On August 16, the documentary film "Depp vs. Heard" was released on Netflix, immediately climbing to the top spot in viewership in many countries. The creator, Emma Cooper, reveals her cards quite early on about who she considers the main villain in this story. And it's not Amber Heard. And it's not even Johnny Depp.

Background, or How We Got to This Point

Hold on, kids, even the briefest recap of events will take some time.

John Christopher Depp II met Amber Laura Heard back in 2009, on the set of the film "The Rum Diary." A spark, a storm, madness. They got married in 2015 and filed for divorce in 2016.

Like a bolt from the blue, information hit Captain Jack Sparrow's fans that the star had beaten his wife and did not shy away from sexual violence against her. Magazines began circulating photos of Amber's face with signs of beatings, and the tabloid site TMZ released a video of a cursing Depp trashing a kitchen in the presence of a frightened Heard.

Also, the noble Amber won $7 million in the divorce settlement, which she pledged to pay in full to two charitable organizations to prove to the world that her intentions were always pure.

In 2018, Amber Heard published an op-ed in The Washington Post. In 2020, Depp sued the British publication The Sun (run by News Group Newspapers) for calling him a "wife-beater." The proceedings turned out extremely unfavorable for Depp; he lost the case, and from then on, anyone could call him whatever they pleased.

As a result, Depp loses the opportunity to play in several major franchises ("Pirates of the Caribbean" and ""). Amber, on the contrary, gets a role in the mini-series "The Stand," stars in the sequel "Aquaman," and generally becomes an icon of the #MeToo movement.

Evgeny Belousov

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Open material

Eventually, in 2022, the case "Depp vs. Heard" came to light, in which Depp sued his ex-wife in Virginia state court for defamation in the aforementioned op-ed column, which he claimed cost him the ability to work. Moreover, his lawyers managed to secure a live broadcast from the courtroom.

The Author's Voice

The documentary "Depp vs. Heard" lacks several components usually present in documentary films. There is no author's voice-over. There are no interviews with participants. There are only footage from the courtroom, edited together, and text on the screen with brief comments. And something else very important, which we will discuss later.

Emma Cooper, the film's author, deliberately avoids adding an authorial voice to create the impression of an impartial party. But the editing style, the context of showing certain footage, and simply the text displayed on the screen clearly indicate that Emma Cooper is entirely on Amber Heard's side.

Johnny talks about his childhood? That's manipulation to win over the jury. Amber talks about her childhood? Poor girl, forced to air her dirty laundry in public to clear her name.

Depp talks about his drug addiction? That's a preemptive strike to deprive the opposing side of ammunition against him. Heard abuses drugs during the wedding or with friends in Depp's penthouse? We'll just keep quiet about that; it's irrelevant to the case.

Depp's team managed to get some documents excluded from the hearing? They're getting rid of evidence of Depp's guilt. Heard's team managed to get documents about the actress being arrested for physical violence against a previous partner, Tasya Van Ree, excluded from the hearing? That can be omitted too.

The most blatant display of this bias was the story about the donation of the money Amber won from Depp in the divorce. It was that big lie which, in the best traditions of soap operas, was exposed right before our eyes. Because in 2018, on a TV show, Heard proudly stated that she had already donated all the money to charity. However, in court, it turned out she had paid virtually nothing (and to be more precise, what she had already paid was actually paid by Depp on her behalf), and the actress herself uses the words "donated" and "pledged" as synonyms.

What does the documentary do? It displays text on the screen: "Look, Selena Gomez and Ariana Grande also use 'donate' and 'pledge' as synonyms! And anyway, Amber pledged to pay this money over 10 years." Except that a specific schedule was created for the 10-year payment, which Heard completely ignored and did not follow. I won't even mention Gomez and Grande; it's such a stupid argument that it's unworthy of our attention.

The Perspective Chosen by "Depp vs. Heard"

And that very thing Emma Cooper places, perhaps, the greatest emphasis on. Namely, social media, cruel memes, and bloggers biased against Amber Heard.

Yes, that's exactly it. If you thought this film would be about the court proceedings, you are deeply mistaken. Cooper wanted to and made (although it's hard to call such editing of other people's material "filming") a film about the harm caused by stupid viewers to poor women victims of domestic violence.

Dear reader, you are to blame for all the ongoing universal injustice. You, if you have ever been interested in this topic. You, if you have seen at least one meme or funny compilation from the courtroom. You, if you expressed your opinion during the ongoing hearings.

You are to blame for Amber Heard having to share the most intimate details of the sexual violence against her with the whole world. And not her legal team, who first secured a ban on the disclosure of this information, and then themselves violated the terms of that ban. According to some speculation, they did it deliberately to play on the feelings of the jury and the audience.

And at the end, a nice move, again done through editing, which says that because of stupid bloggers blindly worshiping Depp, because of crazy fans who guarded the courthouse doors every day, because of you, ultimately, the jury leaned towards the plaintiff.

Evidence? What evidence? We just know it, and that's it, and as proof, we use an interview with the losing side's lawyer, who isn't even trying to save face and comes up with any excuse that it wasn't her who messed up. Elaine Bredehoft, by the way, is one of the worst lawyers I have ever seen, making mistakes at every turn and being aggressive towards witnesses with lines like "Did you come here for your five minutes of fame?"

Hypocrisy as It Is

So, what did we take away from the documentary "Depp vs. Heard"? That bloggers made a lot of money from adoring Johnny Depp, while simultaneously influencing the jury, and you, the viewers, indulged them.

But there are a few "buts."

First, many of these bloggers, who can be named (for example, the guests of the streams of lawyer Rekieta Law, who was also shown in the film), started their broadcasts on the side of Amber Heard. But gradually they saw more and more evidence of her outright lies – manipulation of photos, absence of traces of the described beatings (a swollen broken nose would have been visible the next day under any layer of makeup), audio recordings in which Amber admits that she was the one beating Depp. And these bloggers gradually switched to the plaintiff's side under the pressure of the evidence.

Second, it's strange to hear accusations of greed from Netflix, which used video recordings of the absolute majority of the mentioned bloggers without even informing them (let alone paying them for copyright). Moreover, Netflix has already been caught copyrighting the materials of these very bloggers, which it used in its documentary.

So, Popcorned Planet filmed an interview with Depp, Netflix inserted these clips into its film – and that's it, Popcorned Planet can no longer use these clips in any future video because they "belong" to Netflix (which didn't even get permission to use these clips), and now Netflix will receive all the monetization from these videos. But the bloggers are still the greedy ones, who made far less from this case than traditional media with their exclusive interviews with Amber Heard and the most popular paid documentaries on the platform.

Watch closely, as they say.

Conclusion

Is Johnny Depp completely without sin? Far from it. Moreover, both sides behaved extremely inappropriately. But because of biased journalists like Emma Cooper, we will never know the truth, because it is inconvenient for them. They would have to admit at least some part of the blame for Amber.

And there probably are grains of truth in Amber's words. But they are buried under such a huge layer of embellishments, lies, and hypocrisy that it is no longer possible to extract them – and, therefore, to convict Depp of violence either.

There is another aspect that played a key role in the public's forgiveness of Depp: Johnny at least apologized for something and took responsibility, including for extremely unseemly statements towards his ex-wife, which he did not try to whitewash. Amber, on the other hand, denied EVERYTHING, any encroachment on her person, was caught lying under oath several times, and attacked everyone who expressed distrust in any way, dressing up this private matter as a loss for the entire #MeToo movement.

Therefore, in the case of defecation defamation (that is, intentional damage to a person's reputation), Depp's victory is deserved. This is coming from someone who once watched almost the entire hearing live and who was initially inclined to believe Amber, especially against the backdrop of Depp's loss in the UK.

And instead of this documentary, it's better to watch some of those lawyer-bloggers that Netflix is now trying to screw over. It will be much more constructive.