By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | October 30, 2024 |
It’s not that I was necessarily surprised by the news that Johnny Depp had booked a new Hollywood film, to be directed by Marc Webb with Penelope Cruz on board as his co-star. I’ve long stopped being taken aback by the notion of an accused abuser, one with mountains of credible evidence against them as well as a libel case they lost in English court, being carried back to the top of the cultural pile. And yet there was something that undeniably stung about seeing Depp have the doors opened so eagerly for him after years in the wilderness caused by his own ineptitude, cruelty, and series of commercial flops. We’re all far too familiar with this cycle now. That doesn’t make it any less painful.
It’s been seven years since the investigations into Harvey Weinstein’s decades-long history of rape and abuse incited the birth of the #MeToo movement. Change was promised by the hallowed institutions that had harboured abusers for generations, fostering hostile workplace environments that enshrined ideas like the ‘casting couch’ into myth. As many famous men faced tangible repercussions for their accused crimes, it felt like we might see long-term systemic progress that would not only protect future generations but lead to a greater mental change regarding victims and their ability to be believed.
That dream fell apart pretty quickly and the backlash was astonishingly potent. The cries of ‘woke’ and ‘cancel culture’ were deafening. Women have always been accused of lying about assault and rape to punish men. The legal system has made it near-impossible for victims to face justice. What was unexpected was the collective virulence and well-monied responses to ensuring that victims would forever be terrified to speak up. We saw this in action with how Amber Heard did everything ‘right’ as a victim and became public enemy number one thanks to her ex-husband’s expensive legal and media blitz against her. It became a cottage industry to smear Heard, whether it was YouTube ‘body language experts’ making up crap about her facial tics or Etsy sellers shilling merch of her sobbing as she recounted her trauma. Depp’s lawyer was rewarded with media contracts. The precedence set by the verdict in that Virginia court is a dangerous one, and a deliberate one. It was never just about hurting Amber Heard.
Depp’s PR spin was so effective that it created the false narrative that his career was pristine and celebrated right up until he got married. A slew of commercial flops, critical disappointments, and memes about his bad wigs would say otherwise. The endless reports about his perpetual on-set lateness, use of earpieces rather than learning his lines, and that one time he punched a guy don’t suggest he was doing a-okay before Heard entered his life. I don’t want to relitigate the bloody obvious here, but I do want to hammer home how much time, money, and labour it took to get Depp back to the point where he’s being applauded at Cannes and booking jobs with an Oscar winner. This is happening because a lot of people are working overtime to make it happen. They have to get dozens of people on board to make this decision, to decide that it’s financially and ethically sound for them to do so and worth any of the inevitable pushback they’ll face. They’ve made the decision that it’s more worthwhile to invest in an accused abuser with a terrible professional reputation who hasn’t had a hit in years than to, you know, not.
As this story was being reported, two other incidents unfolded: James Franco got a glowing comeback-friendly interview with Variety and FKA Twigs got a new trial date for her sexual battery and assault lawsuit against her ex-boyfriend Shia LaBeouf after mediation proved, according to her lawyer, ‘hopeless.’ The Variety interview is embarrassingly fawning, with the journalist asking Franco super leading questions about being ‘snubbed’ by the Academy for The Disaster Artist and whether he felt his ‘being cast out of Hollywood was unfair.’ It’s working overtime to position Franco as a genius who was unfairly cast out of the industry when he was accused of assaulting and manipulating women who had paid to be part of his acting classes. With the LaBeouf case, we see yet again how the courts can be abused or messed with to deny justice. Twigs’s trial date has been pushed back more than once already due to LaBeouf’s alleged inaction. Meanwhile, he’s been on red carpets promoting a Francis Ford Coppola movie, with the director proudly declaring that he deliberately hired ‘cancelled’ celebrities to be in his mega-flop. A reminder that LaBeouf is accused of sexual battery, domestic abuse, and also of killing dogs. ‘Cancelled’, indeed.
I bring these incidents up because they expose the mighty framework in place to bolster accused abusers and reinvent their so-called plights as matters of ‘wokeness’ or ‘PC culture gone mad.’ This isn’t a new angle but the ferocity with which it’s become an entire political movement does feel frighteningly omnipresent in the current discourse. We talk about ‘cancel culture’ a lot but what do we call the opposite, when it becomes a marker of pride and politics to empower accused abusers and bigots as a giant f*ck you to the victims? Uncancel culture? Garden variety hatred with more money behind it? Trumpism? There’s certainly a clear line to be drawn from the Depp trial to a so-called comic headlining a fascistic rally and spewing racism under the guise of supporting a politician. Making sport and profit from trauma seems to be a depressingly sturdy policy platform these days.
Even when it’s not profitable, there’s an incentive for those in power to ensure that accountability is tossed aside and bolstering accused abusers becomes a noble cause. It’s self-serving, of course, because it helps those with a lot of skeletons in their closets keep those doors closed. The entitlement they feel to keep their iron grip on their positions, to pretend that they are owed greatness with no repercussions or rules to follow, is obscene but commonplace. It’s why so much of the #MeToo movement within these industries has been reduced to ‘a few bad apples.’
Things like Depp’s continuing comeback don’t happen by accident. None of this is inevitable. It’s a long-term industry of intense funding, labour, and intention. And it sucks. It’s yet another reminder that, after years of promise of change, we haven’t seen a f*cking thing actually happen to support those in need. There’s no money in that, no personal benefit for those who have always gained more from hurt than help. And what we get is a newly reinforced rape culture that elevates ghouls like Depp to the top for reasons that have nothing to do with talent or craft. I’m tired.