Okay, I was Googling “Jeanne du Barry”, the new movie with Johnny Depp that just came out by French director of Algerian and Vietnamese descent, Maïwenn.
And a huge trigger warning, before you continue on reading.
I genuinely wanted to learn more about it’s director and main actress, that is, the aforementioned Maïwenn, as it was the first time I heard about her. And I stumbled upon the information that apart from being an actress and a film director, she is also Luc Besson’s ex-wife, and apparently they have a daughter together - Shanna Leila Besson, who also happens to be a well-known French actress and photographer.
But something did not add up. Wikipedia stated that Shanna Leila Besson is already 30, while Maïwenn is around 46/47. Like, wtf…
Only then I learned that Luc Besson met her when she was only 12 and he was 29. They began to “date” Maïwenn when she was only 15. Also, they got married when she was 16, and he was in his early 30s. And that Maïwenn had Shanna when she was only 17. Besson left her when she turned 20, for Milla Jovovich. And apparently it was Besson’s relationship with Maïwenn that inspired the movie “Léon: The Professional”.
Like, honestly, WTF? Why is no one talking about this? Like, the whole world was apparently watching this situation and nobody said a word?
But unfortunately, that is not the end of this story. It seems like Maïwenn, despite being a de facto victim of Luc Besson, she has a huge Stockholm syndrome herself.
While researching Maïwenn on the French side of the internet (thank God I do know some French), I stumbled upon an interview in which she apparently… defends Roman Polański. And mind you, this is not an old interview. This is from 2020, so relatively fresh, and definitely made in the post-#MeToo era. Yeah, I know that the events in the English-speaking world may not have the same impact on the situation for instance in the Francophone world, but still. Still!
That said, I really doubt that we should support her new movie. Yeah, I know that many people are excited to see Johnny Depp back on the big screen, but should we really give a bigger platform to a director who openly supported a man who has used a 13-year-old? And not to mention, who despite being herself a de facto victim of a child m*lester, she still stands with the abusers, not with the abused?
(Because I’m not even delving into Depp’s situation, this is a rabbit hole on its own, and I honestly don’t care if you’re a Johnny Depp stan or Amber Heard stan, take your sh*tty war somewhere else than this post.)
Like, I’m not a big fan of cancel culture. Or rather, I’m not a fan of it at all. But at this point, this is a question of an extremely delicate matter, and that is, the safety of children in our society.
