When I heard that Johnny Depp had made a cameo appearance at last night’s VMAs, playing the role of MTV’s iconic “moon person,” I have to admit I was irritated.
Johnny’s scripted jokes, which centered around how much he needed work to make up for the lull after former wife Amber Heard publicly accused him of abuse, were flippant as well as unfunny; they seemed to be a callous insult to all women who have faced unwarranted skepticism and/or active abuse after coming forth with claims of abuse.
Then I watched the clips of Depp’s appearance, and I realized that this was no win for Depp. The alleged abuser, apparently dangling from the rafters in a space suit, joked that he was up for any sort of work — “birthdays, bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs, weddings, wakes, any old thing you need” — in an attempt to show that he wasn’t afraid to make jokes at his own expense, generally seen as a necessary step for any disgraced celebrity looking to win back his audience. But his delivery was awkward, and he seemed barely committed to the bit.
Hell, he wasn’t even in the suit; the show’s producer simply projected a video of his face onto the “moon person’s” helmet. Notly that, but the segments were pre-recorded; some who were there are saying that the applause was simply edited in.
The Washington Post called this “the latest stop on [Depp’s] redemption tour;” his fans called it a “comeback.” A comeback to what? The ruins of a once impressive career? Look at the movies he’s been in over the past dozen years; it’s been one disaster after another. Amber Heard didn’t force him to be in The Tourist, or Transcendence, or Mortdecai, or The Professor, or Tusk, or Sherlock Gnomes. He did all that damage to himself. As Dustin Rowles put it in Pajiba, Depp
pissed away his career with a history of abuse allegations, a $20,000 wine habit, rambling incoherent interviews, and a string of terrible performances in mostly terrible films. MTV’s bit only served to remind us of that.
Depp’s appearance also got the hashtag #JohnnyDeppIsAnAbuser going on Twitter again. So he’s got that going for him.
Not that everybody agreed with that assessment. Some in the Depp cult predicted that the astronaut appearance would be the start of a glorious Depp revival.
Yeah, I don’t think so. Depp’s win in the court case against Heard was certainly a high point in his life. But it may be all downhill from here.
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Each to their own of course. Nothing more subjective than carpets.
@Alan
Popehat Ken has tweeted that if the FBI were going to stage a photo of documents, the documents would be presented in a tidier fashion. And he’d probably agree it would be a better carpet.
If I was going to steal something, I’d store them in a room dressed to look exactly like the Hilary Clinton’s office.
Then say “It’s a frame up!”
That carpet is hideous. Looks like it’s from a middling hotel decorated by a tasteless boor…
Oh, right.
I’ve seen worse, but in large motel complexes. Scarlet and neon-purple. Multi-colored things that look to be a series of black holes and hellmouths.
Plain beige or gray or greige like government institutions are carpeted with are much less offensive to the eye.
Jesus Christ, he had sensitive compartmented information just lying around randomly on the floor like empty chip-bags after a bachelor party.
Various other things are converging to one conclusion here: he’s a KGB asset. At roughly a “Spies Like Us” level of competence. No, wait, those guys make him look like a genius.
As for garish carpets in hotels, that’s intentional. It disguises stains and other damage. There can be a ketchup spill the size of a dinner plate and nobody will notice. Unless it’s fresh and they step in it.
Assuming that’s the carpet at Mar-a-Lago…. tempting as it is to give Trump the blame for tastelessness, Mar-a-Lago existed long before he was even born, and has pretty much looked the same the entire time. Blame Joseph Urban.
@Surplus
Oh that’s been suspected for a long time. Not only that, an old asset, possibly groomed since before the collapse of the USSR: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book
State capitalists and plain old capitalists, working together! Srsly though, there’s nobody Trump wouldn’t work with for the right price.
This is moderately interesting.
Short answer: No; he just utilised some Mob connections occasionally; and shared lawyers. But there’s some nice background to New York in the 80s.
Betteridge’s law of headlines strikes again!
@Surplus to Requirements:
Various other things are converging to one conclusion here: he’s a KGB asset. At roughly a “Spies Like Us” level of competence. No, wait, those guys make him look like a genius.
@Cyborgette: Yeah, they were thrilled to have Vlad’s bitch end up in the Oval Office.
Besides the KGB grooming him (heh), eventually all the Western and Chinese banks wouldn’t lend him any more money, but the Russians were happy to. They probably know more about his finances than he does. But I’m sure it’s just a coincidence he married a woman who looks like her father, who was a big deal going back to Soviet days.
He only *wanted* to be a mobster, but they’re smart enough to know that he couldn’t keep a secret and was a loose cannon. It’s called “organized crime” for a reason. He ain’t organized. I’m sure he provided some good info to them.
@Surplus: Yeah, but some of them I’ve seen had patches of every primary color. If the ketchup landed on a red bit, no problem… but if it was on a green (or off-white or…) bit, well. And there was just no excuse for the red and neon purple one. I swear it glowed in the dark and every soda spilled or anything green or yellow was visible.
@John Lucas: I guess the existing tastelessness was part of the appeal?
Even if Johnny Depp didn’t do anything to Ms. Heard, his career was already in the gutter. I loved his acting in Pirates of the Caribbean, but I think most of his later movies just aren’t that good.
@Alyson: Agreed. If you could somehow remove Heard from his entire life, he’s still the chump who thought “Mortdecai” and that hairdon’t in “The Lone Ranger” were good ideas.
IMDB says he’s now doing cartoon shorts about superhero puffins?
Seriously, nothing Heard might have done or had done to her could ruin his rep more than his IMDB page. He should sue himself for defamation.
@GSS ex-noob:
IMDB says he’s now doing cartoon shorts about superhero puffins?
Here; have this real-life superhero penguin instead: