Sony has announced it will axe a proposed awards campaign for Kevin Spacey’s performance in the Ridley Scott thriller All the Time in the World.

Uncertainty also surrounds Wonder Wheel, the latest film from Woody Allen, who has his own history of dodgy allegations, and who recently waded into the Weinstein scandal with all the grace you would expect from the notorious foot-in-own-mouth expert.

While Cate Blanchett was largely able to breeze past the Allen albatross during her Blue Jasmine campaign back in 2014, the same ease may not extend to Kate Winslet, who gets her own actressy showcase in Wonder Wheel. Winslet took home the Best Actress trophy at the Hollywood Film Awards and garnered headlines by kissing actress Allison Janney on stage, but she’ll have a tougher mountain to climb once she properly launches onto the campaign circuit in the coming weeks.

It might be in her interest to actually talk about the Allen problem, too. Asked by Variety whether she was at all reluctant to work with him, Winslet said: “It’s just a difficult discussion. I’d rather respectfully not enter it today.”

While that kind of response might have been accepted several years ago, it feels remarkably tone deaf in the current climate, where such non-committal nothingness is seen more and more like an act of compliance.

To be fair to the awards industry, there have been rumblings of major changes. Harvey Weinstein last month became only the second member in Academy history to have his membership revoked, while Academy CEO Dawn Hudson said last week that the Oscars board are “giving thought” to calls for Casey Affleck, the subject of two dismissed sexual harassment allegations, to be banned from next year’s ceremony.

Both statements seem to be hinting at wider change, that the Weinstein scandal and its subsequent ruptures were so vast that the industry feels galvanised to alter and ideally fix its own behaviour.

Whether it’s anything more than lip service, however, will only be confirmed in time. Hollywood has long had a tendency to embark on journeys of self-reflexive introspection. But it also forgets very easily.