Mr. Galliano's Media Circus
5/11/2013
DR Williams
So can we talk for a moment about what a giant hypocrite I am?
Seriously. John Galliano has made two prior appearances in the Haus of Meat, both of which revolved around the idea that he's a loud, boorish, drunken, racist. This is entirely derived from a now-infamous incident at a Paris café wherein he claimed to love Hitler and made several disparaging comments against some tourists who he believed to be Jewish.
John Galliano is, in fact, a remarkably talented fashion designer who has had a rather public drink-and-drug problem. Moreover, Galliano has done about as much as it is possible for a person to reasonably do by way of making amends for his boorish behaviour -- the Anti-Defamation League have even publicly called for people to stop judging him by his past actions.
However, every endeavour Galliano attempts to embark upon is now overshadowed by his past. A recent stint at Oscar De La Renta was met with protests. The New York Post seized upon one ensemble Galliano wore in public and claimed that he was mocking Orthodox Jews - a somewhat bizarre claim that revealed more about the editorial opinion against Jews by the New York Post than it did about Galliano. Then recently, Parsons New School for Design announced that they would be welcoming Galliano for a three-day workshop, during which time the current crop of design students would be given the benefit of Galliano's experience and talent as well as being able to engage him in in-depth discussions of all areas of his life.
It was, at least according to Parsons, the last of these points that led to the whole thing being called off: they state - or at the very least imply - that Galliano was unwilling to agree to field any discussion on the subject of his legal troubles surrounding I-Love-Hitler-gate.
Considering the amount of negative press being generated - largely, it has to be said, by people entirely uninvolved with Parsons or fashion of any kind - it isn't a far leap to assume that Parsons took a quick way out rather than deal with the inevitable media circus surrounding the place whenever his workshop actually took place.
And much as I think Galliano is a bit of a twat for getting coked up and bombed on champagne and then burbling on about Hitler and Jews, it really does seem like he's made a good-faith attempt to restore amends. There have been no instances of him going off the deep end since, or anything tangible that would suggest he's put an elaborate mask over the top of some concealed hidden rage-face of anti-semitic hate. (Spurious claims by the New York Post aside, of course.) He really just seems to be a guy who did something stupid and insensitive and hurtful and wants to go back to being judged for his work and not for his alcoholism.
So that's why, in making a comic about how people are being overly mean to John Galliano, I have proven myself to be an enormous hypocrite.
The Haus of Meat: fashionably hypocritical since 2012!