
Johnny Depp has made his seemingly inevitable return after receiving a seven-minute standing ovation for his starring position as King Louis XV within the movie Jeanne Du Barry at Cannes Movie Pageant.
Depp spoke about his supposed comeback after successful the 2020 anti-defamation lawsuit towards his ex Amber Heard, who was ordered to pay Depp $10 million in damages. At a press convention, he supplied a solution to the query of whether or not he felt boycotted by Hollywood, and the response he gave is emblematic of the advanced convergence between energy, abuse, and fame in American society.
Johnny Depp claimed, ‘I don’t really feel boycotted by Hollywood,’ proving the inherent and dangerous gender imbalance within the trade.
Persevering with, Depp proclaimed, “I do not take into consideration Hollywood,” — an announcement shouldn’t be solely privileged, but it surely’s additionally harmful. The 59-year-old actor, whose web price is $150 million, clearly does take into consideration Hollywood, or he wouldn’t sue media shops for defamation just because they reported on allegations towards him. He thinks about his public picture sufficient to need it protected.
As an A-list actor, Depp wields an infinite quantity of energy and affect in Hollywood, a lot in order that he stays gainfully employed whereas Amber Heard left the US for Spain as a way to discover some semblance of peace and privateness.
In answering the query of whether or not he felt boycotted in Hollywood, Depp acknowledged, “You’d should not have a pulse to really feel like, ‘No. None of that is occurring. It’s a bizarre joke.’ While you’re requested to resign from a movie you’re doing due to one thing that’s merely a perform of vowels and consonants floating within the air, sure, you’re feeling boycotted.”
He seemed to be referring to stepping away from his position in The Unbelievable Beasts movie collection following public relations points post-trial. It’s necessary to notice that Depp phrased his reply in a method that causes hurt. By calling the allegations of abuse towards him “merely a perform of vowels and consonants floating within the air,” Depp is weaponizing the very perform of language itself and discounting that phrases maintain inherent that means.
He’s diminishing girls’s means to talk their fact, to talk, in any respect.
Depp continued, saying “It’s an odd, humorous time the place all people would love to have the ability to be themselves, however they’ll’t. They have to fall in keeping with the particular person in entrance of them. If you wish to reside that life, I want you the most effective.” His interpretation of the period we reside in as a time when folks can’t simply “be themselves” is spoken like somebody who doesn’t need to be held accountable for his actions or acknowledge the hurt he’s induced others.
Depp’s cultural and monetary capital has elevated because the trial, whereas Amber Heard’s place, standing, {and professional} life have suffered.
Depp additionally claimed that “nearly all of what you learn is fantastically, horrifically written fiction,” in an effort to discredit the media as an entire. But Depp isn’t the one particular person from the movie to take action. Earlier than the movie’s launch, Depp’s director and co-star Maiwenn admitted to assaulting a French journalist, supposedly for reporting on allegations of abuse made by 9 girls towards her ex-husband, Luc Besson, who can be a strong and influential director.
Edwy Plenel is the editor-in-chief and founding father of Mediapart, an impartial investigative on-line newspaper. Plenel filed a police report towards Maiwenn on March 7, 2023, for an incident by which Maiwenn approached him at a restaurant, grabbed his hair, and spit in his face.
Along with her aware determination to forged Depp in a movie, Maiwenn shared her personal type of anti-feminist opinion on #MeToo with the French outlet Paris Match in 2020, responding to girls talking out towards abusers by stating, “It’s loopy what number of stupidities they are saying nowadays! These girls don’t like males, that’s clear, they usually’re inflicting very severe collateral injury.”
Maiwenn’s assertion provides gasoline to the ever-present narrative that ladies’s voices needs to be silenced each time they query the patriarchal establishment. Maiwenn seems to position males’s consolation above girls’s security.
Depp and Maiwenn’s publicity at Cannes sends a transparent and harmful message to abuse victims.
The director of Cannes, Thierry Fremaux, confirmed the place his allegiances lie in an announcement to the press made earlier than the pageant’s opening night time. It’s clear that the pageant is disinterested within the experiences of the marginalized and defends solely these to keep up that unequal system.
“I don’t know concerning the picture of Johnny Depp within the US. To let you know the reality, in my life, I solely have one rule: It’s the liberty of considering, and the liberty of speech and appearing inside a authorized framework. If Johnny Depp had been banned from appearing in a movie, or the movie was banned, we wouldn’t be right here speaking about it… If there’s one particular person on this world who didn’t discover the least curiosity on this very publicized trial, it’s me. I don’t know what it’s about. I additionally care about Johnny Depp as an actor,” Fremaux claimed.
Feigning disinterest within the trial shouldn’t be an achievement, it is willful ignorance. No motion exists in a vacuum. Johnny Depp suing Amber Heard created its personal ripple impact, which led to Heard forfeiting her place in her career and nation of origin. Maiwenn hiring Depp together with Cannes’ determination to heart the movie he stars in, sends an extremely clear message— that repercussions do not actually exist for these accused of abuse.
Alexandra Blogier is a author on YourTango’s information and leisure staff. She covers movie star gossip, popular culture evaluation and all issues to do with the leisure trade.