If there is one lesson we get from Depp vs Heard, it is that the American legal system is deeply flawed and the court of public opinion and social media make it harder for victims to get justice, observes Aseem Chhabra.
Everybody loves a healthy dose of gossip.
As a film writer, I have often faced questions about stars, their lives, especially their reckless behaviors, even when I state that is not the kind of journalism I pursue.
People find such gossip comforting.
If the celebrities are messed up and suffering, then all should be good with our lives.
I approached the Netflix three-part series Depp vs Heard imagining I would be entertained hearing details about two Hollywood celebrities, their routine lives, hopping exotic islands on private planes, parties, red carpets, fame, money, and of course their troubled, abusive marriage, layered with drugs, alcohol and rage.
What I watched on the show made me gasp, pause and wonder who was gaining anything from the sordid details that were being revealed.
Depp vs Heard is not entertaining.
The gossip is trashy.
The series does nothing to keep us informed and enlightened, something we expect from good, sharply researched and edited documentaries.
There are so many instances of physical, verbal and psychological abuse.
Often, we see Amber Heard break down on the witness stand, while again and again Johnny Depp sniggers without making an eye contact with her.
Then there is the ugly case of a piece of faeces found on Depp;s bed. And good amount of time is spent in the Virginia court room discussing whether that was human or dog excrement.
Somewhere towards the middle of the nearly three hour-long show, I felt so dirty that I wanted to stop watching and take a long shower.
The show created and directed by Emma Cooper (creator of the 2022 series The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes) follows a $50 million lawsuit that Depp filed against his ex-wife Heard in a courthouse in Virginia.
Depp claimed that he was maligned and his reputation was damaged by a 2018 column Heard wrote for The Washington Post.
The column was titled I spoke up against sexual violence, and faced our culture's wrath. That has to change.
The two actors met before the making of the 2011 film The Rum Diary.
Depp, who had a series of relationships, was 48 at that time. Heard was 25.
He was a much bigger star, having acted in the Pirates of Caribbean franchise, which grossed over $4.5 billion globally.
Heard is a lesser-known celebrity, although she has a fairly large fan following given her roles in films such as Justice League (2017) and Aquaman (2018).
Depp was smitten by the young Heard.
In the show, he compared their relationship with that of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Bacall was just 20 when she married Bogie who was 25 years her senior.
Depp and Heard were married in February 2015.
A little over a year later, Heard filed for divorce and obtained a temporary restraining order, alleging that Depp had verbally and physically abused her.
When the Virginia trial started, the judge agreed for the proceedings to be televised. So every detail of Heard's complaints, descriptions of the abuse and violence was played out before the public and it became fodder for memes and ridicule on social media platforms, especially TikTok where an assortment of characters -- including one man who always wore a Deadpool mask, never revealing his face and identity -- gave their daily expert opinions about the case.
Copper and her editor package the series as the case is reported on TikTok with a substantially larger number of viewers pledging allegiance to Team Depp.
Heard always had far less followers.
Most people did not believe her.
While it was the job of the two sets of lawyers to convince the judge and jury of their points of views, in the public court room defined by the TikTok social influencers, it was clear that a substantially larger number of people believed Depp, even as it was equally evident that he was often drunk, high on drugs and hence abusive toward Heard.
Strange are the ways of the world.
By the end of the trial, the hashtag #SaveJohnnyDepp had 20 billion hits. Only a couple of million people believed in the hashtag #SaveAmberHeard.
If there is one lesson we get from Depp vs Heard, it is that the American legal system is deeply flawed and the court of public opinion and social media make it harder for victims to get justice.
Towards the end of the show, one of the talking heads sums up all that is wrong with America and its legal system: 'The thing about justice is that it's not about the truth, it's not about right or wrong, it's about what the judge or jury believe. We now live in a time where we don't necessarily believe who's right, we believe who we like the most because of who they are.'
Depp Vs Heard streams on Netflix.
