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It’s official: Galliano is an anti-Semite

John Galliano in a literal newsboy cap.

The French court trying John Galliano for “public insults based on origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity” has just reached a verdict on the matter — guilty as charged.

Phew! Without the French legal system’s help I wouldn’t have known what to make of the designer’s anti-Semitic rant at a Paris bar. As for punishment, the majority has already been dealt to Galliano. He was fired from his job at Christian Dior (and will soon be replaced by Marc Jacobs, a Jew). The court was far more lenient with the sleeping pill and alcohol addicted Galliano, issuing a suspended fine ($8,400), which he does not have to pay.

In other Hitler news, Lars Von Trier has explained his assertion at the Cannes Film Festival that he felt sympathy for Hitler. This did not go over very well at the time. He was given a lifetime ban from the fest.

At the Berlin Film Festival, he proved more nuanced.

“There was a point to this whole thing. I think history shows that we are all Nazis somewhere, and there are a lot of things that can be suddenly set free, and the mechanics behind this setting-free is something we really should really investigate, and the way we do not investigate it is to make it a taboo to talk about it,” Von Trier stated at a Q&A in Berlin.

Thanks Lars for being just as pretentious in speech as you are in film. I feel much smarter now if only marginally less offended by your Hitler statement.