I am really sad. I think I am mostly angry, but also sad. I think my husband Chris is too, but for different reasons… basically the whole Depp/Heard trial is the main conversation I keep returning to no matter what the original topic was and he keeps receiving similar messages in different tones and volumes. And a lot of swearing.
I didn't really want to comment on it at first because I really try to avoid the urge to have an opinion on everything (in public, if you know me, you know that in private I am definitely ok with that). Also, I didn't feel that I knew enough about this case, but since then not only I have learnt more but mostly I have been increasingly outraged about the way the world is reacting.
I guess I can no longer use Chris alone as an outlet for my rage ,so following my own advice to trust the power of conversations, I am here, in front of the computer, determined to have a conversation with as many of you as possible.
I know that a lot of men, probably a lot of abusive men and the whole manosphere is clapping at the implications of this trial. They were right all along! Women are manipulative gold diggers that abuse men. Women are histrionical liars. Women are as bad as men, actually women are worse. Apparently this believing women thing was going to far (even if the statistics of rape, men violence against women and femicide are quite black and white) and Johnny Depp is the hero they needed to prove just that.
But this is not what this trial is about. Well, it is, under the desguise of being about something else. This case is not about domestic violence. He is not suing her for what she allegedly did, he is suing her for defamation. Despite losing his case in the UK in 2020 when he sued The Sun newspaper for the same reason.
This whole trial is based on an article from 2018 in which she talked about HER experience as a woman victim of domestic abuse in the public eye. She doesn’t give examples of her marriage; she doesn’t mention Johnny Depp. But she dared to speak up about the way society protects men in general, powerful men in particular. She talked about how speaking up means that you are the one in trial, and somehow, maybe unsurprisingly, he felt an urge to punish her for it.
In the case against the Sun the judge determined that 12 of the 14 cases that she brought forward were proven. There was no defamation because there were no lies in the implications. “I have found that the great majority of alleged assaults of Ms. Heard by Mr. Depp have been proved to the civil standard. … I also accept that Ms. Heard’s allegations have had a negative effect on her career as an actor and activist.” End of story. And that was against a newspaper that called him, identifying him by name, “wife beater”. The case he would need to win now is against an article that doesn’t even mention him. It seems like a long shot.
But in fairness, the money he wants her to pay him or the possibility to win is almost anecdotical. He knows he will most likely lose (and not because the system doesn’t like men to get off the hook) but it doesn’t matter because the aim of this trial is gathering support in the public eye, it is about changing a narrative and mostly is about punishing her and telling the world that she deserved it. That women, sometimes, deserve it.
I am not saying that she didn’t do anything wrong during the relationship, what I am saying is that this is not what is on trial at the moment, although people seem to think that it is. I am also saying that I refuse to participate in a culture in which we blame the victims.
What he did to her is proven by a court of law after a lot of investigation. What she did or didn’t do is irrelevant in this context, unless we want to tell the world that abuse is ok if you deserve it. Unless we are willing to accept the idea of the perfect victim - the maternal one, the caring one, the one that doesn’t fight back. The one that is selfless and easy and submissive and YET she gets abused. Why is this conversation turning into who gets to be socially accepted as a good victim of domestic violence? And how good is good enough?
We see this all the time. A woman gets raped, and society starts questioning if she was drunk, if she had flirted with him, if she said no loud enough. We ask if the skirt was too revealing. Because if any of those were true, or even worse, if all of them were true, then who is she to ruin his life? Why is she not taking her part of responsibility? At the very least her part.
What is important to understand here is the wider implications of this case. It is problematic that to have this conversation at all we have the desperate need to concede that “she too is bad” or that “they are both toxic”. Why do we need to collectively agree that she is awful, before we can even start making our point? Why is punishing her the very minimum required to address any of the other problems if you want to maintain the public façade that you are not going too far? The way this case works, and the way we are all reacting around this case, affects every woman because it fuels the same misogyny that already affects every woman.
This is a very loud message for all victims that says, “are you sure you didn’t deserve it? Are you willing to put your whole life in trial just for speaking up? Knowing that you will be silenced, medicalised, ridiculed, and ostracised. Do you want to speak up that much? Would you take your chances knowing that no matter what the outcome you will always have more to lose than to win?”
And what is even scarier is that this is an even a louder message for all abusers. This trial tells them that they don’t have to put up with women fighting them back, that they can turn this around and still become the heroes of their stories, the ones deserving the sympathy and support. That there is a further outlet to keep women in line. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Marylin Manson, Johnny Depp’s matching-tattoo friend, is also suing for defamation against those who held him accountable.
I have OF COURSE no problem with men who bring forward cases of domestic abuse, I think it takes bravery and vulnerability in a world in which toxic masculinity forces men to never come across as weak, ESPECIALLY never weaker than a woman. I think that men can be victims of domestic abuse by their partners. But again, this is not a case of domestic violence, this is a trial for defamation. What the court is being asked to decide is if Amber Heard knowingly lied in her article, therefore acting in bad faith and damaging his career in doing so.
But to understand this we need to understand that Johnny Depp’s style of work (from hitting a crew member, to arriving drugged and drunk to the studio, or his stupidly expensive demands or the fact that he can’t be bothered learning the lines of his scripts, prefering someone to read them to him through an earpiece) is what has potentially cost Depp his career. Hollywood doesn’t punish misogynistic powerful men, the public don’t stop watching films, or praising men’s arts or their capacity to play a sport “JUST” because they have abused a woman, not even many women. What Hollywood punishes hard is investing money on films that don’t bring the money back, and that was what Johnny Depp was delivering. The belief that women have the capacity to destroy a man’s career with false allegations is just not true. It takes lots of brave women to come forward, to be scrutinised, to show evidence, to be hurt and harmed in the whole process for anything to happen at all. Just for it to be all forgotten shortly after a vague apology. We see it with disbelief time after time. As long as they maintain their capacity to make money they are generally received with “Just stay quiet for a bit, then we will bring you back, with your image restored, you will be bigger than before son, don’t you worry.”
There are so many things that I want to talk about here, so many “LET’S NOT FORGET ABOUT THIS!” really important points. For example, the fact that he was 46, really famous and rich and she wasn’t any of the above and was 23 when they started dating. The fact that he also started dating a 17 year old Winona Ryder when he was 24, a 20 years old Kate Moss when he was 31, and Polina Glen when she was in her early 20s and he was in his mid 50s. Unbalanced power in a relationship is important when trying to put things in context. Why is what Amber did or didn’t do the only context people feel they need to understand the situation?
What about the fact that no normal person, no matter how witty or “abstract” their sense of humour is, sends the horrendous messages that he sent when referring to women. Have we lost all our capacity of react to misogyny to such an extent that we think it is excusable in any shape or form to say “Let’s drown her before we burn her. I will f**k her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she’s dead’ or “I have no mercy, no fear and not an ounce of emotion or what I once thought was love for this gold digging, low level, dime a dozen, mushy, pointless dangling overused flappy fish market …”.
He, himself, has admitted how in order to be good he needed to “lock up the monster”. There are texts of him praising her efforts to get him detoxed and admitting how hard it must have been for her and how he wouldn’t be alive without her. We have seen confessions in texts of what it is undeniable abuse YET we feel that we NEED to know what she did too because, there is a possibility that she was as bad (or hopefully even worse), and if that were the case he should be excused of any accountability. Then we can direct our anger and repulsion to her. We can keep talking about how they both deserved each other. How it wasn’t abuse.
It feels that we could talk too about the way her mental health was called into question to invalidate her, including her “histrionic personality disorder’ that among other things included “a lot of cruelty”, “very concerned with her image”, plays “a victim or princess role” is “overly flirtatious” and acts in “an overly girly way” to “avoid getting negative feedback or criticism”. It was common in the 18th and 19th century for women to be diagnosed with “hysteria” when stepping outside out societal expectations… are we really going back to this in the public eye?
And of course we could go on and on about all the many things that are making this trial a misogynistic circus.
It made my stomach turn when I read Javier Bardem’s words, “I love Johnny because he is a good human being, trapped in the lies and manipulations of toxic beings and yet smiling and loving us all in spite of it. How? Through his music, through his acting, through his silence. This means a lot. Thank you Johnny. Millions of others like me love you deeply.”
Javier Bardem, who said, when he was asked about the #metoo movement, that although overall it was positive, we needed to be careful about “online lynching” and talked about the importance letting serious matters be dealt with in court. I guess he meant only for men, because what happens now, when the courts have already accepted as proven 12 cases of domestic violence? What happens when the one at the other side of the lynching is no longer a powerful man but an “easy to hate” woman?
Johnny Depp defended Polanski, He made Marylin Manson the god father of his daughter and tried to buy some nazi memorabilia with him, and in his list of great friends there are other proven abusers… there is a pattern of powerful men defending other powerful men, and this trial is a very obvious way to show how far and low they are willing to go for the world to respect the impunity that they think they deserve for their actions.
I want to finish with the great words of the awesome Clementine Ford who is doing a great job on Instagram covering the whole trial,
“We don’t need men to protect women, we need men to stop protecting each other.”
35 comments
Let me start with some self identification-I am a 60-year-old man, who is married with grown up three kids.
The amount of media led hatred towards Amber Heard is really disturbing. I simply don’t understand why there is this desire to paint her at some kind of villainous manipulator. I can only put it down to the fact that she is a beautiful and successful woman. For some people, this is totally unacceptable and they want to bring her down.
I think it’s really important to remember that this case is already been examined in a British court. Out of the 14 allegations examined, 12 were found to be likely to be true. Depp tried to appeal. The British legal system threw the case out because there was no realistic possibility of a reversal on appeal.
I like your quote-men must stop defending abusive men. This is so true. Depp is an abuser. Amber Heard exposed him, and he is raging. This legal effort, to my mind, is a continuation of his abusive state of mind.
It’s really important for all of us that he loses. Is Amber Heard proved her case once in London, and it said that she has to do the same thing in Virginia.
I do not agree with the comments shitting on you at all. I have my own issues with Depp, and I hear you. I also, as a feminist, do not condone Heard’s abuse. Gender equality is a key virtue of intersectional feminism. Though this is a defamation case, his strongest testimony was tied to being Heard’s victim of abuse. I am wondering if he is using this case for both fronts, since the statute of limitations did not allow him to sue for his injuries, psychological, emotional, and physical. He has also stated, and I believe the statement, that he was advised to keep his mouth shut about the abuse toward him from his legal team. Patriarchy is pretty insidious in blaming men for being victims. Insidious in the fact that misogynists use the tired trope that feminism is the problem instead of patriarchy using gender roles to assume men are weak for being victims of abuse. And I do not “believe all women” or all of anyone. I do think that we should listen to all, and investigate all claims instead of shelving claims or making people afraid to come forward with sincere allegations.
There are women who also defend Polanski, Allen, and others. I’m wondering why this is. My issues with Depp are about cultural appropriation and his acceptance of an award from the Serbian president, since the man is against journalists, especially as Depp just made an independent film about an innovative editorial journalist documenting injustice.
Depp and Heard are both ‘imperfect victims’. It’s interesting to me that Depp has held himself accountable to specific mistakes and poor choices and Heard can do no wrong. Through my research, I hypothesize that Depp will be more open to therapy/ or counseling to correct his cognition and subsequent behavior- because he does seem to show more empathy and accountability in general and in the vast audio made available.
I have no opinions as of yet to Brian Warner. And if he is guilty, I hope Depp holds him accountable despite their friendship.
The reason DV reports are so rare from men are because of articles like this. Even when a man is obviously framed. When men report DV, people like you doubt them. Amber was right when she said no one will believe Depp could be a victim of DV. And you are doing exactly what she secretly said. As long as women like you doing male DV evidence, men will continue to not report DV. Please, believe ALL genders of victims of DV. You believe most women right? Do you realize how hard it is for a man to admit DV? And then we see articles like this, it just makes use think there’s no use in reporting it. Even with evidence, male DV victims are doubted, and in fact victim blamed. He deserved it you say, he was a “bad man”. Well I’m happy women everywhere are sticking up for this victim. Depp needs support otherwise men will continue to not report DV. Please, believe make victims of DV
My god you are disgusting. Every single line in this steaming pile of horseshit you wrote here makes me sick. Defending what she did because you see your precious world view endangered by it. You are a sick person.
To ‘Everyone Knows’,
I did not say that ‘everyone knows’ the UK courts are biased in favour of women. That was stated as an opinion, and I am definitely not alone in that belief. Look it up.
In cases relating to domestic abuse, most juries will presumptively, even if they do not declare it outright, look for evidence of the female party being abused, regardless of any claims made in reverse. And most of time, they turn out to be right, because DV against women is more common than DV against men. In this case, however, the bias worked against the factfinder.
I said that ‘everyone knows’ the UK trial was a joke. And I stand by that. But perhaps I should have clarified – everyone aware of this case, and who is not automatically blinded by their gendered presuppositions, realises that the proceedings of the UK trial were extremely flawed, and the conclusion was laughably, horrifically biased.
No, of course your five-year-old would not know. That should have been obvious. Respectfully, your argument is irrelevant and ridiculous.
I do find it telling that you ignored the entirety of the rest of my comment, and chose to nitpick at the usage of one single phrase – ‘everyone knows’, the meaning of which should have been clear to any clear-thinking individual. Come to think of it, this is exactly the method that Amber Heard’s lawyers are trying – and failing – to use to build a case for her.
If you have a response to the actual content of what I said, I’ll be happy to discuss.
Sincerely,
A feminist.
This a lame attempt made by the author to help feminazis escape from the hypocrisy of believing all female “survivors”.
It’s women like you and Heard that are killing feminism. Shame on you.
Someone referred me to this blog, and the moment Feminist or feminism was the identifier, I remarked, I don’t really need to read this because the perspective feminists is a foregone conclusion. There’s nothing I would read that doesn’t stray from the common evil men, saintly woman narrative. And sure enough the predictable commentary by the writer once again confirmed the presupposition. Unfortunately feminist don’t bother attempting to understand men as complex and nuanced, but rather only through the lens of simplistic reductionist caricature. Ever wonder why feminists limit their main characterization of men to abuser, rapist and oppressor, and literally every analysis of men is only through negative associations. Yes some men abuse women, yet no feminist will ever mention most men save women’s lives than women saving men. You will never hear a feminist speak of the millions of contributions men make to society of which most women are the beneficiaries, often at the sacrifice of men. Concepts like due process mean nothing when a man is a cussed and for several decades feminists have successfully eliminated any pushback from men who are destroyed by a system accepting the feminist ideology of inherent male guilt that now Depp’s experiences have lain bare what so many men futility attempted to express for decades, as usual feminists retreat into the same misandric presuppositions that rely on their demonizing narrative. It’s 7nlikely a feminist has the capacity to empathize with the horrors Depp has endured. But feminists have long documented histories of tacit encouragement of female empowerment expressed mainly through abusing and destroying men like Depp. As many men observe the trial, so many, even men I know who suffered in silence for years tell me, “yes that’s exactly how it was done to me” “Yes, I know exactly what Johnny is going through.” Feminists have already rendered a guilty verdict against men the moment an accusation is made. Unfortunately for every Alice Sebold and Amber Heard there are countless other male victims who will continue to silently be ruined in the name of feminism. Maybe Depp will be a turning point as more men step forward and stand up to the misandry advocated by feminist that produce the Alice Sebolds and Amber Heards of this world.
Thank you for this. I searched Google for this exact article and had to try 3x before finding yours, and even then I had scroll down before finally finding you. I can’t even begin to tell you how much your article echoed how I’ve been feeling about the trial. Just this slow sickening feeling creeping up. I have shared your article and will continue to share with whoever wishes to read this for perspective.
Your article is a sad reminder of how bias can blind even those who claim they want justice for all. Depp is the victim, Heard is the abuser who sought to hurt him even more by ruining his life with false claims and accusations. Men get abused by women, and so far they get treated very poorly and are rarely if ever believed. They deserve justice just like all victims of DV. That’s why this case is getting so much attention, it’s not just about assholes going “all women are liars”. Most of it is because this couod be an important mile stone towards make victims finding hope in their situation. Because a lot of they’re abusers say what Amber Heard is on tape saying after she hit Johnny “go ahead, tell people. See who believes you”. Being on that despicable woman’s side is further disservice to female victims. Because the assholes point to people like you as support for their henoius and ridiculous claims about all women lying. You backian obvious liar like Amber Heard hurts all women.
To Andrea Fernandez who wrote – Everyone knows UK Courts are biased in favour of women – where do you get your facts? Really, please do tell?
I was trying to take you seriously or at least suspend my disbelief until you said “everyone knows” .
Btw if you actually said “everyone knows” to anyone ever in person, and I do mean anyone ever, including my 5 year old, as a rationale to back up any argument you might choose to make, you would lose.
Do everyone who reads your post the favour of a argument that doesn’t waste our time. Thanks
Sincerely
Everyone