U.S. actor Johnny Depp has found out just how seriously Australia takes its own quarantine laws.
Before he and wife Amber Heard were forced to make an apology video, as part of a plea bargain for unlawfully smuggling two pet dogs into the country, he had obviously not given the matter even a passing thought.
Indeed, once out of the country he became quite defiant in the face of a possible heavy fine and/or gaol sentence for Amber.
The couple’s humbling by order of the court was probably all the more galling for their public relations team once it was realised that their apology video was to be used by the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources as an educational tool (as well as being officially posted on Facebook) and that mainstream and social media were calling boss's performance cringeworthy.
This video is their real punishment. Every molecule of star quality has been violently yanked away from Depp and Heard here. They’re sullen and slumped. They’re badly lit and shot from an unflattering angle. Their delivery is ugly and monotone. In effect, the Australian government has done to the celebrity pair what it has already done to its cigarette packaging. It’s taken something seductive and dangerous, and made it look as awful as humanly possible. It’s going to be hard to bounce back from this one. [The Guardian, 18 April 2016]
Below is a fictitious behind-the-scenes take on the making of that video which openly laughs at the celebrity couple and the situation in which they found themselves.
