Is it Horror? “Depp V. Heard” (2023)
There are two types of shows I shy away from: true crime and court cases. Unless there’s something truly extraordinary about either, I avoid them like the plague. Of late, however, I’ve become less choosy. The pandemic brought me face to face with such would-be water cooler sensations as Tiger King and Don’t F*ck With Cats. Also, I go to the Y a few times a week, and as part of my exercise routine, I do a half hour on the elliptical, which has a built-in TV that includes Netflix (technology!). And as anyone who does cardio knows, there’s nothing like trash TV to help pass the time.
Which explains how I found Depp V. Heard, the latest Netflix true crime train wreck. There I was, ellipticalling away, and before I know it, 30 minutes have passed. And this series — my God, this series! — is so dark, so salacious, so upsetting, the humans within it so awful — I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
I’m no legal expert (nor do I play one on TV), but this show says a lot about the legal profession, and it isn’t great. The trial, which took place in April 2022 in Fairfax, Virginia, was a circus: a superfamous actor squaring off against a semi-famous actress; neighbors, friends, and experts called to give testimony of dubious accuracy; forensic psychologists ruling on various syndromes; admissable evidence, inadmissable evidence — all to prove whether Heard defamed Depp in a December 18, 2018 op-ed in the Washington Post titled, “I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change.”
Spoiler alert: Heard was found liable on three counts, for the following statements in the op-ed: (1) the title; (2) “Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out”; and (3) “I had the rare vantage point of seeing, in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse.” The jury separately found that Depp, through his lawyer Adam Waldman, defamed Heard in one of three counts in her countersuit. The two actors settled in December 2022, with Heard paying Depp the sum of $1 million.
Where Depp V. Heard (originally produced for England’s Channel 4 and directed by Emma Cooper) turns into a nightmare is when it switches from the courtroom to the court of public opinion. To say there was some commentary on this case would be putting it mildly. Social media exploded. Experts and grandstanders on YouTube, CourtTV, and Law & Crime weighed in and cashed in. The jury in the case was instructed, as all juries are, to ignore any news about it. If they actually managed to do so, as Depp’s attorney’s attested, more power to them. I don’t see how that could have been possible. As YouTuber (and actual lawyer) Emily D. Baker (733K subscribers) points out, there were so many opinions and so much misinformation out there (much of it fueled by bots), it would have been hard for anyone with a phone to avoid the trial.
Unlike the credible Baker, most of the YouTubers in the series come off as sexist, misogynist, and scary. One guy, DarthNews (66.7K subscribers), hides behind a Deadpool mask, and others, including Andy Signore at Popcorned Planet (721K subscribers), seem to be streaming from their parents’ basements. The phrase “men’s rights,” which I tend to equate with a little phenomenon called white nationalism, is heard at least once in the series. Which makes sense, given how many of these yahoos were cheering on Johnny to squash Amber like a bug. Some continue to shit on her to this day.
Some of you reading this may be expecting me to pass judgement. Sorry. I honestly don’t know who’s telling the truth here. They both seem like awful people who never should have been in a relationship. The fact that their dalliance lasted as long as it did, through screaming arguments and two-way violence, smacks of Stockholm Syndrome. There’s no question that Depp is a drunk and a pill addict, like his idol, the late Hunter S. Thompson. It’s also true that Heard has more than a little diva in her. So who did what to whom? Can anyone really know?
So much gut-churning evidence and testimony is presented in Depp V. Heard, including text messages in which Johnny claims to want to rape Heard’s corpse, you have to keep reminding yourself this a defamation case. Depp is suing Heard for claiming he hit her, kicked her, pulled her hair, and threw glasses at walls in her presence. Shockingly, none of Depp’s witnesses can recall him ever acting this way — the ones that are allowed to testify, anyway. The text messages that seem to back up Heard’s stories (“The airplane incident”) aren’t submitted as evidence by her lawyers. When Amber calls Ellen Barkin to testify against Depp (not shown in the series), Johnny calls his ex, Kate Moss, to appear on his behalf.
But that’s how it works in America. All a jury has to determine is whether Depp might have abused Heard, which would blow Johnny’s case and prove that Amber’s op-ed was at least partly based on fact. Instead, we have a reverse #MeToo situation, with most of the internet, including plenty of women, choosing to see Heard as The Fabricator who Cried Victim. Cue the show’s most upsetting section, in which idiots in Jack Sparrow outfits prance gleefully around their living rooms claiming Depp was the victim, when there’s just as much evidence that he was, and is, a complete dick.
Which brings us to the question: is Depp V. Heard horror? I’m going to say Yes. The fact that the series, like the court case itself, fails to even approach the truth of what happened between these two; the fact that it remains, to this day, a “he said-she said” situation (despite Cooper’s stated intent); the Kafkaesque fact that we’ll never know whether Heard had grounds for writing her op-ed, or that Depp had grounds for suing Heard; and the fact that mouth-breathing misogynists (and the women who love them) are applauding the sound defeat of a woman in 2023 signals something much chillier about where our country is right now than whether the rule of law works. One can only hope, in the upcoming trials of a former President, that justice, or an approximation of it, is served.
This is the latest in the Is it Horror? series, essays that consider whether (mostly) mainstream films and other cultural entities may be regarded as horror. Other entries include Red Dawn (1984), Sarah Kane’s play Blasted (1995), and Bone Tomahawk (2015), published by Counter Arts; as well as pieces on The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (1989); Jacob’s Ladder (1990); Scream (1996); The Impossible (2012); Beau is Afraid (2023); Society of the Snow (2023); “The Curse” (2023), The Zone of Interest (2023); The Beatles’ “Revolution #9,” Pink Floyd’s “Echoes,” and Portishead’s “Threads”; and the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election (2024).
