2023-05-19 16:54:49
WHow good the powerful men of this world are at denying their own supremacy could be seen in Cannes these days. The film festival opened with the heavily powdered historical drama Jeanne du Barry, starring Johnny Depp. After the film ended, there was thunderous applause in the cinema auditorium, and the audience, including prominent actors such as Mads Mikkelsen, clapped for seven minutes for Depp and his co-stars. As the camera panned to Depp’s face, he briefly indicated he was about to turn away, then rubbed his eyes as if trying to hide a tear of emotion.
That fits into the megastar’s narrative. Namely, it says: Hollywood doesn’t want me anymore since something was circulated about me, which in truth is nothing more than “a bunch of vowels and consonants”. Depp is referring to allegations of domestic violence from his ex-wife Amber Heard, which came up again last year in a nerve-wracking trial between the two. For weeks, you could listen to Depp and Heard humiliating each other, arguing about faeces in beds, slapping and football-sized glasses of red wine. In the end, Depp won the lawsuit, which involved defamation.
Since then, the 59-year-old has presented himself as a victim. He told the BBC in Cannes that before you judge him, you should first look at yourself and the people around you. He is sure that none of them have a clean slate. Depp showed up half an hour later than the rest of the team for Wednesday’s Jeanne du Barry press conference. Director and leading actress Maïwenn entertained those waiting. The 47-year-old routinely defends famous men in France who she believes have been wrongly convicted by the MeToo movement.
When Depp misbehaves, it helps his bad-boy image
In Cannes, she was by Depp’s side to shake his head in dismay or to reiterate what a great person he was whenever the allegations against him came up. At the press conference, Depp said: “I don’t know about you guys but I think this is a really strange time where everyone would like to be themselves but can’t be because they can’t step out of line , but has to follow the man in front of you.” He doesn’t do that.
Amber Heard in Madrid last week
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Image: dpa
The more defiant the actor behaves, the more obvious it becomes how unequal the treatment of men and women still is. When Depp misbehaves, it only benefits his image as a bad boy. The American magazine “Variety” has just reported that his advertising contract for Dior’s perfume “Sauvage” has been extended – for a record fee of 20 million dollars.
When a woman like Amber Heard misbehaves, her supposed transformation from innocent beauty to wicked witch is first made public, her appearance and demeanor analyzed in minute detail, and then erased from public view. The constant interpretation and over-interpretation of their facial expressions during the process, their braided hairstyles and outfits, also spoke to the audience’s desire not to have to give up the cinema hero Johnny Depp, to press the two into a good and evil scheme that almost never the corresponds to reality.
As Depp is defended by the festival director in Cannes (“I don’t know what this trial was about. I appreciate Johnny as an actor”), the 37-year-old exiled in Madrid is trying to regain control of her own story – an impossibility in a world that only listens to one side.
#victim #witch