“He’s (Johnny Depp) won already in the court of opinion. Whatever this jury comes out to, he’s won…”
The second episode of the Netflix limited series, ‘Depp v Heard’ continues with the trial and takes us back to the time last year when the Internet was flooded with content in support of Johnny Depp.
The episode starts with footage of a surge of people outside the court in Fairfax County, Virginia, who are there to convey their love and support for the Pirates of the Caribbean actor. In contrast, Amber Heard makes her court appearances without an iota of public support.
It further presents how obsessed the entire social media world has been with the trial and also became a profit point for content creators. The series highlights that the Depp v. Heard trial actually became more popular online, surpassing Elon Musk, over four times that of Joe Biden, more than five times in respect to abortion opinions, and even over six times more than the Ukraine War. That was the extent of the effect the trial had online, and it became the biggest story online in the nation and also one of the biggest in the entire world.
News channels and people of influence also shed light on how misinformation about the trial spread over TikTok, how the app had way more reach than Twitter or any other social media, and, more importantly, how easy it was to manipulate facts and have a higher reach.
In the court, both sides address the events that took place in March 2015 in Australia while Depp was working on ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.’ Amber, who visited her then-newly-married husband in Australia, testified in court that Depp was using MDMA, which upset her, whereas Depp claimed that Heard was upset when he wanted to discuss their post-nup agreement.
Photo evidence of intricate, chaotic rooms, along with traces of blood in some places, were provided, as well as witnesses testified, and there were a lot of contradictions between what the two sides described.
While Depp claimed that Heard caused him an injury, severing one of his fingers, Heard accused him of sexually assaulting her with a glass bottle. A lot of opinions were made after this, with some claiming that certain portions of the trial should have never been public, while some said that it was hard to assess their honesty as they were both actors who knew how to put on a show.
But things worsened on Amber’s behalf as most on social media did not believe her side of the story.
Johnny’s sister testified about her relationship with him and how he was, followed by Depp, himself speaking on his issues with drug abuse, which many believe was to humanize and, in some way, even sympathize with him.
Amber Heard was also reportedly proven to be untruthful about certain aspects during the trial, leading to more trolls and online hatred for her. However, she also gained a marginal amount of support from the online jury, and even if the public was not entirely in her favor, they were becoming more reasonable with her side of the story.
At the beginning of the trial, Judge Azcarate stated that jurors were not allowed to learn about the case from anywhere outside the courthouse. She said,
“You’re not to read anything about this case. You are not to watch anything about this case. You’re not to listen to anything about this case. This applies to television, newspapers, magazines, the Internet, and any online sites. Further, you’re not to read, watch, or listen to anything about this case on any social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc., or any similar sites.”
However, the public started questioning how the jury was picked and whether it was really possible for them to avoid what was happening with the case outside the courthouse. The episode ends with the scales still heavier on Depp’s side but not totally empty on Heard’s.
