The Largest Explosion of Online Misogyny Since Gamergate
June 3, 2022 8:19 AM Subscribe
The Bleak Spectacle of the Amber Heard-Johnny Depp Trial (Michael Hobbes, contains descriptions of abuse)
Largest, but far from only.
posted by Gelatin at 8:35 AM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Gelatin at 8:35 AM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
Gamergate, Kelly Marie Tran, Britney, Monica Lewinsky, Anita Hill... There are no shortage of antecedents for large scale misogyny. We could probably do tired people a solid and resist the urge to name them all and crosscheck their relative scores.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:37 AM on June 3, 2022 [45 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:37 AM on June 3, 2022 [45 favorites]
Thanks for sharing this in-depth article. The whole story is deeply sad and frightening.
posted by rpfields at 8:38 AM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by rpfields at 8:38 AM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
Imagine being excited that your favorite actor was "vindicated" of assault claims, just before he is due in court on separate, different assault claims.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:39 AM on June 3, 2022 [71 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:39 AM on June 3, 2022 [71 favorites]
I’m a little convinced that Depp might have one of the most powerful and underhanded PR teams of all time. I made an effort not to engage with this story, but it kept getting shoved at me by the algorithm, almost always from the pro-Depp side. I couldn’t use YouTube without getting recommended some clip about “Amber Heard DESTROYED in court!” even though I never get recommendations outside of what I use YouTube for (music, and workout videos). And Netflix has been recommending films starring Depp all of a sudden since a couple weeks ago.
I can’t opine on the content of the trial since I chose not to watch or engage with it. But something feels really sinister to me here.
posted by vanitas at 8:40 AM on June 3, 2022 [117 favorites]
I can’t opine on the content of the trial since I chose not to watch or engage with it. But something feels really sinister to me here.
posted by vanitas at 8:40 AM on June 3, 2022 [117 favorites]
I just read an impassioned post on Facebook about how this trial vindicated the "not-perfect" victim of abuse, and it was shared by several other women who said that they feel that they were not perfect victims of abuse and this feels like vindication for what they went through. I don't feel like it's my place to push back, especially since I only know this article and what I've read on Metafilter.
posted by PussKillian at 8:42 AM on June 3, 2022
posted by PussKillian at 8:42 AM on June 3, 2022
More and more, I think that the rise of interest in true crime has done an immeasurable harm to society.
To be clear, I am someone who has previously been interested in the genre. I've read many books about historical cases, and I used to read various online sources / listen to podcasts / etc. But, the internet has taken all the bad aspects of the genre and amped them up to 11.
We live in a world where people will loudly proclaim what are basically conspiracy theories, based on them deciding by themselves that they are qualified to be body language experts or forensic accountants or fucking Columbo, and then being cheered on for it. And to be super blunt, when people push back on it, the idea inevitably gets trotted out that we're not allowed to say anything because traditionally it's been an interest more of women than of men, which somehow makes it immune from criticism.
Turning real-life harm into an entertainment spectacle to be gossiped over on message boards and gushed about on for-profit podcasts like it's an episode of a scripted TV show is some vile, vile shit that I wish I knew how to put back in the bottle it seeped out of.
posted by a faithful sock at 8:43 AM on June 3, 2022 [95 favorites]
To be clear, I am someone who has previously been interested in the genre. I've read many books about historical cases, and I used to read various online sources / listen to podcasts / etc. But, the internet has taken all the bad aspects of the genre and amped them up to 11.
We live in a world where people will loudly proclaim what are basically conspiracy theories, based on them deciding by themselves that they are qualified to be body language experts or forensic accountants or fucking Columbo, and then being cheered on for it. And to be super blunt, when people push back on it, the idea inevitably gets trotted out that we're not allowed to say anything because traditionally it's been an interest more of women than of men, which somehow makes it immune from criticism.
Turning real-life harm into an entertainment spectacle to be gossiped over on message boards and gushed about on for-profit podcasts like it's an episode of a scripted TV show is some vile, vile shit that I wish I knew how to put back in the bottle it seeped out of.
posted by a faithful sock at 8:43 AM on June 3, 2022 [95 favorites]
I don't care about celebrity culture so I tried to ignore this story, but it was everywhere. And everything about it screamed "that dude is shitty" even though I didn't know much about him besides his mugging for the camera in bad pirate movies.
And holy cow did that poor woman get mobbed, for literally no reason.
It amazes me how terrible people will be online to a complete stranger. What's missing in their lives that they devote so much energy to being negative? I am reading the book "The Violence Project" right now about quantitative research into mass shooters, and that pattern of spending energy on being awful seems like a depressingly close analog here.
posted by wenestvedt at 8:43 AM on June 3, 2022 [36 favorites]
And holy cow did that poor woman get mobbed, for literally no reason.
It amazes me how terrible people will be online to a complete stranger. What's missing in their lives that they devote so much energy to being negative? I am reading the book "The Violence Project" right now about quantitative research into mass shooters, and that pattern of spending energy on being awful seems like a depressingly close analog here.
posted by wenestvedt at 8:43 AM on June 3, 2022 [36 favorites]
I found it disturbing, when it began to look as if Jussie Smollett might have fabricated the attack on himself, how a large contingent of people absolutely howled for his blood. I thought, why this man? Why now? Who do other crimes not warrant this sort of public outrage? And then the same thing happens to Amber Heard. Even if they're not the same people, not the same situations, not the same victims or perpetrators, the rhetoric and behaviour are the same. The ecstasy at the outcome is the same.
All I can think is that there's a pent-up desire to target women and people of colour, and when people are given the tiniest justification, they unleash their hatred. So many people feel pent up by the lack of social license to be terrible, so they take whatever chance they get. It really shows that to whatever degree we believe we've progressed, it's just an illusion. It's all there, just under the surface, waiting for an excuse to come out.
posted by klanawa at 8:46 AM on June 3, 2022 [43 favorites]
All I can think is that there's a pent-up desire to target women and people of colour, and when people are given the tiniest justification, they unleash their hatred. So many people feel pent up by the lack of social license to be terrible, so they take whatever chance they get. It really shows that to whatever degree we believe we've progressed, it's just an illusion. It's all there, just under the surface, waiting for an excuse to come out.
posted by klanawa at 8:46 AM on June 3, 2022 [43 favorites]
I just read an impassioned post on Facebook about how this trial vindicated the "not-perfect" victim of abuse
I realize this is not the argument you are making, but even so, let's just state it plainly that the "not-perfect" victim of abuse was dragged into court by her abuser against her will, pilloried in the international media, made the subject of a million nasty memes and viral videos and even hateful public murals, made the victim of a wildly inconsistent jury ruling, and ordered to pay her wealthy abuser a net of nearly $9 million dollars.
She authored an op-ed about how public sentiment had made her a target after she'd been abused, had that abuse documented and assessed as true by one court, only to be dragged into another, and, somehow, found to have been lying when she said she was abused, but it was also found that it was defamatory to say she had faked the abuse. Because public sentiment was against her.
Grim.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:57 AM on June 3, 2022 [54 favorites]
I realize this is not the argument you are making, but even so, let's just state it plainly that the "not-perfect" victim of abuse was dragged into court by her abuser against her will, pilloried in the international media, made the subject of a million nasty memes and viral videos and even hateful public murals, made the victim of a wildly inconsistent jury ruling, and ordered to pay her wealthy abuser a net of nearly $9 million dollars.
She authored an op-ed about how public sentiment had made her a target after she'd been abused, had that abuse documented and assessed as true by one court, only to be dragged into another, and, somehow, found to have been lying when she said she was abused, but it was also found that it was defamatory to say she had faked the abuse. Because public sentiment was against her.
Grim.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:57 AM on June 3, 2022 [54 favorites]
Even more grim is the person who wrote the impassioned post claimed to be a (former, I think) domestic violence counselor.
posted by PussKillian at 9:02 AM on June 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by PussKillian at 9:02 AM on June 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
The thing that has struck me about the anti-Heard memes and tiktoks that bubbled up into my stream is that few of them even made sense. They would present some out-of-context clip from the trial with some vague joke that seemed to be about lying and/or incompetence (though it was sometimes hard to even decipher the punchline) and...that's it. These zero-quality playground taunts were obviously very popular, as the algorithm pushed them to people like me who weren't invested in the trial at all.
posted by anhedonic at 9:09 AM on June 3, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by anhedonic at 9:09 AM on June 3, 2022 [8 favorites]
I was a little surprised when my 21-year-old daughter said she thougt Amber Heard was a lying sack of shit, but then I remembered that her entire exposure to information comes from social media.
posted by briank at 9:09 AM on June 3, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by briank at 9:09 AM on June 3, 2022 [12 favorites]
Between Paul McCartney showing support for Johnny Depp during this trial and Ringo pimping NFT scams I'm starting to understand why the younger generations don't have a lot of time for The Beatles.
They used to say "All you need is love" but at some point it seems that changed into "All you need is money".
posted by Lanark at 9:10 AM on June 3, 2022 [18 favorites]
They used to say "All you need is love" but at some point it seems that changed into "All you need is money".
posted by Lanark at 9:10 AM on June 3, 2022 [18 favorites]
I just don't understand — not sure I want to understand — what could drive someone to so passionately defend a person like Depp who has had such a long, open history of drug abuse and misbehavior.
Like, sure, he's a talented actor. But that has nothing to do with whether he is a terrible boyfriend. And he's been so publicly a terrible person.
I've tried hard to avoid all of this, getting sucked in a couple times. But I don't care what Heard did or didn't do -- it just seems pretty obvious that the older guy with a history of drunken behavior who openly talks about anger issues, might, you know, be like almost every other drunk guy with anger issues.
posted by heyitsgogi at 9:13 AM on June 3, 2022 [37 favorites]
Like, sure, he's a talented actor. But that has nothing to do with whether he is a terrible boyfriend. And he's been so publicly a terrible person.
I've tried hard to avoid all of this, getting sucked in a couple times. But I don't care what Heard did or didn't do -- it just seems pretty obvious that the older guy with a history of drunken behavior who openly talks about anger issues, might, you know, be like almost every other drunk guy with anger issues.
posted by heyitsgogi at 9:13 AM on June 3, 2022 [37 favorites]
Amanda Hess wrote about the social media phenomena around the trial and had a similar read on it too.
TikTok’s Amber Heard Hate Machine (SLNYT)
posted by FJT at 9:19 AM on June 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
TikTok’s Amber Heard Hate Machine (SLNYT)
posted by FJT at 9:19 AM on June 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
personal opinions aside, the question as to what is happening, exactly, seems urgent
the villain who pours some kind of toxin or mutant potion into the city's water supply is effectively the story here: social media is one enormous firehose of powerful, mind-altering content.
once we drill past the layers of (horrifically) predictable misogyny and general shitty behaviour, we find a grand experiment shaping our attitudes and behaviours. sure we can anticipate where this all ends, but the horror show is happening around us constantly, we are in the show, and I wouldn't venture a guess as to how this plays out. more and more, I can't see how we correct this downward plummet. this is no novel observation, it's practically a staple of weekly MeFi for starters. lovely, isn't it
posted by elkevelvet at 9:21 AM on June 3, 2022 [25 favorites]
the villain who pours some kind of toxin or mutant potion into the city's water supply is effectively the story here: social media is one enormous firehose of powerful, mind-altering content.
once we drill past the layers of (horrifically) predictable misogyny and general shitty behaviour, we find a grand experiment shaping our attitudes and behaviours. sure we can anticipate where this all ends, but the horror show is happening around us constantly, we are in the show, and I wouldn't venture a guess as to how this plays out. more and more, I can't see how we correct this downward plummet. this is no novel observation, it's practically a staple of weekly MeFi for starters. lovely, isn't it
posted by elkevelvet at 9:21 AM on June 3, 2022 [25 favorites]
what could drive someone to so passionately defend a person like Depp who has had such a long, open history of drug abuse and misbehavior
I think it's at least partly the Bill Gates phenomenon. A lot of people online now don't remember when Gates was the most hated man in the English-speaking world or when Depp was just another starlet heading to an early grave, because they weren't born yet.
All those kids are bathed in Gates' and Depps' reputation-sanitization propaganda, but they don't have a memory of the before times.
posted by klanawa at 9:23 AM on June 3, 2022 [16 favorites]
I think it's at least partly the Bill Gates phenomenon. A lot of people online now don't remember when Gates was the most hated man in the English-speaking world or when Depp was just another starlet heading to an early grave, because they weren't born yet.
All those kids are bathed in Gates' and Depps' reputation-sanitization propaganda, but they don't have a memory of the before times.
posted by klanawa at 9:23 AM on June 3, 2022 [16 favorites]
the before times.
Speaking of those, I still blame him for River Phoenix. No matter how many Tim Burton cutiepie soft pitches he hit, I still can't stand him. All the pirate eyeliner in the world can't redeem that tool.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:24 AM on June 3, 2022 [33 favorites]
Speaking of those, I still blame him for River Phoenix. No matter how many Tim Burton cutiepie soft pitches he hit, I still can't stand him. All the pirate eyeliner in the world can't redeem that tool.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:24 AM on June 3, 2022 [33 favorites]
Between Paul McCartney showing support for Johnny Depp during this trial and Ringo pimping NFT scams I'm starting to understand why the younger generations don't have a lot of time for The Beatles.
As Mark Steel said, "They're dying in the wrong order."
(not to say that John and George were massive prizes in their personal lives, especially in a thread about abuse)
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 9:25 AM on June 3, 2022 [11 favorites]
As Mark Steel said, "They're dying in the wrong order."
(not to say that John and George were massive prizes in their personal lives, especially in a thread about abuse)
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 9:25 AM on June 3, 2022 [11 favorites]
Depp's team seems to have successfully pulled off one the largest-scale DARVO operations -- specifically the RVO part -- I've ever seen. It's fucking infuriating.
posted by mhum at 9:26 AM on June 3, 2022 [58 favorites]
posted by mhum at 9:26 AM on June 3, 2022 [58 favorites]
Between Paul McCartney showing support for Johnny Depp during this trial and Ringo pimping NFT scams I'm starting to understand why the younger generations don't have a lot of time for The Beatles.I'm not going to defend Paul here, but from what I understand, the "support" he showed was including a video he made for a song he recorded ~15 years ago in his stage show, that features a few other public figures (most notably Natalie Portman)and that he's played on other tours. He should remove it, in light of current events, but I don't see it as the grand show of support others do. YMMV, obviously.
posted by pxe2000 at 9:27 AM on June 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
I'm trying to imagine the two pics of Drake meme that gets somebody to supporting Depp:
-older alcoholic with history of assault charges hits his wife? (finger wag)
-mean lady with nothing to gain launches elaborate defamation campaign? (that's the one!)
It's fucking nonsensical.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:30 AM on June 3, 2022 [19 favorites]
-older alcoholic with history of assault charges hits his wife? (finger wag)
-mean lady with nothing to gain launches elaborate defamation campaign? (that's the one!)
It's fucking nonsensical.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:30 AM on June 3, 2022 [19 favorites]
Like, sure, he's a talented actor.
I'm not sure. Not sure at all. Seriously, what has Depp done apart from look good with cutlery on his fingers, look good while acting like a violent drug addled prick (on only one occasion a bald prick who at least had some talent to piss away) and look good while doing an Eddie Izzard impression he thinks sounds like Keith Richards?
Depp looks astonishingly good on film, and that can make him a compelling presence, but is hard to think of an actor of comparable success whose performance history contributes so little to the cinematic canon. Depp's "talent" is, I think, simply a natural cinematic charisma that lets him get away with being an entirely unconvincing actor, and which makes him useful to cast in the series of gimmick roles that define his career.
He's also a wifebeater. Fucking sue me you hack.
posted by howfar at 9:36 AM on June 3, 2022 [65 favorites]
I'm not sure. Not sure at all. Seriously, what has Depp done apart from look good with cutlery on his fingers, look good while acting like a violent drug addled prick (on only one occasion a bald prick who at least had some talent to piss away) and look good while doing an Eddie Izzard impression he thinks sounds like Keith Richards?
Depp looks astonishingly good on film, and that can make him a compelling presence, but is hard to think of an actor of comparable success whose performance history contributes so little to the cinematic canon. Depp's "talent" is, I think, simply a natural cinematic charisma that lets him get away with being an entirely unconvincing actor, and which makes him useful to cast in the series of gimmick roles that define his career.
He's also a wifebeater. Fucking sue me you hack.
posted by howfar at 9:36 AM on June 3, 2022 [65 favorites]
Thanks for making a new post for this article. I hadn’t gotten around to clicking on it in past threads, but it is a very good read.
posted by eviemath at 9:47 AM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by eviemath at 9:47 AM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
the coverage of this trial on the World Socialist Website was probably one of the worst takes I've ever read, and of course authored by an older, established white male who had a stake in it after it came out that one of late subjects of his books was openly accused of sexual harassment
if anything, this continuing reactionary pushback against basic forms of accountability, like the larger decrying of 'cancel culture' denying powerful people from having broad access to the public by which they can air their terrible takes, is a good watershed moment for some of us who were always unsure of just how reliable some of our darlings were
posted by paimapi at 9:48 AM on June 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
if anything, this continuing reactionary pushback against basic forms of accountability, like the larger decrying of 'cancel culture' denying powerful people from having broad access to the public by which they can air their terrible takes, is a good watershed moment for some of us who were always unsure of just how reliable some of our darlings were
posted by paimapi at 9:48 AM on June 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
The number of otherwise feminist women in my Facebook feed (people who I know or knew in real life!) who have been convinced that Heard made everything up is not zero, and I don't enjoy that one bit.
What is there even to say beyond "no, the idea that Amber Heard spent a decade ensnaring poor wee Johnny Depp in a web of lies is so implausible that, actually, I feel quite confident in my opinion without having to watch 7 weeks of a defamation trial"?
Imagine being excited that your favorite actor was "vindicated" of assault claims, just before he is due in court on separate, different assault claims.
Oh, see, it's just more proof that terrible people want to take down the poor man by any means possible, obviously. Every accusation is just more evidence of his persecution. Every single claim against the guy has been carefully slotted in to an superstructure that explains why he has never done anything wrong, or at least never anything really wrong, and anything he did do wrong was just a manifestation of his personal demons.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:49 AM on June 3, 2022 [15 favorites]
What is there even to say beyond "no, the idea that Amber Heard spent a decade ensnaring poor wee Johnny Depp in a web of lies is so implausible that, actually, I feel quite confident in my opinion without having to watch 7 weeks of a defamation trial"?
Imagine being excited that your favorite actor was "vindicated" of assault claims, just before he is due in court on separate, different assault claims.
Oh, see, it's just more proof that terrible people want to take down the poor man by any means possible, obviously. Every accusation is just more evidence of his persecution. Every single claim against the guy has been carefully slotted in to an superstructure that explains why he has never done anything wrong, or at least never anything really wrong, and anything he did do wrong was just a manifestation of his personal demons.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:49 AM on June 3, 2022 [15 favorites]
The feminism-inflected pro-Depp take on this just compounds it: they hate Heard because she is "damaging real victims" and Depp is bravely standing up for male victims of abuse. They have a truly infinite well of compassion for him and an infinite well of contempt for her. He did something bad? Oh, well, poor Johnny, he's a drug addict and we should forgive him. He was probably acting out due to being surrounded by bad people who were taking advantage of him.
She did something bad? Just more evidence that she's a lying, conniving schemer who is damaging Real Victims. She did drugs? Well, she's a hypocrite. And so on. It's one of those self-reinforcing, hermetically-sealed mini-ideologies, like a very small qanon.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:56 AM on June 3, 2022 [26 favorites]
She did something bad? Just more evidence that she's a lying, conniving schemer who is damaging Real Victims. She did drugs? Well, she's a hypocrite. And so on. It's one of those self-reinforcing, hermetically-sealed mini-ideologies, like a very small qanon.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:56 AM on June 3, 2022 [26 favorites]
The Largest Explosion of Online Misogyny Since Gamergate
Like the World Wars, it's really just one long event.
posted by jquinby at 9:59 AM on June 3, 2022 [37 favorites]
Like the World Wars, it's really just one long event.
posted by jquinby at 9:59 AM on June 3, 2022 [37 favorites]
Maybe they are both toxic and abusive assholes?
posted by Meatbomb at 10:03 AM on June 3, 2022 [15 favorites]
posted by Meatbomb at 10:03 AM on June 3, 2022 [15 favorites]
There is definitely a subset of ostensible feminists who are perfectly happy to throw the occasional woman to the wolves as proof of their evenhandedness.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:04 AM on June 3, 2022 [16 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:04 AM on June 3, 2022 [16 favorites]
Maybe they are both toxic and abusive assholes?
Even if true, it's irrelevant. The trial was about whether the statement that Depp was abusive was defamatory. If they're both "toxic and abusive assholes," that's an affirmative defense.
posted by explosion at 10:07 AM on June 3, 2022 [81 favorites]
Even if true, it's irrelevant. The trial was about whether the statement that Depp was abusive was defamatory. If they're both "toxic and abusive assholes," that's an affirmative defense.
posted by explosion at 10:07 AM on June 3, 2022 [81 favorites]
Maybe they are both toxic and abusive assholes?
Then she didn't lie in the op-ed and the jury got it wrong.
The jury's ruling was literally that Depp was not an abuser, because that's the only way the op-ed could be defamatory.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:09 AM on June 3, 2022 [38 favorites]
Then she didn't lie in the op-ed and the jury got it wrong.
The jury's ruling was literally that Depp was not an abuser, because that's the only way the op-ed could be defamatory.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:09 AM on June 3, 2022 [38 favorites]
Meatbomb, the case wasn't about who we like better or which person we anoint the hero and which we anoint the villain. It was about whether Amber Heard was defaming Depp by saying she had been abused. She has timestamped photos of injuries of black eyes, bruised cheeks, and missing chunks of hair, sworn testimony from friends and therapists that she spoke of this contemporaneously, witnesses who saw him kick her to the ground, text messages from Depp apologizing for hitting her, etc. When that substantial evidence is ignored because "maybe they're both just assholes" it creates a standard whereby women who come off as less likable can not only fail to bring abusers to justice, but can be sued for defamation for even bringing the matter up in public.
It's fucking gross.
I don't give a shit if she was the biggest fucking asshole in the world. She wasn't lying when she said he beat her. The case was supposed to be about that, not just pick one, both, or neither of these people as your "team."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:09 AM on June 3, 2022 [146 favorites]
It's fucking gross.
I don't give a shit if she was the biggest fucking asshole in the world. She wasn't lying when she said he beat her. The case was supposed to be about that, not just pick one, both, or neither of these people as your "team."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:09 AM on June 3, 2022 [146 favorites]
Maybe they are both toxic and abusive assholes?
That's not the Depp theory of the case. The pro-Depp theory is that she was Gone Girling him. It's the only theory that would vindicate him at trial, because the alternative- that he abused her at all- would cause him to lose. Heard's behavior was not actually on trial, even if his lawyers managed to turn it into that.
posted by BungaDunga at 10:10 AM on June 3, 2022 [13 favorites]
That's not the Depp theory of the case. The pro-Depp theory is that she was Gone Girling him. It's the only theory that would vindicate him at trial, because the alternative- that he abused her at all- would cause him to lose. Heard's behavior was not actually on trial, even if his lawyers managed to turn it into that.
posted by BungaDunga at 10:10 AM on June 3, 2022 [13 favorites]
What's missing in their lives that they devote so much energy to being negative?
People love to hate a villain, and even moreso they love to hate one as a group. Look back at the early seasons of Game of Thrones -- group hating Joffrey in particular was like half of what people were into the show for.
Unfortunately, a lot of people are totally fine with casting real-life people as villains for this purpose, when they don't have a fictional one to bond over. See again my comment about true crime -- in the absence of a fictional fandom to dig into, people are turning real lives into their entertainment spectacle, like it's the latest series to drop on Netflix.
posted by a faithful sock at 10:10 AM on June 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
People love to hate a villain, and even moreso they love to hate one as a group. Look back at the early seasons of Game of Thrones -- group hating Joffrey in particular was like half of what people were into the show for.
Unfortunately, a lot of people are totally fine with casting real-life people as villains for this purpose, when they don't have a fictional one to bond over. See again my comment about true crime -- in the absence of a fictional fandom to dig into, people are turning real lives into their entertainment spectacle, like it's the latest series to drop on Netflix.
posted by a faithful sock at 10:10 AM on June 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
He's also a wifebeater. Fucking sue me you hack.
Which brings up another point - the fact that the op-ed was published in the Washington Post was so important that it was the pretext to sue in SLAPP-happy Virginia - and yet he oddly enough didn't sue the paper.
I wonder why that is.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:12 AM on June 3, 2022 [62 favorites]
Which brings up another point - the fact that the op-ed was published in the Washington Post was so important that it was the pretext to sue in SLAPP-happy Virginia - and yet he oddly enough didn't sue the paper.
I wonder why that is.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:12 AM on June 3, 2022 [62 favorites]
People really do just hate women and enjoy punishing them. Including, tragically, other women. I keep waiting for this to stop breaking my heart, especially after spending the last few weeks deliberately avoiding this mess because I just couldn't after the Supreme Court leak, but it has not and probably will not. And it fucking sucks.
posted by thivaia at 10:13 AM on June 3, 2022 [35 favorites]
posted by thivaia at 10:13 AM on June 3, 2022 [35 favorites]
I made off handed jokes about them but I really regret it. I was never famous but was with people who were and was treated like royalty. Realizing people only like you for money or connections is worse than any drug and hard to explain to people that haven't experienced it. I don't wish this on Amber Heard or Johnny Depp, it is a really hard spiral to get out of.
I hope they do okay,
posted by geoff. at 10:14 AM on June 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
I hope they do okay,
posted by geoff. at 10:14 AM on June 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
Like, sure, he's a talented actor.
I'm not sure. Not sure at all.
I think his best acting was during this trial. The very slow speech, the constant looking down, almost never making eye contact with a camera, all carefully designed to portray himself as the poor downtrodden victim.
posted by Lanark at 10:15 AM on June 3, 2022 [15 favorites]
I'm not sure. Not sure at all.
I think his best acting was during this trial. The very slow speech, the constant looking down, almost never making eye contact with a camera, all carefully designed to portray himself as the poor downtrodden victim.
posted by Lanark at 10:15 AM on June 3, 2022 [15 favorites]
I have a very weird mix of content coming into my LinkedIn feed, in part because my career has taken me from interacting with very blue collar and very white collar professions and everything in between. I state that as a preface in order to note that I do have a lot of lawyers and law-related content popping up even though I'm not in the legal profession myself.
This morning the first post that greeted me on my LinkedIn feed was that was from Depp's law firm. It showed his legal team (the kind of diverse mix of people you'd find in a stock photo, and since I haven't followed the trial I have no idea if they were the people who represented him in court or if they were just part of the firm itself) and some very braggy text. It was something to the effect of "we just won Depp a huge pile of cash in a major lawsuit" -- you get the picture. I think it was set against a colourful background.
As I said, I see a lot of legal posts. I've never seen one like that.
I don't know if it was something that LI decided to show me or if it was something one of my LI contacts reposted. I was so offended I just flipped by it as quickly as I could.
posted by sardonyx at 10:16 AM on June 3, 2022 [8 favorites]
This morning the first post that greeted me on my LinkedIn feed was that was from Depp's law firm. It showed his legal team (the kind of diverse mix of people you'd find in a stock photo, and since I haven't followed the trial I have no idea if they were the people who represented him in court or if they were just part of the firm itself) and some very braggy text. It was something to the effect of "we just won Depp a huge pile of cash in a major lawsuit" -- you get the picture. I think it was set against a colourful background.
As I said, I see a lot of legal posts. I've never seen one like that.
I don't know if it was something that LI decided to show me or if it was something one of my LI contacts reposted. I was so offended I just flipped by it as quickly as I could.
posted by sardonyx at 10:16 AM on June 3, 2022 [8 favorites]
The gamergate comparison is very apt. Not just driven primarily by misogyny, but useful as a tool to recruit young men into the alt-right (see previous thread about how Ben Shapiro's PR company paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote pro-Depp articles on Facebook).
Also, similarly to Gamergate, they use a combination of artificially boosting all the pro-Depp articles via bot (as reported by twitter's botsentinnal) and viciously harassing the opposition so that no one wants to risk saying anything online because it's just not worth the headache (as reported by The Guardian).
And finally, again similar to Gamergate, no one pays attention because it's "just" celebrity gossip, it's "just" videogames. It's not serious, it's not politics, right?
And while no one pays attention, the next generation is slowly poisoned into repeating MRA talking points while thinking they are being good progressives, good feminists. Anyone who doesn't fall in line with the artificially boosted consensus opinion is attacked by their own peers online and ostracized, doing the paid trolls work for them. In tumblr fandom this looks like "Amber Heard fans do not interact" and being immediately blocked and unfollowed if you say anything in support. On other platforms it probably looks different.
posted by subdee at 10:41 AM on June 3, 2022 [44 favorites]
Also, similarly to Gamergate, they use a combination of artificially boosting all the pro-Depp articles via bot (as reported by twitter's botsentinnal) and viciously harassing the opposition so that no one wants to risk saying anything online because it's just not worth the headache (as reported by The Guardian).
And finally, again similar to Gamergate, no one pays attention because it's "just" celebrity gossip, it's "just" videogames. It's not serious, it's not politics, right?
And while no one pays attention, the next generation is slowly poisoned into repeating MRA talking points while thinking they are being good progressives, good feminists. Anyone who doesn't fall in line with the artificially boosted consensus opinion is attacked by their own peers online and ostracized, doing the paid trolls work for them. In tumblr fandom this looks like "Amber Heard fans do not interact" and being immediately blocked and unfollowed if you say anything in support. On other platforms it probably looks different.
posted by subdee at 10:41 AM on June 3, 2022 [44 favorites]
Defund Hollywood.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:43 AM on June 3, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:43 AM on June 3, 2022 [12 favorites]
It's intuitive to me that if you cherry pick a truth and say so in public then that could still be a harm to another person. Lots of awful things humans do are lies by omission. Defamation can certainly work through manipulation of truth, not outright falsehood. This isn't some subtle point to me, it's immediately obvious to my intuitions of social fairness.
I think what this article really demonstrates is that regular people, i.e. myself, are not equipped to research and find out what actually happened. The author is making the same fundamental mistake as the other side, a cognitive closure problem. Every seems to think this rests on what the "evidence" is, but the way people so casually use the concept of evidence is so alien to me. There is very little compelling evidence, meta evidence such as "mountain of evidence", or "the UK trial itself is a piece of evidence" is even less compelling, and what exhibits are claimed as evidence by Depp and Heard are confusing and hard to make sense of.
The mistake is thinking in terms of evidence. Because I actually think at the end of the day it's fine to write a tell-all and publicly complain about someone. I don't know, is that libel or defamation? What I see is a moral and social issue that has nothing to do with having evidence, or proof, legal or scientific, to needed substantiate one's complaints. It's the freedom to speak.
posted by polymodus at 10:54 AM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
I think what this article really demonstrates is that regular people, i.e. myself, are not equipped to research and find out what actually happened. The author is making the same fundamental mistake as the other side, a cognitive closure problem. Every seems to think this rests on what the "evidence" is, but the way people so casually use the concept of evidence is so alien to me. There is very little compelling evidence, meta evidence such as "mountain of evidence", or "the UK trial itself is a piece of evidence" is even less compelling, and what exhibits are claimed as evidence by Depp and Heard are confusing and hard to make sense of.
The mistake is thinking in terms of evidence. Because I actually think at the end of the day it's fine to write a tell-all and publicly complain about someone. I don't know, is that libel or defamation? What I see is a moral and social issue that has nothing to do with having evidence, or proof, legal or scientific, to needed substantiate one's complaints. It's the freedom to speak.
posted by polymodus at 10:54 AM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
It's intuitive to me that if you cherry pick a truth and say so in public then that could still be a harm to another person. Lots of awful things humans do are lies by omission.
What lie of omission did Amber Heard commit by publicly saying that she was a victim of domestic abuse? You want to say that she's "cherry picking" the truth, then show me the receipts.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:59 AM on June 3, 2022 [28 favorites]
What lie of omission did Amber Heard commit by publicly saying that she was a victim of domestic abuse? You want to say that she's "cherry picking" the truth, then show me the receipts.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:59 AM on June 3, 2022 [28 favorites]
I think the article is correct that a jury trial (primary) and lack of sequestering (far secondary) are the primary issues. We have a solid half-dozen public trials in the US now where people have done worse (Rittenhouse, OJ, Trayvon Martin), but secondary to the 'evidence' is the average jury-members sense of fairness, who they personally prefer and relate to, and what world they want to live if the same theoretical event happened to them matters far more.
That Johnny Depp's legal team understand that well, and possibly salted the earth against Heard is not a surprise.
What can we do about it? Probably not much.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:04 AM on June 3, 2022 [7 favorites]
That Johnny Depp's legal team understand that well, and possibly salted the earth against Heard is not a surprise.
What can we do about it? Probably not much.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:04 AM on June 3, 2022 [7 favorites]
I'm certainly not surprised by the MeFi consensus, and there's nothing that can justify the social media outrage and accompanying misogyny, which is all horrific, but having watched almost 100% of the trial (albeit at 2x speed), I think the media consensus that it's clear Depp was a physical abuser and that this is a clear setback for victims is not warranted given trial evidence. I think many articles have dismissed out of hand the possibility that he was the victim of physical abuse in a way that seems really concerning. I also think, whatever else we want to add into this case, from the perspective of the jury, it did not help that Heard lied, repeatedly, on the stand, in ways that were demonstrated during the trial.
posted by hank_14 at 11:07 AM on June 3, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by hank_14 at 11:07 AM on June 3, 2022 [9 favorites]
I think many articles have dismissed out of hand the possibility that he was the victim of physical abuse in a way that seems really concerning.
Whether Heard abused Depp is completely irrelevant to whether she defamed him by saying she was abused by him. If he abused her, then she did not defame him, regardless of whatever she may or may not have done to him.
posted by Gelatin at 11:11 AM on June 3, 2022 [51 favorites]
Whether Heard abused Depp is completely irrelevant to whether she defamed him by saying she was abused by him. If he abused her, then she did not defame him, regardless of whatever she may or may not have done to him.
posted by Gelatin at 11:11 AM on June 3, 2022 [51 favorites]
(Defector has a take: The Bigger Celebrity Wins)
posted by box at 11:12 AM on June 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by box at 11:12 AM on June 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
It's largely irrelevant to the defamation case, Gelatin, not entirely. The question is whether the statements in the op-ed would be true (she saw people rally around him because of her accusation - rather than his being a victim - for example) if her being a potential abuser had been part of the narrative that made her the face of domestic abuse two years prior to the op-ed. That said, the OP linked article isn't talking about just the defamation, it's talking about the larger cultural narrative. In that, the status of Depp as a potential victim within that narrative seems far more relevant.
posted by hank_14 at 11:17 AM on June 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by hank_14 at 11:17 AM on June 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
I made an effort not to engage with this story, but it kept getting shoved at me by the algorithm
Same. The whole thing is awful but I keep seeing it everywhere online, including here. I'm really uncomfortable with the massive effort to rehab Depp's image (and get the $$$ flowing again) by Wicker-manning Amber Heard.
The strangest part personally is two close friends of mine, both women, who I see nearly every day becoming obsessed with this trial and HATING Amber Heard with a passion I haven't seen in them ever before. It's sort of terrifying and one word towards "well, Johnny is no angel either", or "the misogyny online is appalling" is met with fury. Has anyone else experienced this? It's another reason I avoid this trial but I wanted to post here and see if anyone else has run into this phenomenon in real life.
posted by chaz at 11:22 AM on June 3, 2022 [24 favorites]
Same. The whole thing is awful but I keep seeing it everywhere online, including here. I'm really uncomfortable with the massive effort to rehab Depp's image (and get the $$$ flowing again) by Wicker-manning Amber Heard.
The strangest part personally is two close friends of mine, both women, who I see nearly every day becoming obsessed with this trial and HATING Amber Heard with a passion I haven't seen in them ever before. It's sort of terrifying and one word towards "well, Johnny is no angel either", or "the misogyny online is appalling" is met with fury. Has anyone else experienced this? It's another reason I avoid this trial but I wanted to post here and see if anyone else has run into this phenomenon in real life.
posted by chaz at 11:22 AM on June 3, 2022 [24 favorites]
I browse the front page of reddit without being logged in, so I get an unfiltered feed. It was suddenly filled up withmemes mocking Heard, her team and everything about her. There was a particularly nasty tendency to, literally, associate her name with shit. But what was really noticeable was the ridiculous triviality of the mockery, sthg like: Oh look at AH's useless lawyer, they blinked/stammered/were ugly, how could they be so stupid. Also, there were outrageous and ridiculous lies - all you had to do was look at what was being referred to, even just scrutinise the clip featured in the meme, and the lack of any type of factual basis for claims asserted was obvious.
So I began to compulsively read the only sub that isn't pro-Depp (which is now members only) and as a result became exposed to some of the evidence. After all there has already been a defamation trial in the UK and the procedure, the evidence, the findings, are publicly available. And... this case is even more horrendous and disgusting than I could have imagined. Amber Heard is a hero, she is an unbelievably strong, kind and intelligent woman, and what she was put through at the hands of Depp and his entourage could easily have killed her.
I also cannot understand what she did that was so unacceptable that there's a general consensus that she herself is a horrible person/flawed victim. I don't understand it at all.
It's so unsettling. I feel as if I've seen a rabid mob carry out a brutal femicide.
posted by glasseyes at 11:22 AM on June 3, 2022 [37 favorites]
So I began to compulsively read the only sub that isn't pro-Depp (which is now members only) and as a result became exposed to some of the evidence. After all there has already been a defamation trial in the UK and the procedure, the evidence, the findings, are publicly available. And... this case is even more horrendous and disgusting than I could have imagined. Amber Heard is a hero, she is an unbelievably strong, kind and intelligent woman, and what she was put through at the hands of Depp and his entourage could easily have killed her.
I also cannot understand what she did that was so unacceptable that there's a general consensus that she herself is a horrible person/flawed victim. I don't understand it at all.
It's so unsettling. I feel as if I've seen a rabid mob carry out a brutal femicide.
posted by glasseyes at 11:22 AM on June 3, 2022 [37 favorites]
After all there has already been a defamation trial in the UK and the procedure, the evidence, the findings, are publicly available.
It's much easier to prove defamation to an English court, but that court ruled against Depp.
posted by Gelatin at 11:25 AM on June 3, 2022 [16 favorites]
It's much easier to prove defamation to an English court, but that court ruled against Depp.
posted by Gelatin at 11:25 AM on June 3, 2022 [16 favorites]
What lie of omission did Amber Heard commit by publicly saying that she was a victim of domestic abuse? You want to say that she's "cherry picking" the truth, then show me the receipts.
How would I know? I'm not an armchair detective, unlike some online people, so I'm willing to say I don't know what actually happened. I'm pointing out that the standard response to the type of reasoning offered by Meatbomb's hypothetical is also incorrect in general. A couple of commenters used incorrect general reasoning to deny Meatbomb's point.
And then I said all this stuff, this article included, is beside the point. And that's my main problem with the unradicalness of the existing discourse: I think that in a progressive world, people generally ought to be able to make public accusations using weak evidence. You don't need to cede the framing to rightwing oppressors by arguing the evidence with them.
posted by polymodus at 11:25 AM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
How would I know? I'm not an armchair detective, unlike some online people, so I'm willing to say I don't know what actually happened. I'm pointing out that the standard response to the type of reasoning offered by Meatbomb's hypothetical is also incorrect in general. A couple of commenters used incorrect general reasoning to deny Meatbomb's point.
And then I said all this stuff, this article included, is beside the point. And that's my main problem with the unradicalness of the existing discourse: I think that in a progressive world, people generally ought to be able to make public accusations using weak evidence. You don't need to cede the framing to rightwing oppressors by arguing the evidence with them.
posted by polymodus at 11:25 AM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
worth noting that even in this trial the jury believed that Depp abused Heard.
Jury finds Adam Waldman defamed Amber Heard. Waldman is Depp’s attorney and called her abuse claims a hoax. Damages total awarded $2 million.
and despite that the shitshow came down on her and he is considered the winner [because, of course, of the campaign].
posted by chavenet at 11:27 AM on June 3, 2022 [10 favorites]
Jury finds Adam Waldman defamed Amber Heard. Waldman is Depp’s attorney and called her abuse claims a hoax. Damages total awarded $2 million.
and despite that the shitshow came down on her and he is considered the winner [because, of course, of the campaign].
posted by chavenet at 11:27 AM on June 3, 2022 [10 favorites]
In that, the status of Depp as a potential victim within that narrative seems far more relevant.
Alright, I'll bite. You want me to buy that Johnny Depp is a victim.
A man who has a long, well documented history of violence and abuse. Who is currently facing a lawsuit that he violently attacked the location manager for City of Lies on set, then offered him $100k to take a swing back (gee, I wonder why he made that offer?)
A man who has had several other intimate partners note his abusive, controlling personality.
A man whose communications routinely show abusive language.
He's supposed to be a victim? Sorry, not buying it.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:28 AM on June 3, 2022 [33 favorites]
Alright, I'll bite. You want me to buy that Johnny Depp is a victim.
A man who has a long, well documented history of violence and abuse. Who is currently facing a lawsuit that he violently attacked the location manager for City of Lies on set, then offered him $100k to take a swing back (gee, I wonder why he made that offer?)
A man who has had several other intimate partners note his abusive, controlling personality.
A man whose communications routinely show abusive language.
He's supposed to be a victim? Sorry, not buying it.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:28 AM on June 3, 2022 [33 favorites]
became exposed to some of the evidence. I should have specified, evidence from the UK trial
posted by glasseyes at 11:29 AM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by glasseyes at 11:29 AM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
Again, I'm not trying to be polemical, but that's not what they found, chavenet. They found the specific accusation that Amber and friends coordinated with a lawyer and publicist to mess up the apartment and call 911 twice wasn't true. The two other hoax statements (sexual violence, and physical abuse) they did not find defamatory.
posted by hank_14 at 11:30 AM on June 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by hank_14 at 11:30 AM on June 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
A thread detailing Johnny’s depp history of violence and abuse over the past 3 decades.
posted by Lanark at 11:31 AM on June 3, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by Lanark at 11:31 AM on June 3, 2022 [11 favorites]
Just so I understand, Nox and Lanark, is the argument that if he has a history of violence and abuse, he cannot himself ever be a victim of it?
posted by hank_14 at 11:32 AM on June 3, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by hank_14 at 11:32 AM on June 3, 2022 [6 favorites]
I also think, whatever else we want to add into this case, from the perspective of the jury, it did not help that Heard lied, repeatedly, on the stand, in ways that were demonstrated during the trial.
Hey, can you point out some of the lies? I've heard this line repeated almost verbatim by so many people and have yet to actually hear one of the lies. I feel like if there's so many, it shouldn't be hard to cite one and yet people seem to always make this statement in exactly this form.
If there are so many lies, I'm just confused why all the weird TikToks seem to be focusing on unhinged conspiracy theories about her snorting coke on the stand.
posted by armadillo1224 at 11:38 AM on June 3, 2022 [35 favorites]
Hey, can you point out some of the lies? I've heard this line repeated almost verbatim by so many people and have yet to actually hear one of the lies. I feel like if there's so many, it shouldn't be hard to cite one and yet people seem to always make this statement in exactly this form.
If there are so many lies, I'm just confused why all the weird TikToks seem to be focusing on unhinged conspiracy theories about her snorting coke on the stand.
posted by armadillo1224 at 11:38 AM on June 3, 2022 [35 favorites]
I won't post in this thread again. But I'm pleased to have had the opportunity to state somewhere, that woman is a hero.
And also from the UK trial, it appears that the caliber of the people around Depp, his entourage, is such that it's clear that nobody with any self-respect can bear to stick around him.
posted by glasseyes at 11:38 AM on June 3, 2022 [15 favorites]
And also from the UK trial, it appears that the caliber of the people around Depp, his entourage, is such that it's clear that nobody with any self-respect can bear to stick around him.
posted by glasseyes at 11:38 AM on June 3, 2022 [15 favorites]
Just so I understand, Nox and Lanark, is the argument that if he has a history of violence and abuse, he cannot himself ever be a victim of it?
No, the argument is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This is a man who has throughout his life used abuse and violence to impose his will on the people around him. If you want to claim that he's a victim (and to head off the predictable point, being on the receiving end of retaliatory violence from one's victims does not make someone a victim,) then I want to see receipts.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:41 AM on June 3, 2022 [29 favorites]
No, the argument is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This is a man who has throughout his life used abuse and violence to impose his will on the people around him. If you want to claim that he's a victim (and to head off the predictable point, being on the receiving end of retaliatory violence from one's victims does not make someone a victim,) then I want to see receipts.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:41 AM on June 3, 2022 [29 favorites]
And finally, again similar to Gamergate, no one pays attention because it's "just" celebrity gossip, it's "just" videogames. It's not serious, it's not politics, right?
Mainstream media pays attention to Hollywood gossip in a way that it does not to gamer/internet culture. I guarantee that there were no talking heads on CNN telling my boomer parents that The Real Issue Is Ethics In Games Journalism, that women in the industry deserve abuse, and so on.
I would be very surprised if my mom ever even heard of Gamergate. But she's pretty well convinced that Amber Heard did Johnny Depp wrong, whether through "mutual abuse" or lying about it all -- based on what she sees on CNN and maybe the "nice white Southern lady" areas of Facebook where they talk about quilting and recipes.
posted by Foosnark at 11:41 AM on June 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
Mainstream media pays attention to Hollywood gossip in a way that it does not to gamer/internet culture. I guarantee that there were no talking heads on CNN telling my boomer parents that The Real Issue Is Ethics In Games Journalism, that women in the industry deserve abuse, and so on.
I would be very surprised if my mom ever even heard of Gamergate. But she's pretty well convinced that Amber Heard did Johnny Depp wrong, whether through "mutual abuse" or lying about it all -- based on what she sees on CNN and maybe the "nice white Southern lady" areas of Facebook where they talk about quilting and recipes.
posted by Foosnark at 11:41 AM on June 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
She presented two pictures as being taken in two different locations - they're the same picture, colored differently and with one zoomed in. I forget those exhibit numbers, but look at the wine bottle on the dark hardwood floor.
She said two pictures (I think exhibit 712 and 713?) are different pictures, with her turning on the vanity light between taking the two of them, and that they were never photoshopped. EXIF data shows they are absolutely the same pic, one of which has been run through a filter. She's given the opportunity to clarify, doubles down on saying they're different.
She testified under oath in the UK trial (this is cited by the judge as being incredibly favorable to her case there, because it eliminated motive), and does so in this trial as well, that she donated the money to the ACLU and Children's hospital. Donated, past tense. She's asked about it, keeps going. Eventually concedes that she uses donate and pledge synonymously, and claims she would have paid it but couldn't because of the law suit. There's a 13 month gap between full divorce settlement payout and the lawsuit.
She testified police post 911 call saw bruises and damage, police say no, body cam footage shows definitively no to the property damage (wine spill is the clearest example).
Those are demonstrated lies, not like lies where the interpretation lies heavily in the other direction, of which there are also plenty (the hicksville manager, the TMZ photos taken after the filing of the TRO, and the splintered wooden bed frame are all good examples). And then there are statements that seem not true, but those are where bias comes in, like was there a bruise or not, and I'm not talking about any of those at all.
posted by hank_14 at 11:45 AM on June 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
She said two pictures (I think exhibit 712 and 713?) are different pictures, with her turning on the vanity light between taking the two of them, and that they were never photoshopped. EXIF data shows they are absolutely the same pic, one of which has been run through a filter. She's given the opportunity to clarify, doubles down on saying they're different.
She testified under oath in the UK trial (this is cited by the judge as being incredibly favorable to her case there, because it eliminated motive), and does so in this trial as well, that she donated the money to the ACLU and Children's hospital. Donated, past tense. She's asked about it, keeps going. Eventually concedes that she uses donate and pledge synonymously, and claims she would have paid it but couldn't because of the law suit. There's a 13 month gap between full divorce settlement payout and the lawsuit.
She testified police post 911 call saw bruises and damage, police say no, body cam footage shows definitively no to the property damage (wine spill is the clearest example).
Those are demonstrated lies, not like lies where the interpretation lies heavily in the other direction, of which there are also plenty (the hicksville manager, the TMZ photos taken after the filing of the TRO, and the splintered wooden bed frame are all good examples). And then there are statements that seem not true, but those are where bias comes in, like was there a bruise or not, and I'm not talking about any of those at all.
posted by hank_14 at 11:45 AM on June 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
is the argument that if he has a history of violence and abuse, he cannot himself ever be a victim of it?
No, it's that, considering all of the facts, including those raised by Depp in two courtrooms, the most reasonable explanation, by a very long way, is that (1) Depp abused Heard; (2) Heard behaved "badly" in retaliation, as many people do when trying to sustain and/or survive an abusive relationship; (3) Depp made records of this in order to further his abuse; (4) Depp later acted on this intention by using those materials to seek a cruel and pathetic public revenge.
That's it. The specific facts, in this specific case, are only reasonably interpreted as showing, at the very least to the civil standard, that Depp is an evil, abusive piece of shit.
posted by howfar at 11:45 AM on June 3, 2022 [30 favorites]
No, it's that, considering all of the facts, including those raised by Depp in two courtrooms, the most reasonable explanation, by a very long way, is that (1) Depp abused Heard; (2) Heard behaved "badly" in retaliation, as many people do when trying to sustain and/or survive an abusive relationship; (3) Depp made records of this in order to further his abuse; (4) Depp later acted on this intention by using those materials to seek a cruel and pathetic public revenge.
That's it. The specific facts, in this specific case, are only reasonably interpreted as showing, at the very least to the civil standard, that Depp is an evil, abusive piece of shit.
posted by howfar at 11:45 AM on June 3, 2022 [30 favorites]
Looks like Depp will need to take $5 out of the damages.
posted by howfar at 11:46 AM on June 3, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by howfar at 11:46 AM on June 3, 2022 [12 favorites]
Nox, there are multiple audio tapes of her talking about hitting him and losing control, recorded by her, in evidence. If the conversation was reversed, and it was him having that conversation on an audio tape, we would NEVER be having this conversation. Does that count as a receipt?
posted by hank_14 at 11:47 AM on June 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by hank_14 at 11:47 AM on June 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
"It doesn't matter what Heard said or did"
"Supporting Depp is like supporting gamergate"
"I didn't watch or read anything about the trial but..."
It's not shocking to me that people respond negatively to the above.
MeToo was/is very celebrity-focused. And a lot of those celebrities picked and chose who they would and wouldn't support when allegations came out about their friends and/or coworkers.
This was really put into focus after the Oscars incident--people online seem to REALLY hate celebrities appearing to be hypocrites. Quite a few of them got eviscerated when they talked about how what happened was traumatic for them while ignoring accusations about others in their circles.
And I think a lot of people are resentful of that. Some of them, perhaps, for the wrong reasons. A lot of the people who didn't support Heard aren't the same ones sharing the terrible memes.
I only engaged with this case on the most surface level--the stuff that came up on my secret Twitter account--but it's not surprising to me that people lash out at being told the way they feel about this case is "wrong" especially by people who say they avoided watching or reading about it in the first place.
That seems like a normal reaction to me.
I wish in general we had different ways and words to talk about it.
posted by girlmightlive at 11:53 AM on June 3, 2022 [6 favorites]
"Supporting Depp is like supporting gamergate"
"I didn't watch or read anything about the trial but..."
It's not shocking to me that people respond negatively to the above.
MeToo was/is very celebrity-focused. And a lot of those celebrities picked and chose who they would and wouldn't support when allegations came out about their friends and/or coworkers.
This was really put into focus after the Oscars incident--people online seem to REALLY hate celebrities appearing to be hypocrites. Quite a few of them got eviscerated when they talked about how what happened was traumatic for them while ignoring accusations about others in their circles.
And I think a lot of people are resentful of that. Some of them, perhaps, for the wrong reasons. A lot of the people who didn't support Heard aren't the same ones sharing the terrible memes.
I only engaged with this case on the most surface level--the stuff that came up on my secret Twitter account--but it's not surprising to me that people lash out at being told the way they feel about this case is "wrong" especially by people who say they avoided watching or reading about it in the first place.
That seems like a normal reaction to me.
I wish in general we had different ways and words to talk about it.
posted by girlmightlive at 11:53 AM on June 3, 2022 [6 favorites]
To be clear, I'm not really interested in defending Depp here. I'm saying he can be an abuser (absolutely emotionally, likely physically) and also a victim. And that if we're trying to think about the way the trial plugs into larger cultural narratives, we should just be attentive to the fact that the jury had plenty of reason to question Heard because of things she lied about on the stand, and not just because they were all tainted by social media, which seems to be part of the implication coming from Heard's attorneys and some of these larger media pieces. In other words, we can agree misogyny and social media are pretty much horrific, and horrifically depressing, and we can fight against that and still have some degree of nuance regarding Depp and the specifics of the trial.
posted by hank_14 at 11:54 AM on June 3, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by hank_14 at 11:54 AM on June 3, 2022 [7 favorites]
Whether Heard abused Depp is completely irrelevant to whether she defamed him by saying she was abused by him.
It's often said that mutual abuse is a myth, because "Abuse is about an imbalance of power and control. In an unhealthy or abusive relationship, there may be unhealthy behaviors from both/all partners, but in an abusive relationship, one person tends to have more control than the other."
I don't know if that's true 100% of the time. But if it is, then whether Heard abused Depp is entirely relevant. If "she abused him" is a true statement, then by the above definition she was the one with the control in the relationship. Which means his behavior, while "unhealthy," ought not be considered abusive. And if so, that would make her claim defamatory.
posted by xigxag at 11:54 AM on June 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
It's often said that mutual abuse is a myth, because "Abuse is about an imbalance of power and control. In an unhealthy or abusive relationship, there may be unhealthy behaviors from both/all partners, but in an abusive relationship, one person tends to have more control than the other."
I don't know if that's true 100% of the time. But if it is, then whether Heard abused Depp is entirely relevant. If "she abused him" is a true statement, then by the above definition she was the one with the control in the relationship. Which means his behavior, while "unhealthy," ought not be considered abusive. And if so, that would make her claim defamatory.
posted by xigxag at 11:54 AM on June 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
She said two pictures (I think exhibit 712 and 713?) are different pictures, with her turning on the vanity light between taking the two of them, and that they were never photoshopped. EXIF data shows they are absolutely the same pic
I think what happened there is they are the same picture, but one was compressed/altered after being sent through email to the point where Amber agreed that they look different.
The EXIF creation dates and times are identical because they both originate from the same photo.
posted by Lanark at 11:57 AM on June 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think what happened there is they are the same picture, but one was compressed/altered after being sent through email to the point where Amber agreed that they look different.
The EXIF creation dates and times are identical because they both originate from the same photo.
posted by Lanark at 11:57 AM on June 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
The strangest part personally is two close friends of mine, both women, who I see nearly every day becoming obsessed with this trial and HATING Amber Heard with a passion I haven't seen in them ever before. It's sort of terrifying and one word towards "well, Johnny is no angel either", or "the misogyny online is appalling" is met with fury. Has anyone else experienced this? It's another reason I avoid this trial but I wanted to post here and see if anyone else has run into this phenomenon in real life.
The absolutely terrifying social media blitz campaign that accompanied this case is a grim reminder that it is nearly impossible to fully inoculate yourself from propaganda. Even the people I know IRL who have tried to avoid the case entirely (which is most of them) end up having an opinion about it, and their opinion is usually a both-sidesist scowl of disgust at both Heard and Depp. Because even if you know nothing about the case and do not want to, pro-Depp content has been reaching your eyeballs relentlessly, even though it may be nothing more than a series of youtube thumbnails.
Depp's team has done diabolically good work at muddying the waters so thoroughly that many people, who otherwise do not want to know or think about all of this ugly sordid shit, come to the conclusion that they're both rich Hollywood assholes and they were both "toxic" to each other -- toxic in a hazy, handwavey sense that elides the power imbalance and the repeated, explicitly documented physical violence that Depp inflicted. And to be honest, I'm sorry to say that this was my take on the case for a while. I really, really didn't want to have a bunch of ugly shit about domestic abuse shoved in my face day after fucking day, and I resented that it was being shoved at me anyway... but despite my resolute attempts at avoiding the topic, I still have internalized misogyny and I was still being propagandized. I want to highlight Eyebrows McGee's excellent comment in the previous Heard/Depp thread for helping me understand exactly what Depp and his legal team are doing, e.g. exactly why they went for a trial in Virginia of all places. It's more abuse, and on top of that it is a relentless propaganda campaign in the court of public opinion. Especially galling is the fact that apparently even the members of the jury were not prevented from being exposed to the firehose of pro-Depp crap that got spewed all over the internet. The trial was a goddamn farce.
posted by cubeb at 11:58 AM on June 3, 2022 [52 favorites]
The absolutely terrifying social media blitz campaign that accompanied this case is a grim reminder that it is nearly impossible to fully inoculate yourself from propaganda. Even the people I know IRL who have tried to avoid the case entirely (which is most of them) end up having an opinion about it, and their opinion is usually a both-sidesist scowl of disgust at both Heard and Depp. Because even if you know nothing about the case and do not want to, pro-Depp content has been reaching your eyeballs relentlessly, even though it may be nothing more than a series of youtube thumbnails.
Depp's team has done diabolically good work at muddying the waters so thoroughly that many people, who otherwise do not want to know or think about all of this ugly sordid shit, come to the conclusion that they're both rich Hollywood assholes and they were both "toxic" to each other -- toxic in a hazy, handwavey sense that elides the power imbalance and the repeated, explicitly documented physical violence that Depp inflicted. And to be honest, I'm sorry to say that this was my take on the case for a while. I really, really didn't want to have a bunch of ugly shit about domestic abuse shoved in my face day after fucking day, and I resented that it was being shoved at me anyway... but despite my resolute attempts at avoiding the topic, I still have internalized misogyny and I was still being propagandized. I want to highlight Eyebrows McGee's excellent comment in the previous Heard/Depp thread for helping me understand exactly what Depp and his legal team are doing, e.g. exactly why they went for a trial in Virginia of all places. It's more abuse, and on top of that it is a relentless propaganda campaign in the court of public opinion. Especially galling is the fact that apparently even the members of the jury were not prevented from being exposed to the firehose of pro-Depp crap that got spewed all over the internet. The trial was a goddamn farce.
posted by cubeb at 11:58 AM on June 3, 2022 [52 favorites]
Lanark, are you suggesting that those changes in color saturation are the result of being compressed as an attachment?
posted by hank_14 at 12:02 PM on June 3, 2022
posted by hank_14 at 12:02 PM on June 3, 2022
There are a couple of things that I'm not hearing Michael Hobbes or other here discuss, and I think that they are important and can help explain the massive 'let's revile Amber Heard' phenomenon.
First, the fact that they had someone testify about her diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. That was my second exposure to the trial on social media (the first was a very unflattering clip from an old televised interview, where her behavior looks mean and petty). Opinions towards her integrity and truthfulness were poisoned from the very beginning. (I myself thought I was in the 'always believe women' camp, but it turns out that my convictions that 'women don't lie about these things' go out the window when there is severe enough, unmanaged mental illness at play. I'm not saying I'm correct and I've been trying to think this through ever since the trial began. I have bipolar disorder myself and I've had an episode severe enough to be hospitalized. From experience, I know that the motivations of people who might be suffering with certain unmanaged mental illnesses - are very hard to know, so I start to suspend judgement). Anyhow, for most people, all that they need to hear is 'personality disorder' and that settles it. The person is untrustworthy. And that most certainly played a role in all of this.
Secondly, we are going through a period of what feels like 'mandatory, participatory group condemnation' of 'bad' people. This trend began a while ago, but it wasn't in full swing yet when 'Me Too' started, I honestly think that there is some unconscious calculus going on: I'm going to have to boycott someone after this trial. Will it be the beloved Johnny Depp, the main star of films I loved growing up in the '90s, who I really, really want to believe is a good person? Or will it be this woman I've never heard of before now? Given any excuse at all, people will choose to hate Amber Heard.
posted by kitcat at 12:02 PM on June 3, 2022 [9 favorites]
First, the fact that they had someone testify about her diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. That was my second exposure to the trial on social media (the first was a very unflattering clip from an old televised interview, where her behavior looks mean and petty). Opinions towards her integrity and truthfulness were poisoned from the very beginning. (I myself thought I was in the 'always believe women' camp, but it turns out that my convictions that 'women don't lie about these things' go out the window when there is severe enough, unmanaged mental illness at play. I'm not saying I'm correct and I've been trying to think this through ever since the trial began. I have bipolar disorder myself and I've had an episode severe enough to be hospitalized. From experience, I know that the motivations of people who might be suffering with certain unmanaged mental illnesses - are very hard to know, so I start to suspend judgement). Anyhow, for most people, all that they need to hear is 'personality disorder' and that settles it. The person is untrustworthy. And that most certainly played a role in all of this.
Secondly, we are going through a period of what feels like 'mandatory, participatory group condemnation' of 'bad' people. This trend began a while ago, but it wasn't in full swing yet when 'Me Too' started, I honestly think that there is some unconscious calculus going on: I'm going to have to boycott someone after this trial. Will it be the beloved Johnny Depp, the main star of films I loved growing up in the '90s, who I really, really want to believe is a good person? Or will it be this woman I've never heard of before now? Given any excuse at all, people will choose to hate Amber Heard.
posted by kitcat at 12:02 PM on June 3, 2022 [9 favorites]
I cannot believe people are really defending Johnny Depp on Metafilter. His team really DID win the PR game if they even made a plan to astroturf METAFILTER.
posted by all about eevee at 12:06 PM on June 3, 2022 [51 favorites]
posted by all about eevee at 12:06 PM on June 3, 2022 [51 favorites]
Speaking of those, I still blame him for River Phoenix. No matter how many Tim Burton cutiepie soft pitches he hit, I still can't stand him. All the pirate eyeliner in the world can't redeem that tool.
I know someone who was part of that circle and there that night. It wasn't Depp. It was someone else, who I won't name, who gave River the pills.
posted by Liquidwolf at 12:08 PM on June 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
People hate to admit that they have been fooled by a celebrity's multi-million dollar propaganda campaign. None of us like to look foolish. All of us think we're immune to propaganda. Much easier to just hate and blame a woman who they never cared about anyway because they didn't like her movies. What a bitch. So much easier.
posted by hydropsyche at 12:09 PM on June 3, 2022 [21 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 12:09 PM on June 3, 2022 [21 favorites]
I don't know if that's true 100% of the time. But if it is, then whether Heard abused Depp is entirely relevant. If "she abused him" is a true statement, then by the above definition she was the one with the control in the relationship. Which means his behavior, while "unhealthy," ought not be considered abusive. And if so, that would make her claim defamatory.
Yes, the multimillion dollar long time Hollywood star with a long history of abuse and violence (and people covering for both) is the one without control in the relationship.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Nox, there are multiple audio tapes of her talking about hitting him and losing control, recorded by her, in evidence. If the conversation was reversed, and it was him having that conversation on an audio tape, we would NEVER be having this conversation. Does that count as a receipt?
No, because this is the predictable tangent I pointed out. Also, if you don't want to defend Depp, then you need only put the bucket down.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:10 PM on June 3, 2022 [15 favorites]
Yes, the multimillion dollar long time Hollywood star with a long history of abuse and violence (and people covering for both) is the one without control in the relationship.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Nox, there are multiple audio tapes of her talking about hitting him and losing control, recorded by her, in evidence. If the conversation was reversed, and it was him having that conversation on an audio tape, we would NEVER be having this conversation. Does that count as a receipt?
No, because this is the predictable tangent I pointed out. Also, if you don't want to defend Depp, then you need only put the bucket down.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:10 PM on June 3, 2022 [15 favorites]
Hey, can you point out some of the lies? I've heard this line repeated almost verbatim by so many people and have yet to actually hear one of the lies. I feel like if there's so many, it shouldn't be hard to cite one and yet people seem to always make this statement in exactly this form.
I also watched almost all of the trial, and I think this panel of behavioural experts (old white men) do a really good job explaining what I witnessed.
They start out in episiode one pretty neutral (we are not taking sides, we are just commenting on body language and what we might interpret from it) but by episode four or so it is just too blatant - they are basically saying "Amber Heard is a shitty actor, and she is doing a terrible job pretending to be stressed / in grief as she delivers her canned lines on the stand". Part I - Part II (...) Part IV
And yes, this is exactly what I saw. An overblown and implausible story that shifted many times, and was not in any way corroborated by evidence. If you believe her story Depp is basically a Jekyll and Hyde violent rapist, and almost every witness from police to hoteliers to Depp staff are all commiting perjury.
If you have not watched carefully it is easy to just take the "natural" side that suits your politics. I agree that this has set back the me too movement, but it is because Amber Heard is a manipulative person, was physically abusive herself, and she used accusations of domestic violence to suit her personal needs to control the narrative and get a good settlement out of Depp. She is therefore a shitty person to represent that movement.
Everyone is acting, sure, but go look at Depp over the years on Letterman or elsewhere where he is "being himself"... that is largely what he was like on the stand.
But anyways, I do not want to keep fighting all comers but also wanted to state the case, so I will bow out now.
posted by Meatbomb at 12:12 PM on June 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
I also watched almost all of the trial, and I think this panel of behavioural experts (old white men) do a really good job explaining what I witnessed.
They start out in episiode one pretty neutral (we are not taking sides, we are just commenting on body language and what we might interpret from it) but by episode four or so it is just too blatant - they are basically saying "Amber Heard is a shitty actor, and she is doing a terrible job pretending to be stressed / in grief as she delivers her canned lines on the stand". Part I - Part II (...) Part IV
And yes, this is exactly what I saw. An overblown and implausible story that shifted many times, and was not in any way corroborated by evidence. If you believe her story Depp is basically a Jekyll and Hyde violent rapist, and almost every witness from police to hoteliers to Depp staff are all commiting perjury.
If you have not watched carefully it is easy to just take the "natural" side that suits your politics. I agree that this has set back the me too movement, but it is because Amber Heard is a manipulative person, was physically abusive herself, and she used accusations of domestic violence to suit her personal needs to control the narrative and get a good settlement out of Depp. She is therefore a shitty person to represent that movement.
Everyone is acting, sure, but go look at Depp over the years on Letterman or elsewhere where he is "being himself"... that is largely what he was like on the stand.
But anyways, I do not want to keep fighting all comers but also wanted to state the case, so I will bow out now.
posted by Meatbomb at 12:12 PM on June 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
Lanark, are you suggesting that those changes in color saturation are the result of being compressed as an attachment?
It happens.
posted by BungaDunga at 12:12 PM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
It happens.
posted by BungaDunga at 12:12 PM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
The strangest part personally is two close friends of mine, both women, who I see nearly every day becoming obsessed with this trial and HATING Amber Heard with a passion I haven't seen in them ever before.
This is the thing. Two nights ago, a (female) friend of mine out of nowhere started piling on Amber Heard with this loudmouthed vehemence so astounding thatI could barely wrap my head around it. And this is someone who is usually reasonable and progressive, a woman with graduate degrees in her late forties. The way she was talking about it was just so cruel and high school locker room slut-shame-y. It felt so personal, especially in they way she just used first name Johnny, like he was a family member or a close friend, that I genuinely did not know how to respond to it, except to think that 1) I also had that Sassy magazine photo of Johnny Depp with the guitar taped to my bedroom wall in 1990 and I know nostalgia can do a number on you and 2) the degree of hatred and fury directed at Amber Heard is grotesquely disproportionate, and there's something about the internalized misogyny of it that really does just kill me, as I said above and 3) if you need to hate someone with that degree of intensity and ugly fury right now, like, you know, that both Ron De Santis AND fucking Greg Abbott are just sitting pretty RIGHT THERE.
posted by thivaia at 12:12 PM on June 3, 2022 [56 favorites]
This is the thing. Two nights ago, a (female) friend of mine out of nowhere started piling on Amber Heard with this loudmouthed vehemence so astounding thatI could barely wrap my head around it. And this is someone who is usually reasonable and progressive, a woman with graduate degrees in her late forties. The way she was talking about it was just so cruel and high school locker room slut-shame-y. It felt so personal, especially in they way she just used first name Johnny, like he was a family member or a close friend, that I genuinely did not know how to respond to it, except to think that 1) I also had that Sassy magazine photo of Johnny Depp with the guitar taped to my bedroom wall in 1990 and I know nostalgia can do a number on you and 2) the degree of hatred and fury directed at Amber Heard is grotesquely disproportionate, and there's something about the internalized misogyny of it that really does just kill me, as I said above and 3) if you need to hate someone with that degree of intensity and ugly fury right now, like, you know, that both Ron De Santis AND fucking Greg Abbott are just sitting pretty RIGHT THERE.
posted by thivaia at 12:12 PM on June 3, 2022 [56 favorites]
Lanark, are you suggesting that those changes in color saturation are the result of being compressed as an attachment?
Yes, google it if you don't believe me.
posted by Lanark at 12:13 PM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
Yes, google it if you don't believe me.
posted by Lanark at 12:13 PM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
First, the fact that they had someone testify about her diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.
Yes - a psychiatrist without a board certification whose analysis of Heard was done under extremely questionable circumstances.
The fact that she wasn't board certified should have meant that she wasn't allowed anywhere near the witness' chair.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:15 PM on June 3, 2022 [31 favorites]
Yes - a psychiatrist without a board certification whose analysis of Heard was done under extremely questionable circumstances.
The fact that she wasn't board certified should have meant that she wasn't allowed anywhere near the witness' chair.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:15 PM on June 3, 2022 [31 favorites]
The Behavior Panel are misogynists and racists.
posted by all about eevee at 12:16 PM on June 3, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by all about eevee at 12:16 PM on June 3, 2022 [13 favorites]
Also regularly featured on Newsmax? So probably not the best sources of information given their deeply conservative bias.
posted by all about eevee at 12:17 PM on June 3, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by all about eevee at 12:17 PM on June 3, 2022 [6 favorites]
I've been ignoring every headline that doesn't read "Literal wife-beater not held accountable for his wife-beating." I hope his career is ruined.
posted by lock robster at 12:22 PM on June 3, 2022 [15 favorites]
posted by lock robster at 12:22 PM on June 3, 2022 [15 favorites]
go look at Depp over the years on Letterman or elsewhere where he is "being himself"
I'm genuinely surprised that anyone would make the argument that celebrities appearing on chat shows are "being themselves." This seems incredibly naive to me. Of course the entertainment value is in feeling like the celebrity is just hanging out with you, but, like, that's their job? It's a performance. Depp is a performer.
this panel of behavioural experts
I have a Ph.D. in neuroscience for the study and analysis of behavior and its neurobiological mechanisms. The field of "behavioral analysis" that claims to be able to tell whether someone is lying from their body language is pseudoscience.
posted by biogeo at 12:25 PM on June 3, 2022 [98 favorites]
The Behavior Panel are misogynists and racists.
Criminal Lawyer Bruce Rivers is the one I watched. I don't know what to think of any of this anymore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oxh5_3V4dU
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 12:25 PM on June 3, 2022
Criminal Lawyer Bruce Rivers is the one I watched. I don't know what to think of any of this anymore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oxh5_3V4dU
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 12:25 PM on June 3, 2022
I'm also not a big fan of The Behavior Panel, for the same reasons, though I think we should be careful about dismissing someone entirely because of bias. It's likely more productive to note examples of where bias creates skews in their convictions but given that behavioral analysis is largely made up anyway, that might be fairly easy here.
That said, Emily Baker of LawTube fame had the same reaction to listening to that Heard testimony, and I think that's a bit harder to dismiss because of some obvious misogyny or bias.
Given the conversation so far, and the clear sense that disagreement in some areas isn't particularly welcome, let's just agree that there are two sets of discourses here, one being the larger cultural narrative and attendant social media and PR management and misogyny and more, and one discourse more specifically embedded in the practices and people in the trial, be those the parties to the trial or jury members. I think it's important that we not impugn the ethics of jury members or the judge because we don't like the way the cultural narrative has taken up the verdict. That seems like a fair middle ground, yeah?
posted by hank_14 at 12:28 PM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
That said, Emily Baker of LawTube fame had the same reaction to listening to that Heard testimony, and I think that's a bit harder to dismiss because of some obvious misogyny or bias.
Given the conversation so far, and the clear sense that disagreement in some areas isn't particularly welcome, let's just agree that there are two sets of discourses here, one being the larger cultural narrative and attendant social media and PR management and misogyny and more, and one discourse more specifically embedded in the practices and people in the trial, be those the parties to the trial or jury members. I think it's important that we not impugn the ethics of jury members or the judge because we don't like the way the cultural narrative has taken up the verdict. That seems like a fair middle ground, yeah?
posted by hank_14 at 12:28 PM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
I think it is pretty easy to evaluate the backgrounds and credibility of the various "LawTube" and "behavioral analysis" YouTubers commentating on this case. Even Emily has a point of view and a bias.
posted by all about eevee at 12:36 PM on June 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by all about eevee at 12:36 PM on June 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
I managed to avoid the algorithm for this thing, which is a blessing, but now I am a little concerned that it never showed up. Literally my only exposure has been Metafilter and the Guardian. I assumed it was because I am an Old and not on Facebook anymore or TikTok ever - but now I am starting to wonder if it is because I used to work at a domestic violence / sexual assault advocacy center. That there is even a possibility that the algorithm would drill down that far and not therefore include me is terrifying.
As someone who is a trained domestic violence advocate, I have this to say: all goddamn abusers are the same. They have a script they follow. They pull the same miserable stunts to exert their power and control. That routinely includes getting the survivor to a point where they will lash out, where they will become insane, where they will do whatever they can to survive. Then the abuser stands back and says, oooh, look, she's crazy. It was all her fault. This is like abuser 101, playbook basic shit. They will often, as Eyebrows and others have pointed out, use the courts as a weapon to sway public opinion against the survivor.
Desperate people do desperate things. Trauma coping mechanisms are often not pretty at all. Survivors lie and they cheat and they hit and they break things and steal and do drugs and are quite often genuinely horrible people. Guess what? It doesn't matter. Abuse is never, ever deserved. But there's a big, big difference between a long long campaign of physical and mental abuse and the survivor who loses it, lashes out and hits back. Even, or especially, because abusers goad them into it with startling regularity. It makes the abuser feel better about himself.
And this case? It's pretty standard issue. If Amber Heard showed up to get a restraining order filled out none of the advocates I worked with would have been even slightly surprised by any of her story and none of us would have doubted a word of it.
I am using the pronouns I am using above because while I know that it is possible for all genders to be abusers and to be survivors, the statistics are grimly, relentlessly male on female. Over 90%. And you know how many proven false accusations of domestic abuse there are in all the cases in all the world? Hardly any. Less than 10%. False accusations just do not happen, much less false accusations which require a mastermind of planning and execution.
posted by mygothlaundry at 12:43 PM on June 3, 2022 [104 favorites]
As someone who is a trained domestic violence advocate, I have this to say: all goddamn abusers are the same. They have a script they follow. They pull the same miserable stunts to exert their power and control. That routinely includes getting the survivor to a point where they will lash out, where they will become insane, where they will do whatever they can to survive. Then the abuser stands back and says, oooh, look, she's crazy. It was all her fault. This is like abuser 101, playbook basic shit. They will often, as Eyebrows and others have pointed out, use the courts as a weapon to sway public opinion against the survivor.
Desperate people do desperate things. Trauma coping mechanisms are often not pretty at all. Survivors lie and they cheat and they hit and they break things and steal and do drugs and are quite often genuinely horrible people. Guess what? It doesn't matter. Abuse is never, ever deserved. But there's a big, big difference between a long long campaign of physical and mental abuse and the survivor who loses it, lashes out and hits back. Even, or especially, because abusers goad them into it with startling regularity. It makes the abuser feel better about himself.
And this case? It's pretty standard issue. If Amber Heard showed up to get a restraining order filled out none of the advocates I worked with would have been even slightly surprised by any of her story and none of us would have doubted a word of it.
I am using the pronouns I am using above because while I know that it is possible for all genders to be abusers and to be survivors, the statistics are grimly, relentlessly male on female. Over 90%. And you know how many proven false accusations of domestic abuse there are in all the cases in all the world? Hardly any. Less than 10%. False accusations just do not happen, much less false accusations which require a mastermind of planning and execution.
posted by mygothlaundry at 12:43 PM on June 3, 2022 [104 favorites]
I tend to think of celebrity gossip coverage and sports having a certain kind of overlap, in the kinds of roles they play for people who pay attention to them, but this defamation trial turned that into its worst possible configuration. I paid as little attention as possible to it, but from what little I gleaned, Depp vs Heard was like Red Sox vs Yankees, where people mindlessly championed Depp, facts be damned, in much the same way a sports fan will defend their team regardless. The major difference is that those are actual human beings, not the outcome of a baseball season, but it's fascinating and intensely scary how so many people caught up in it cannot seem to tell the difference.
posted by axiom at 12:48 PM on June 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by axiom at 12:48 PM on June 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
I'm also not a big fan of The Behavior Panel, for the same reasons, though I think we should be careful about dismissing someone entirely because of bias.
No, it's good to tell bigots and the bigot-adjacent to go fuck off, especially in the case of the sort who wrap themselves in a pseudoscientific veneer.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:51 PM on June 3, 2022 [24 favorites]
No, it's good to tell bigots and the bigot-adjacent to go fuck off, especially in the case of the sort who wrap themselves in a pseudoscientific veneer.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:51 PM on June 3, 2022 [24 favorites]
Just so I'm clear on the 3 "demonstrated lies", over the course of a 6 week trial by someone facing incredibly heinous social treatment:
1) Thought a photo from years ago that was two different colors was two different places.
2) Confusing a donation and a pledge.
3) Testifying that police saw her bruises.
For 1, photos can change color with compression, as demonstrated above (also, 700+ exhibits in this trial? Jesus). For 2, I'm a CPA and can safely say pledge and donations are routinely used interchangeably. Do you know how you record a pledge as a nonprofit? As a promise to give (an asset) and contribution (colloquially named a donation).
And for 3, I wouldn't trust a cop to document domestic abuse properly nor a witness to remember what of the countless instances of property damage that occurred was on a specific date/locale (once again, years later).
Got any more "demonstrated lies?" Bc "wrong about 2 out of hundreds of exhibits, a cops word on domestic abuse, and misclassification of a pledge" is not what I'd be bringing to team "teach the controversy," personally.
posted by CPAnarchist at 12:58 PM on June 3, 2022 [68 favorites]
1) Thought a photo from years ago that was two different colors was two different places.
2) Confusing a donation and a pledge.
3) Testifying that police saw her bruises.
For 1, photos can change color with compression, as demonstrated above (also, 700+ exhibits in this trial? Jesus). For 2, I'm a CPA and can safely say pledge and donations are routinely used interchangeably. Do you know how you record a pledge as a nonprofit? As a promise to give (an asset) and contribution (colloquially named a donation).
And for 3, I wouldn't trust a cop to document domestic abuse properly nor a witness to remember what of the countless instances of property damage that occurred was on a specific date/locale (once again, years later).
Got any more "demonstrated lies?" Bc "wrong about 2 out of hundreds of exhibits, a cops word on domestic abuse, and misclassification of a pledge" is not what I'd be bringing to team "teach the controversy," personally.
posted by CPAnarchist at 12:58 PM on June 3, 2022 [68 favorites]
I need to admit that I'm in the wrong. I usually tune out celebrity headlines, but I've been checking up on it because my initial impressions of Depp vs Heard are different than the response I thought this would have
The one thing that stood out in memory was the recording of Amber saying "No one will believe you because you're a man", but it turns out I misremembered it, because the actual line was "No one will believe you because you're Johnny Depp".
The misinformation campaign got me.
posted by weewooweewoo at 12:58 PM on June 3, 2022 [21 favorites]
The one thing that stood out in memory was the recording of Amber saying "No one will believe you because you're a man", but it turns out I misremembered it, because the actual line was "No one will believe you because you're Johnny Depp".
The misinformation campaign got me.
posted by weewooweewoo at 12:58 PM on June 3, 2022 [21 favorites]
Julia Serano has a thread where she analyzes the responses to the trial using the marked/unmarked mindset: 'unconsciously, we hyper-scrutinize ppl who are "marked" in our eyes. this often leads us view them as questionable & suspicious. we may also feel that they are "inviting" our commentary and critiques.'
posted by mittens at 1:00 PM on June 3, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by mittens at 1:00 PM on June 3, 2022 [7 favorites]
I also watched almost all of the trial, and I think this panel of behavioural experts (old white men) do a really good job explaining what I witnessed.
They start out in episiode one pretty neutral (we are not taking sides, we are just commenting on body language and what we might interpret from it) but by episode four or so it is just too blatant - they are basically saying "Amber Heard is a shitty actor, and she is doing a terrible job pretending to be stressed / in grief as she delivers her canned lines on the stand". Part I - Part II (...) Part IV
What makes someone a "behavioural expert"? Body language analysis is nonsense. There is no foolproof way to tell someone is lying. People carry their biases to their "body language analysis' (which is also an incredibly ableist concept).
Seeing people fall for this stuff makes me so nervous. This idea that there is one way that people who are "stressed/in grief" act and it's easy to tell the fakers and the famous celebrity is clearly not acting because he's acting just like you saw him act on a talkshow(!) It makes me just so so nervous because survivors of DV and rape are already constantly policed for performing emotion incorrectly and it just makes me scared for myself and other people, what reaction I'll get if people think I'm pretending to be "stressed/in grief" or my lines are too "canned."
posted by armadillo1224 at 1:04 PM on June 3, 2022 [37 favorites]
They start out in episiode one pretty neutral (we are not taking sides, we are just commenting on body language and what we might interpret from it) but by episode four or so it is just too blatant - they are basically saying "Amber Heard is a shitty actor, and she is doing a terrible job pretending to be stressed / in grief as she delivers her canned lines on the stand". Part I - Part II (...) Part IV
What makes someone a "behavioural expert"? Body language analysis is nonsense. There is no foolproof way to tell someone is lying. People carry their biases to their "body language analysis' (which is also an incredibly ableist concept).
Seeing people fall for this stuff makes me so nervous. This idea that there is one way that people who are "stressed/in grief" act and it's easy to tell the fakers and the famous celebrity is clearly not acting because he's acting just like you saw him act on a talkshow(!) It makes me just so so nervous because survivors of DV and rape are already constantly policed for performing emotion incorrectly and it just makes me scared for myself and other people, what reaction I'll get if people think I'm pretending to be "stressed/in grief" or my lines are too "canned."
posted by armadillo1224 at 1:04 PM on June 3, 2022 [37 favorites]
My apologies, CPAnarchist, I made the terrible mistake of describing things that were said by Heard that were then demonstrated as false during the trial, without then amending it with the "I'm sure there are tons of explanations that weren't presented at trial that make a ton of sense of those things, so they weren't lies, just misstatements, and as such we should probably just assume the jurors violated their ethics and their oaths and decided this based on misogyny and Depp's PR campaign."
Or, you know, we could keep some separation between the cultural narrative surrounding the trial and the trial process itself, like I keep saying.
posted by hank_14 at 1:09 PM on June 3, 2022
Or, you know, we could keep some separation between the cultural narrative surrounding the trial and the trial process itself, like I keep saying.
posted by hank_14 at 1:09 PM on June 3, 2022
they are basically saying "Amber Heard is a shitty actor, and she is doing a terrible job pretending to be stressed / in grief as she delivers her canned lines on the stand"
So I want to address this, because I think this is part of the absolute bullshit and misogyny - it's the idea that you can tell from body language of a victim who knows she is on nationwide display what her actual emotions are.
The assumption is "Amber Heard is lying, she's totally fine". And that is a straight up misogynist assumption.
The more likely assumption is: appearing on that stand is a shitshow of horror and Amber Heard must think at every moment of how she is appearing, and so she can't just stand up and go SCREEE SCREEE SCREE FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKERS, she has to present as a Good Victim and anytime you have to present in front of other people as a woman in this misogynist world it inherently involves carefully editing your emotions.
posted by corb at 1:10 PM on June 3, 2022 [71 favorites]
So I want to address this, because I think this is part of the absolute bullshit and misogyny - it's the idea that you can tell from body language of a victim who knows she is on nationwide display what her actual emotions are.
The assumption is "Amber Heard is lying, she's totally fine". And that is a straight up misogynist assumption.
The more likely assumption is: appearing on that stand is a shitshow of horror and Amber Heard must think at every moment of how she is appearing, and so she can't just stand up and go SCREEE SCREEE SCREE FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKERS, she has to present as a Good Victim and anytime you have to present in front of other people as a woman in this misogynist world it inherently involves carefully editing your emotions.
posted by corb at 1:10 PM on June 3, 2022 [71 favorites]
But you cannot separate the cultural narrative surrounding the trial from the trial process itself because the jury was not sequestered.
posted by all about eevee at 1:12 PM on June 3, 2022 [33 favorites]
posted by all about eevee at 1:12 PM on June 3, 2022 [33 favorites]
Eevee, you can, in that the jury swore an oath to not look. Are you suggesting, categorically, that they violated judicial ethics and their oath and said fuck it, let's look? Or that they let friends and colleagues not listening to the trial decide their judgment over the course of a long weekend?
Because that's a very serious accusation.
posted by hank_14 at 1:15 PM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
Because that's a very serious accusation.
posted by hank_14 at 1:15 PM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
You guys should read the last thread on Depp v Heard if you want to know why so many mefi commenters are pro-Heard. It's not because we just haven't done enough research into the trial and are going with our prior ideas about who "must" be guilty.
I have a friend in the UK, a domestic violence victim herself, who has been following this case closely for the last three years. All this social media astroturfing stuff happened during the UK trial too. My friend has read all the articles. The pattern of the evidence against Heard is always 1) out of context, 2) misleading or 3) false.
It's finding small inconsistencies in Amber's testimony to nitpick and ignoring that Depp twice submitted photos that were dated a year earlier from when he said they were taken, as evidence he was (physically) abused.
It is accepting testimony from his friends, bodyguards, and people on his payroll as evidence.
It is repeating things from social media that have been debunked.
It is misapplying the idea of "mutual abuse" which is, as DV experts keep pointing out, exceedingly rare - Yes men can be abused, but generally those men have something that makes them more vulnerable than their partner - they are poor, trans, gay, mentally ill, etc.
Johnny Depp is a drug addict, but other than that what vulnerability does he have? He's a multimillionaire, presumably straight A list actor with a ton of industry connections, while Heard was a 22-year-old up-and-coming actress just starting out in her career when they met. She spent the relationship surrounded by his bodyguards. The bodyguards testified that she abused him. How? They were standing right there.
Besides being a drug addict, what other thing could Amber Heard possibly hold over Johnny Depp that would be keeping him from walking away from her if she really was abusive? What would even be the point of a making up shit about him when she quietly settled her divorce and got her restraining order several years before Me Too was even a thing? Settled for 9 million dollars. In hollywood terms it is nothing. And then he sued her**. Twice!
**Well, first he sued the Sun. The Sun has a lot of money to spend on a legal defense, they won the case. This time he learned his lesson, and didn't sue The Washington Post who could have actually funded a comprehensive defense.
This trial was a joke. Here's just one summary looking at the larger picture of the trial, and putting the "evidence" against Amber Heard into context.
Even if you did watch the trial, please consider all the ways in which the trial was a farce, from the cameras, to the social media smear campaign, to the venue-shopping, to which things were allowed to be entered as evidence (testimony from people with a financial obligation to Johhny Depp) and which were not (the UK verdict, the text messages, contemporaneous medical records where Amber Heard reported abuse at the time it was occurring).
posted by subdee at 1:17 PM on June 3, 2022 [60 favorites]
I have a friend in the UK, a domestic violence victim herself, who has been following this case closely for the last three years. All this social media astroturfing stuff happened during the UK trial too. My friend has read all the articles. The pattern of the evidence against Heard is always 1) out of context, 2) misleading or 3) false.
It's finding small inconsistencies in Amber's testimony to nitpick and ignoring that Depp twice submitted photos that were dated a year earlier from when he said they were taken, as evidence he was (physically) abused.
It is accepting testimony from his friends, bodyguards, and people on his payroll as evidence.
It is repeating things from social media that have been debunked.
It is misapplying the idea of "mutual abuse" which is, as DV experts keep pointing out, exceedingly rare - Yes men can be abused, but generally those men have something that makes them more vulnerable than their partner - they are poor, trans, gay, mentally ill, etc.
Johnny Depp is a drug addict, but other than that what vulnerability does he have? He's a multimillionaire, presumably straight A list actor with a ton of industry connections, while Heard was a 22-year-old up-and-coming actress just starting out in her career when they met. She spent the relationship surrounded by his bodyguards. The bodyguards testified that she abused him. How? They were standing right there.
Besides being a drug addict, what other thing could Amber Heard possibly hold over Johnny Depp that would be keeping him from walking away from her if she really was abusive? What would even be the point of a making up shit about him when she quietly settled her divorce and got her restraining order several years before Me Too was even a thing? Settled for 9 million dollars. In hollywood terms it is nothing. And then he sued her**. Twice!
**Well, first he sued the Sun. The Sun has a lot of money to spend on a legal defense, they won the case. This time he learned his lesson, and didn't sue The Washington Post who could have actually funded a comprehensive defense.
This trial was a joke. Here's just one summary looking at the larger picture of the trial, and putting the "evidence" against Amber Heard into context.
Even if you did watch the trial, please consider all the ways in which the trial was a farce, from the cameras, to the social media smear campaign, to the venue-shopping, to which things were allowed to be entered as evidence (testimony from people with a financial obligation to Johhny Depp) and which were not (the UK verdict, the text messages, contemporaneous medical records where Amber Heard reported abuse at the time it was occurring).
posted by subdee at 1:17 PM on June 3, 2022 [60 favorites]
Pack it all in, guys, the debate moderator is here and he's told us all exactly the terms we're allowed to address the debate in which I'm sure aren't at all because he's unable to answer any real questions, so we just have to stop talking about the blatant misogyny and also take on face value that a bunch of randos on a jury in the middle of the media circus of the fucking decade totally couldn't have done anything like break an oath to not go look at the headlines that literally nobody could escape even if they tried.
posted by a faithful sock at 1:18 PM on June 3, 2022 [36 favorites]
posted by a faithful sock at 1:18 PM on June 3, 2022 [36 favorites]
@hank_14
If it's such a serious accusation, then why sequester juries ever? Because all the things you suggested (and more!) can very easily happen. They don't even have to TRY to gather outside information. They could very well absorb things subconsciously (radio playing in a diner or some such).
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 1:20 PM on June 3, 2022 [12 favorites]
If it's such a serious accusation, then why sequester juries ever? Because all the things you suggested (and more!) can very easily happen. They don't even have to TRY to gather outside information. They could very well absorb things subconsciously (radio playing in a diner or some such).
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 1:20 PM on June 3, 2022 [12 favorites]
Oh no I made a serious accusation on Metafilter impugning the honor of the jury! Please take me straight to jail.
posted by all about eevee at 1:20 PM on June 3, 2022 [27 favorites]
posted by all about eevee at 1:20 PM on June 3, 2022 [27 favorites]
in that the jury swore an oath to not look. Are you suggesting, categorically, that they violated judicial ethics and their oath and said fuck it, let's look?
Raise your hand if you have been actively trying to avoid information about this trial and found it in your feeds anyway several times throughout the course of the trial.
Nobody is saying that the jury was like "haha we're going to Google it, fuck our oath". What we are saying is that the anti-Heard machine is running overtime on literally every social media service and this jury was not sequestered. That means if they opened any social media service to live their normal lives, they were likely exposed to a massive public relations machine that is interpreting the very things that they were watching, and memory is malleable.
posted by corb at 1:21 PM on June 3, 2022 [79 favorites]
Raise your hand if you have been actively trying to avoid information about this trial and found it in your feeds anyway several times throughout the course of the trial.
Nobody is saying that the jury was like "haha we're going to Google it, fuck our oath". What we are saying is that the anti-Heard machine is running overtime on literally every social media service and this jury was not sequestered. That means if they opened any social media service to live their normal lives, they were likely exposed to a massive public relations machine that is interpreting the very things that they were watching, and memory is malleable.
posted by corb at 1:21 PM on June 3, 2022 [79 favorites]
But really, yes, I think they definitely looked.
posted by all about eevee at 1:21 PM on June 3, 2022 [23 favorites]
posted by all about eevee at 1:21 PM on June 3, 2022 [23 favorites]
Some people are arguing that those who followed the trial closely are better informed about specific details of the case. I'm not sure that's true. The fact that the trial was televised compromises its integrity as a legal enterprise in pretty much every way, as far as I'm concerned, and makes it more or less an exercise in nothing but sophistry. Pretty much everything that happened in that trial was by design intended to sway public sentiment, not to make correct legal arguments. It was, in a word, entertainment. It seems pretty clear that the jury reached their verdict while having access to the public discourse around the trial, which definitively poisons the proceeding in my mind. Heard lost as soon as the judge agreed to televise the trial.
I clearly recall, when I was in 6th or 7th grade, the day that the verdict was rendered in the OJ Simpson trial. Today I think it's pretty much universally agreed that Simpson did indeed murder his ex-wife, and his acquittal was a horrible miscarriage of justice. To me, as a kid at the time, that also seemed pretty obvious based on the evidence that was publicly presented. But Simpson's lawyers very effectively turned the trial into a referendum on race, racialized violence, and the racial inequity of policing in the U.S., an issue that is sadly always relevant in our society but which had particular resonance at the time coming off of various high-profile events in the early '90s, like the beating of Rodney King by police officers in L.A. Despite the obvious nonsense of Simpson's lawyers' specific arguments and their petty sophistry ("If the glove does not fit, you must acquit!"), many of my classmates were very receptive to their message, for entirely understandable reasons. The verdict was announced in the middle of the school day, and my entire school erupted into pandemonium for a good five to ten minutes as a significant fraction of the Black students (who made up roughly 60% of the student body) ran through the halls celebrating what clearly felt like a personal victory for them.
I don't blame my classmates for celebrating at the time, because yeah, the US is a fucked up place and Black men get rolled for crimes they didn't commit all the damn time. But the fact is, Simpson and his lawyers used them, and others like them across the country. As I recall, there was more effort made to sequester the jury in that trial from the constant news coverage, but what mattered is that that jury knew that the eyes of the nation were upon them, because people everywhere, including my Black classmates, would be watching on TV. The decision they rendered couldn't be based solely on the facts of the case, and even though I think they failed in their duty to properly assess the evidence and render a verdict based on the plain facts of the case, it is somewhat to their credit that the direction they erred was the one that tried to send a message to Black Americans that the system was not always and inevitably rigged against them. Conversely, it's also yet another case of the law failing to deliver justice to a victim of domestic violence, in this case one who did not survive it, and for that the jury can definitely be condemned.
I don't want to overstate the case for parallels between the OJ Simpson trial and the Depp v. Heard lawsuit, but the public response now reminds me quite a bit of what it was like then. The key parallel between the two cases, in my opinion, is that in both, the abuser's legal team very intentionally used the fact that the trial was publicly broadcast to turn it as much into a PR event as a trial, and in so doing were able to convince a large fraction of the viewing public that they "knew" what was going on (despite the fact that their "knowledge" is based on rhetorical tricks, sophistry, and a misguided belief that they can independently interpret "facts" like the way image compression works). The distorted public interest and involvement in the trial consequently influenced the jury in ways that would never have happened if the trials had not been broadcast, and the decision to allow cameras into the courtroom for such high-profile cases led to a miscarriage of justice.
Suffice to say, based on all this, I tend to believe that much as people who obsessively watch Fox News are less likely to be informed about the actual news, people who obsessively followed this trial are less likely to be informed about what actually happened, because the only information available was carefully manipulated for your consumption. Even, perhaps especially, direct legal arguments and witness testimony on the stand.
posted by biogeo at 1:26 PM on June 3, 2022 [36 favorites]
I clearly recall, when I was in 6th or 7th grade, the day that the verdict was rendered in the OJ Simpson trial. Today I think it's pretty much universally agreed that Simpson did indeed murder his ex-wife, and his acquittal was a horrible miscarriage of justice. To me, as a kid at the time, that also seemed pretty obvious based on the evidence that was publicly presented. But Simpson's lawyers very effectively turned the trial into a referendum on race, racialized violence, and the racial inequity of policing in the U.S., an issue that is sadly always relevant in our society but which had particular resonance at the time coming off of various high-profile events in the early '90s, like the beating of Rodney King by police officers in L.A. Despite the obvious nonsense of Simpson's lawyers' specific arguments and their petty sophistry ("If the glove does not fit, you must acquit!"), many of my classmates were very receptive to their message, for entirely understandable reasons. The verdict was announced in the middle of the school day, and my entire school erupted into pandemonium for a good five to ten minutes as a significant fraction of the Black students (who made up roughly 60% of the student body) ran through the halls celebrating what clearly felt like a personal victory for them.
I don't blame my classmates for celebrating at the time, because yeah, the US is a fucked up place and Black men get rolled for crimes they didn't commit all the damn time. But the fact is, Simpson and his lawyers used them, and others like them across the country. As I recall, there was more effort made to sequester the jury in that trial from the constant news coverage, but what mattered is that that jury knew that the eyes of the nation were upon them, because people everywhere, including my Black classmates, would be watching on TV. The decision they rendered couldn't be based solely on the facts of the case, and even though I think they failed in their duty to properly assess the evidence and render a verdict based on the plain facts of the case, it is somewhat to their credit that the direction they erred was the one that tried to send a message to Black Americans that the system was not always and inevitably rigged against them. Conversely, it's also yet another case of the law failing to deliver justice to a victim of domestic violence, in this case one who did not survive it, and for that the jury can definitely be condemned.
I don't want to overstate the case for parallels between the OJ Simpson trial and the Depp v. Heard lawsuit, but the public response now reminds me quite a bit of what it was like then. The key parallel between the two cases, in my opinion, is that in both, the abuser's legal team very intentionally used the fact that the trial was publicly broadcast to turn it as much into a PR event as a trial, and in so doing were able to convince a large fraction of the viewing public that they "knew" what was going on (despite the fact that their "knowledge" is based on rhetorical tricks, sophistry, and a misguided belief that they can independently interpret "facts" like the way image compression works). The distorted public interest and involvement in the trial consequently influenced the jury in ways that would never have happened if the trials had not been broadcast, and the decision to allow cameras into the courtroom for such high-profile cases led to a miscarriage of justice.
Suffice to say, based on all this, I tend to believe that much as people who obsessively watch Fox News are less likely to be informed about the actual news, people who obsessively followed this trial are less likely to be informed about what actually happened, because the only information available was carefully manipulated for your consumption. Even, perhaps especially, direct legal arguments and witness testimony on the stand.
posted by biogeo at 1:26 PM on June 3, 2022 [36 favorites]
Ok, we'll just agree to be done. If you want to argue the trial was heavily weighted in Depp's favor for evidentiary reasons, which many here are arguing, cool. As a result, the jury made a poor decision. I'm down with that. It at least doesn't require us to say the jurors acted unethically - not by looking or hearing but by then letting those snippets they encountered decide what the evidence in the courtroom meant or was or should have been. The comfort with which people are happily accusing the jury of malfeasance is shocking to me. Is it possible? Sure. Is it the only explanation for the trial outcome? Not remotely. If that's a move that anyone can make without evidence, with as much ease as is demonstrated here, and with such disregard to what it means to do so, then we shouldn't be surprised when everyone of any other political or ideological persuasion dismisses legal cases for the same reason on a case that goes in a different direction.
posted by hank_14 at 1:27 PM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by hank_14 at 1:27 PM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
Thank god someone is standing up for the real victims here: the jury members.
posted by a faithful sock at 1:30 PM on June 3, 2022 [43 favorites]
posted by a faithful sock at 1:30 PM on June 3, 2022 [43 favorites]
It wouldn't surprise me if members of the Heard/Depp jury did a little Googling in their off time. While we were on lunch break during day 2 of the trial we were on, another jury member who served with me casually announced that he had done some research the night before on the definitions of forcible rape and forcible sodomy (yep, it was that kind of case.) Granted, he didn't announce he had done research on the particulars of our case, but I felt it amounted to disobeying the instructions we had been given. I formulated a plan to get that juror kicked out, but it turns out I didn't need to because he was soon revealed to be one of the alternate jurors, meaning he was dismissed before deliberations could begin.
The women on the jury with me did not side with the woman who was the assault victim in our case, and I sort of feel like the Heard/Depp trial had something to do with it.
posted by emelenjr at 1:32 PM on June 3, 2022 [13 favorites]
The women on the jury with me did not side with the woman who was the assault victim in our case, and I sort of feel like the Heard/Depp trial had something to do with it.
posted by emelenjr at 1:32 PM on June 3, 2022 [13 favorites]
If you think juries perfectly keep to their oaths, then probably you have never been on a jury. It's sad, but it is true. Real life is messy.
posted by all about eevee at 1:34 PM on June 3, 2022 [18 favorites]
posted by all about eevee at 1:34 PM on June 3, 2022 [18 favorites]
Two nights ago, a (female) friend of mine out of nowhere started piling on Amber Heard with this loudmouthed vehemence so astounding thatI could barely wrap my head around it.
Yeah, the fact that some people feel so strongly and personal about the trial and the fact it was so widespread in so many corners of social media at such a extended length of time made me suspicious. It's now to the point where I feel that the information pool is so muddied that directly watching the trial with an objective eye right now is pretty much impossible, and so I've deliberately avoided watching the trial directly and instead observed the social media phenomena surrounding the trial. I may watch it a year later when things settle down and I can get a clearer picture, but definitely not right now.
posted by FJT at 1:35 PM on June 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
Yeah, the fact that some people feel so strongly and personal about the trial and the fact it was so widespread in so many corners of social media at such a extended length of time made me suspicious. It's now to the point where I feel that the information pool is so muddied that directly watching the trial with an objective eye right now is pretty much impossible, and so I've deliberately avoided watching the trial directly and instead observed the social media phenomena surrounding the trial. I may watch it a year later when things settle down and I can get a clearer picture, but definitely not right now.
posted by FJT at 1:35 PM on June 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
Eevee, you can, in that the jury swore an oath to not look. Are you suggesting, categorically, that they violated judicial ethics and their oath and said fuck it, let's look? Or that they let friends and colleagues not listening to the trial decide their judgment over the course of a long weekend?
Because that's a very serious accusation.
AHAHAHHAHAHHAAAA! There are no rules anymore - white motherfuckers can storm the nation's Capitol and get a pat on the head and probation.
I mean, I appreciate your faith in the rule of law - but for me that went out the window quite some time ago.
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 1:35 PM on June 3, 2022 [27 favorites]
Because that's a very serious accusation.
AHAHAHHAHAHHAAAA! There are no rules anymore - white motherfuckers can storm the nation's Capitol and get a pat on the head and probation.
I mean, I appreciate your faith in the rule of law - but for me that went out the window quite some time ago.
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 1:35 PM on June 3, 2022 [27 favorites]
It at least doesn't require us to say the jurors acted unethically - not by looking or hearing but by then letting those snippets they encountered decide what the evidence in the courtroom meant or was or should have been.
Oh, sweetie.
I think you're trying, and like, bless your heart, but: I have to point out that this is a fundamentally inaccurate view of how the world works. Bias doesn't come in because people let it. Bias fundamentally alters how we perceive the world without our even realizing. Misogyny doesn't happen because people decide to treat women differently because they're women, it happens because the society that we swim in is full of misogyny and it influences the very standards we use to judge someone by.
We're not saying that a juror would be in the room discussing it and say "Oh, well, I saw a TikTok last night and it really convinced me." We're saying that if they see a TikTok of "Amber Heard Lies", the next day, they are primed and anchored to believe that she may be lying.
Have you read the article? It notes that a juror identified that his wife texted him that Amber Heard was psychotic, but he was allowed to stay on the jury because he said his wife tends to exaggerate. That's....a man who is already essentially saying 'women lie' going into the trial and they were like 'nah no big, stay on'.
posted by corb at 1:37 PM on June 3, 2022 [84 favorites]
Oh, sweetie.
I think you're trying, and like, bless your heart, but: I have to point out that this is a fundamentally inaccurate view of how the world works. Bias doesn't come in because people let it. Bias fundamentally alters how we perceive the world without our even realizing. Misogyny doesn't happen because people decide to treat women differently because they're women, it happens because the society that we swim in is full of misogyny and it influences the very standards we use to judge someone by.
We're not saying that a juror would be in the room discussing it and say "Oh, well, I saw a TikTok last night and it really convinced me." We're saying that if they see a TikTok of "Amber Heard Lies", the next day, they are primed and anchored to believe that she may be lying.
Have you read the article? It notes that a juror identified that his wife texted him that Amber Heard was psychotic, but he was allowed to stay on the jury because he said his wife tends to exaggerate. That's....a man who is already essentially saying 'women lie' going into the trial and they were like 'nah no big, stay on'.
posted by corb at 1:37 PM on June 3, 2022 [84 favorites]
Jury members have to answer to their families and friends when they go home. "Amber Heard is an abuser and if you support her you are an abuse apologist."
Listen, my friend from the UK retweeted a tweet from a domestic violence expert and lost an online friendship over it. "Amber Heard fans do not interact; if you support Amber Heard you will be blocked."
The public opinion was so (seemingly) united against Amber Heard. If they found in her favor, they'd be vilified and maybe even harassed themselves.
posted by subdee at 1:37 PM on June 3, 2022 [9 favorites]
Listen, my friend from the UK retweeted a tweet from a domestic violence expert and lost an online friendship over it. "Amber Heard fans do not interact; if you support Amber Heard you will be blocked."
The public opinion was so (seemingly) united against Amber Heard. If they found in her favor, they'd be vilified and maybe even harassed themselves.
posted by subdee at 1:37 PM on June 3, 2022 [9 favorites]
The only interest I have in body language or other behavioral analysis is in possibly learning something about what I call the Cassandra Effect.
It's just anecdata, but I've seen quite a few postings in these mefi threads describing
- girls and women too young to be emotionally invested in that dreamy JD from the cover of Non-Threatening Boys Magazine
- watching 15 minutes of Amber Heard testimony
- and having an immediate reaction of 'NOPE. I do not like her.'
Not people being pro-Depp. The old guy with the mascara from the pirate movies is a terrible person, addict, and abuser? Sure, sounds believable, not exactly an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence.
But people having real Gift of Fear type reactions to Heard. A Teenage Feminist wearing an I Believe Women tshirt, watching testimony, and immediately feeling 'whatever she's selling, I'm not buying it'.
Not internalized decades of misogyny, not traceable to PR firms or algorithmic skullduggery. But 'this is the first I've ever seen or heard of any of this; but what I do know is that if this person smiled at me and approached my car, I'd lock the doors' lizard-brain stuff.
What's that about?
posted by bartleby at 1:37 PM on June 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
It's just anecdata, but I've seen quite a few postings in these mefi threads describing
- girls and women too young to be emotionally invested in that dreamy JD from the cover of Non-Threatening Boys Magazine
- watching 15 minutes of Amber Heard testimony
- and having an immediate reaction of 'NOPE. I do not like her.'
Not people being pro-Depp. The old guy with the mascara from the pirate movies is a terrible person, addict, and abuser? Sure, sounds believable, not exactly an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence.
But people having real Gift of Fear type reactions to Heard. A Teenage Feminist wearing an I Believe Women tshirt, watching testimony, and immediately feeling 'whatever she's selling, I'm not buying it'.
Not internalized decades of misogyny, not traceable to PR firms or algorithmic skullduggery. But 'this is the first I've ever seen or heard of any of this; but what I do know is that if this person smiled at me and approached my car, I'd lock the doors' lizard-brain stuff.
What's that about?
posted by bartleby at 1:37 PM on June 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
Internalized misogyny.
posted by all about eevee at 1:39 PM on June 3, 2022 [35 favorites]
posted by all about eevee at 1:39 PM on June 3, 2022 [35 favorites]
That seems like a fair middle ground, yeah?
Bless you for trying, hank_14
a plan to astroturf METAFILTER
Forgive me if I'm being too literal ... are you suggesting ppl are being paid to comment here?
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 1:41 PM on June 3, 2022
Bless you for trying, hank_14
a plan to astroturf METAFILTER
Forgive me if I'm being too literal ... are you suggesting ppl are being paid to comment here?
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 1:41 PM on June 3, 2022
I mean what made smart young women do the same thing to Monica Lewinsky, Britney Spears, Lorena Bobbit, etc. in the 90s? They looked at those women and said, "I don't like her or trust her." It's just internalized misogyny. That's all it is.
posted by all about eevee at 1:42 PM on June 3, 2022 [60 favorites]
posted by all about eevee at 1:42 PM on June 3, 2022 [60 favorites]
...Hillary Clinton...
posted by biogeo at 1:44 PM on June 3, 2022 [34 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 1:44 PM on June 3, 2022 [34 favorites]
Yep, never been on a jury. Right. Don't work with and am not related to a baker's dozen of attorneys. Definitely don't know any legal advocates for victim's rights, including ones who have argued cases before their state supreme court. Eevee, your quick and assumptive insight into people's background and motivation continues to be spot on.
The point is that arguments are tools and that means they can go both directions when it comes to political or ideological affiliation. If you're a hundred percent comfortable with the belief that rules don't matter and jurors violate their ethics as convenient and that that's why the outcome in this case is wrong, from your outside the trial point of view, just don't complain when some future conservative asshat says that the juror that decided a discrimination case or a hate crime case acted unethically because of the woke mob, and they broke the system, and so on. The difference will be, historically, that the conservatives will then attempt to seek out and punish said juror. We'll all agree that part's bad, that the punishment isn't the just conclusion; it just sounds like some of us won't disagree with the reasoning behind it.
posted by hank_14 at 1:44 PM on June 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
The point is that arguments are tools and that means they can go both directions when it comes to political or ideological affiliation. If you're a hundred percent comfortable with the belief that rules don't matter and jurors violate their ethics as convenient and that that's why the outcome in this case is wrong, from your outside the trial point of view, just don't complain when some future conservative asshat says that the juror that decided a discrimination case or a hate crime case acted unethically because of the woke mob, and they broke the system, and so on. The difference will be, historically, that the conservatives will then attempt to seek out and punish said juror. We'll all agree that part's bad, that the punishment isn't the just conclusion; it just sounds like some of us won't disagree with the reasoning behind it.
posted by hank_14 at 1:44 PM on June 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
Janet Jackson. Tonya Harding.
posted by all about eevee at 1:46 PM on June 3, 2022 [17 favorites]
posted by all about eevee at 1:46 PM on June 3, 2022 [17 favorites]
Is defending Depp really worth having an argument with strangers on the Internet?
Of all the potential causes in the world and all the things you could be arguing over, is the reputation and marketability of a middle-aged guy who has a history of drug abuse, violence, and "bad boy" behavior really worth it? The case has been decided and he prevailed. Does he really need you to valiantly stand up and "well, actually" anyone in a forum who questions the verdict?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:47 PM on June 3, 2022 [16 favorites]
Of all the potential causes in the world and all the things you could be arguing over, is the reputation and marketability of a middle-aged guy who has a history of drug abuse, violence, and "bad boy" behavior really worth it? The case has been decided and he prevailed. Does he really need you to valiantly stand up and "well, actually" anyone in a forum who questions the verdict?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:47 PM on June 3, 2022 [16 favorites]
Hillary Clinton is a good comparison, all this stuff about confusing the same picture for two pictures is very "but her emails." Also the fact that the smear campaign against Amber Heard did not start with this trial, but in the leadup to the UK trial two years ago (if not earlier).
posted by subdee at 1:48 PM on June 3, 2022 [26 favorites]
posted by subdee at 1:48 PM on June 3, 2022 [26 favorites]
don't complain when some future conservative asshat says that the juror that decided a discrimination case or a hate crime case acted unethically because of the woke mob, and they broke the system, and so on
When has a lack of precedent been the faltering point for asshats?
"Don't do a thing I don't like for a good reason, because later people will do that thing for bad reasons"
Hint: They're doing those things already. They'll use whatever they think backs up their point, but holding back on one thing for fear they'll misuse it as precedent just means they move down to the next item or just make up that precedent whole-cloth as preferred.
Inconsistency, hypocrisy, they're only sins to people that care about them.
posted by CrystalDave at 1:49 PM on June 3, 2022 [12 favorites]
When has a lack of precedent been the faltering point for asshats?
"Don't do a thing I don't like for a good reason, because later people will do that thing for bad reasons"
Hint: They're doing those things already. They'll use whatever they think backs up their point, but holding back on one thing for fear they'll misuse it as precedent just means they move down to the next item or just make up that precedent whole-cloth as preferred.
Inconsistency, hypocrisy, they're only sins to people that care about them.
posted by CrystalDave at 1:49 PM on June 3, 2022 [12 favorites]
You don't understand, someone on an internet forum said that jurors are humans who are as susceptible to bias and the effects of an unprecedented and impossible to avoid propaganda campaign as anyone else. That means he has to keep arguing for someone the UK found could legally be described a as a wifebeater.
Them's just the rules!
posted by a faithful sock at 1:49 PM on June 3, 2022 [24 favorites]
Them's just the rules!
posted by a faithful sock at 1:49 PM on June 3, 2022 [24 favorites]
...if this person smiled at me and approached my car, I'd lock the doors' lizard-brain stuff.
What's that about?
People who find themselves in an abusive relationship often do not feel safe or happy. They may be anxious, depressed, or helpless/emotionally withdrawn.
Many people will pick up on that emotional state and instead of offering support or empathy will just assume 'this is a bad person'.
posted by Lanark at 1:51 PM on June 3, 2022 [18 favorites]
What's that about?
People who find themselves in an abusive relationship often do not feel safe or happy. They may be anxious, depressed, or helpless/emotionally withdrawn.
Many people will pick up on that emotional state and instead of offering support or empathy will just assume 'this is a bad person'.
posted by Lanark at 1:51 PM on June 3, 2022 [18 favorites]
Speaking as a former teenage girl, society teaches us early that there is a huge appeal to being "not like other girls" on the one hand and yet also to singling out one girl to be the whipping girl who everybody else gets to hate on the other hand. Teenage girls hating Amber Heard engages them in the anti-MeToo backlash (not like other girls) and lets them have a target of their internalized misogyny (whipping girl).
posted by hydropsyche at 1:53 PM on June 3, 2022 [55 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 1:53 PM on June 3, 2022 [55 favorites]
I think the jurors are human and that being human is complicated. Unless the judge sequestered them and took away their cellphones, there's no way they were able to completely avoid information about this trial. Also, they're all presumably adults who grew up in a patriarchal culture where misogyny abounds. They are going to bring those experiences to court with them.
posted by all about eevee at 1:53 PM on June 3, 2022 [16 favorites]
posted by all about eevee at 1:53 PM on June 3, 2022 [16 favorites]
I mean, I remember being a teenage girl in the 90s. My friends and I hated Monica Lewinsky on first sight and made fun of Britney Spears for getting cosmetic surgery. What we couldn't stand was the very femininity of these women, the thing we hated most about ourselves and wanted to distance ourselves from.
posted by all about eevee at 1:59 PM on June 3, 2022 [36 favorites]
posted by all about eevee at 1:59 PM on June 3, 2022 [36 favorites]
(I don't necessarily want to comment every time someone sends out a Substack about this subject, but, on the other hand, it's Jessica Valenti.)
posted by box at 2:02 PM on June 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by box at 2:02 PM on June 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
I mean what made smart young women do the same thing to Monica Lewinsky, Britney Spears, Lorena Bobbit, etc. in the 90s?
...
...Hillary Clinton...
...
Janet Jackson. Tonya Harding.
Anita Hill. (Oh, God, Anita Hill.)
posted by The Bellman at 2:03 PM on June 3, 2022 [30 favorites]
...
...Hillary Clinton...
...
Janet Jackson. Tonya Harding.
Anita Hill. (Oh, God, Anita Hill.)
posted by The Bellman at 2:03 PM on June 3, 2022 [30 favorites]
If you're a hundred percent comfortable with the belief that rules don't matter and jurors violate their ethics as convenient and that that's why the outcome in this case is wrong
And to underline my position here, it's just as others have said: it's not a question of the jurors deciding to violate their ethics, it's that the intense media circus surrounding the case makes being an impartial juror effectively impossible.
I can't remember where I learned it (possibly here on Metafilter) but having known for a long time that people with specific expertise, such as scientists, are often excluded from jury pools, I recently learned why that's the case. The concern is that the other jurors will give too much deference to the expert within their ranks. A jury is supposed to be a collection of roughly independent perspectives drawn from the citizenry, and there's one individual in the group who the others are likely to defer to, that breaks the independence of their voices. Imagine a trial in which the defendant's lawyers argue diminished culpability due to a brain tumor. If I, as a neuroscientist, am a member of the jury, the other jurors might turn to me during deliberations and ask if I think the evidence is compelling. On the one hand, it might seem good to have expertise as a juror evaluating that evidence, but if the other jurors think "Well if it's good enough for the neuroscientist..." then what that means is that I effectively have a more than equal vote among the jurors, which undermines the point of having a jury of multiple peers. Even if the other jury members have been instructed not to treat my expertise as additional factual evidence, it's almost impossible not to do so, and so in the interest of justice it's better to exclude potential jurors who might have specific expertise in evaluating evidence relevant for a trial.
Intense media coverage and scrutiny without jury sequestration is kind of the same problem times a million. Even if you as a juror are making a conscious effort not to allow yourself to be swayed by public opinion, seeing headlines, or YouTube thumbnails, or social media posts in your timeline, or whatever, that purport to reference "expert" opinions about why Amber Heard is a pathological liar, or what have you, cannot help but influence you one way or another. In the interest of justice, the world would have been a lot better off if we'd all ignored the whole thing.
posted by biogeo at 2:05 PM on June 3, 2022 [29 favorites]
Not internalized decades of misogyny, not traceable to PR firms or algorithmic skullduggery. But 'this is the first I've ever seen or heard of any of this; but what I do know is that if this person smiled at me and approached my car, I'd lock the doors' lizard-brain stuff. What's that about?
So, others have explained that it is internalized misogyny, but I'm actually going to break it down a little bit more.
Misogyny is a subset of patriarchy, which is a system or society where largely, men hold the social, political, and economic power and women are largely excluded from it. Within those systems, men have often allowed access to limited pieces of that power to women in exchange for conforming to ideals and standards designed by men.
That has meant a lot of things: conforming to male-influenced beauty standards, or male-influenced standards of behavior. Amber Heard went from brunette to a dyed blonde, because as an actress, her perceived male-gaze beauty is one of the things that makes her salable and lets her command higher salaries. (There's some speculation at the link that she may have had some plastic surgery, filler, and dental alterations done, which is not uncommon in Hollywood)
There are two things going on, I think:
First, there's a lot of internal anger, within women, at those standards, and unfortunately, some of it gets misplaced on the women who fulfill or seem to fulfill these standards, rather than on the men who create these standards. Amber Heard looks like she came out of Central Casting for the role of 'Popular Girl', and that's no accident - she's a woman over 30 in an industry that focuses on preternatural youth and beauty for women, and she's likely doing what it takes to do so. But that means that a lot of women who either do not fit those standards or who are in active rebellion against those standards tend to bear a lot of anger at Amber Heard. It's anger at being beautiful, for being perceived to have an easy live, because many of us are struggling and think "If I looked like her, my life would be easy". It's turning our weapons on each other and being crabs pulling each other back into the pot.
Secondly, I think that Amber Heard, if the suggestions of cosmetic surgery are true, may both have less ability to portray emotionally in an easily readable way, and may also be suffering from a bit of an "uncanny valley" effect, in that her face looks not quite like we are used to seeing a face. If you look at the 'before/after' photos at that link and the first one, you'll see that the 'before' photos tend to look more immediately relatable and natural. And when you've had surgery in the face, your face simply isn't even responding in the same way - particularly with things like Botox, etc, which are known to affect facial expressions.
posted by corb at 2:11 PM on June 3, 2022 [40 favorites]
So, others have explained that it is internalized misogyny, but I'm actually going to break it down a little bit more.
Misogyny is a subset of patriarchy, which is a system or society where largely, men hold the social, political, and economic power and women are largely excluded from it. Within those systems, men have often allowed access to limited pieces of that power to women in exchange for conforming to ideals and standards designed by men.
That has meant a lot of things: conforming to male-influenced beauty standards, or male-influenced standards of behavior. Amber Heard went from brunette to a dyed blonde, because as an actress, her perceived male-gaze beauty is one of the things that makes her salable and lets her command higher salaries. (There's some speculation at the link that she may have had some plastic surgery, filler, and dental alterations done, which is not uncommon in Hollywood)
There are two things going on, I think:
First, there's a lot of internal anger, within women, at those standards, and unfortunately, some of it gets misplaced on the women who fulfill or seem to fulfill these standards, rather than on the men who create these standards. Amber Heard looks like she came out of Central Casting for the role of 'Popular Girl', and that's no accident - she's a woman over 30 in an industry that focuses on preternatural youth and beauty for women, and she's likely doing what it takes to do so. But that means that a lot of women who either do not fit those standards or who are in active rebellion against those standards tend to bear a lot of anger at Amber Heard. It's anger at being beautiful, for being perceived to have an easy live, because many of us are struggling and think "If I looked like her, my life would be easy". It's turning our weapons on each other and being crabs pulling each other back into the pot.
Secondly, I think that Amber Heard, if the suggestions of cosmetic surgery are true, may both have less ability to portray emotionally in an easily readable way, and may also be suffering from a bit of an "uncanny valley" effect, in that her face looks not quite like we are used to seeing a face. If you look at the 'before/after' photos at that link and the first one, you'll see that the 'before' photos tend to look more immediately relatable and natural. And when you've had surgery in the face, your face simply isn't even responding in the same way - particularly with things like Botox, etc, which are known to affect facial expressions.
Here you find an example of a genuine smile (in which normally the muscle around the eye contracts and forms wrinkles). Because of the paralyzing effect of BTX, the muscles around the eyes cannot contract. A magnification of this remarkably different feature is highlighted in the circles on the right. Notice that the software doesn’t detect the absence of the contraction around the eye; it rates both expressions as ‘happy’. In human interpretation, this feature makes a very important difference between a real and a ‘fake’ smile.And that's without taking into account the effects of disassociation and trauma, which are known to interfere with the reading of emotion as well. If you are expecting that women will 'naturally' show emotion on your face, and then you don't see it on Amber Heard's, your internal misogyny may deem her untrustworthy.
posted by corb at 2:11 PM on June 3, 2022 [40 favorites]
Sinead O'Connor.
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:29 PM on June 3, 2022 [28 favorites]
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:29 PM on June 3, 2022 [28 favorites]
The strangest part personally is two close friends of mine, both women, who I see nearly every day becoming obsessed with this trial and HATING Amber Heard with a passion I haven't seen in them ever before. It's sort of terrifying and one word towards "well, Johnny is no angel either", or "the misogyny online is appalling" is met with fury. Has anyone else experienced this? It's another reason I avoid this trial but I wanted to post here and see if anyone else has run into this phenomenon in real life.
This is when I really got interested in reading about what the hell was happening, after I was sitting in a diner with a bunch of club friends in the early hours after going out dancing last weekend. To a one, the women at that table, all of whom had experienced abuse and bad treatment in relationships, were calling Heard a slut and an abuser and a liar, and all had specific supposed reasons to cite why they thought so. It made me feel really uncomfortable, so I mentioned how this was exactly the kind of tactic abusive men will use to vilify their exes, like dragging out a court battle. (I know someone whose father did that during a divorce.) A woman at the table I don't know, who apparently works for an insurance company arguing cases about claims, vehemently said she could tell from Heard's body language that she was lying.
I decided to stop talking at that point, because all of that scared me: Watching my club friends, who I got to know because we kept each other safe from creeps by watching each other's backs, all parroting the same misogynistic lines against a woman who was in fact abused per the UK verdict. Hearing that a person who apparently is part of the insurance claim decision process believes all this pseudoscience and thinks they can tell when someone's lying.
The people I knew who had spoken in Depp's favor on social media to that point were antivaxxers and misogynists I knew from the larger club scene, so I wasn't super surprised by that. But this felt like I'd tapped into some deep hidden well of misogyny in people I otherwise thought I could trust. And they couldn't be dissuaded, which was also scary. So the next day, I did more reading, and it started to become clear just how problematic this all was, with the astroturfing campaign, the implications for victims of abuse in the U.S. with this decision, etc.
I had only known as much as I mentioned to them the other night because of a bit of reading I did a while back (and occasional posts I read on Twitter, which for me is a space I've curated to be a space of conscience and social justice). Early on, before I'd read more, I'd also made the mistake of stating on one of the antivaxx/misogynist club women's posts that I thought they were mutually abusive. It was actually then wondering if that assessment was in fact accurate that led me to read a little more. Then I realized the mistake I'd made, but by that point I couldn't even find the original post to delete my statement.
Anyway, I'm chilled by all of this.
posted by limeonaire at 2:30 PM on June 3, 2022 [35 favorites]
This is when I really got interested in reading about what the hell was happening, after I was sitting in a diner with a bunch of club friends in the early hours after going out dancing last weekend. To a one, the women at that table, all of whom had experienced abuse and bad treatment in relationships, were calling Heard a slut and an abuser and a liar, and all had specific supposed reasons to cite why they thought so. It made me feel really uncomfortable, so I mentioned how this was exactly the kind of tactic abusive men will use to vilify their exes, like dragging out a court battle. (I know someone whose father did that during a divorce.) A woman at the table I don't know, who apparently works for an insurance company arguing cases about claims, vehemently said she could tell from Heard's body language that she was lying.
I decided to stop talking at that point, because all of that scared me: Watching my club friends, who I got to know because we kept each other safe from creeps by watching each other's backs, all parroting the same misogynistic lines against a woman who was in fact abused per the UK verdict. Hearing that a person who apparently is part of the insurance claim decision process believes all this pseudoscience and thinks they can tell when someone's lying.
The people I knew who had spoken in Depp's favor on social media to that point were antivaxxers and misogynists I knew from the larger club scene, so I wasn't super surprised by that. But this felt like I'd tapped into some deep hidden well of misogyny in people I otherwise thought I could trust. And they couldn't be dissuaded, which was also scary. So the next day, I did more reading, and it started to become clear just how problematic this all was, with the astroturfing campaign, the implications for victims of abuse in the U.S. with this decision, etc.
I had only known as much as I mentioned to them the other night because of a bit of reading I did a while back (and occasional posts I read on Twitter, which for me is a space I've curated to be a space of conscience and social justice). Early on, before I'd read more, I'd also made the mistake of stating on one of the antivaxx/misogynist club women's posts that I thought they were mutually abusive. It was actually then wondering if that assessment was in fact accurate that led me to read a little more. Then I realized the mistake I'd made, but by that point I couldn't even find the original post to delete my statement.
Anyway, I'm chilled by all of this.
posted by limeonaire at 2:30 PM on June 3, 2022 [35 favorites]
Defund Hollywood.
I'm doing my part! Argh matey, avast... Life on the high-seas is very rewarding!
posted by rozcakj at 2:50 PM on June 3, 2022 [13 favorites]
I'm doing my part! Argh matey, avast... Life on the high-seas is very rewarding!
posted by rozcakj at 2:50 PM on June 3, 2022 [13 favorites]
This is a courtroom trial. I feel like the interest in this should be much lower than it is/was. To be honest, it's really none of my business at all how this started, how it's going, and how it finishes.
a faithful sock has it right way back near the top of the thread.
We've had media celebrating the "battle" in a courtroom for a shockingly long amount of time. Couple this with the fictional police being revered and whitewashed for literally centuries, and you somehow end up in this hellscape of entertainment/legal system/general internet horribleness infecting society on the whole that we seem to be inhabiting.
I wish I knew how to fix it.
posted by Sphinx at 2:51 PM on June 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
a faithful sock has it right way back near the top of the thread.
We've had media celebrating the "battle" in a courtroom for a shockingly long amount of time. Couple this with the fictional police being revered and whitewashed for literally centuries, and you somehow end up in this hellscape of entertainment/legal system/general internet horribleness infecting society on the whole that we seem to be inhabiting.
I wish I knew how to fix it.
posted by Sphinx at 2:51 PM on June 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
The public opinion was so (seemingly) united against Amber Heard. If they found in her favor, they'd be vilified and maybe even harassed themselves.
It was Amber Heard asked the judge to keep the identities of the jury members secret for a year after the end of the trial, I assume to try and protect them from Depp fans or other members of the public who would pursue and dox them. She understands what would happen to them, because it has happened to her.
The so-called "evidence" that she lied on the stand is just as trivial and nit-picky as I thought it might be. I do fear for that woman; this will follow her the rest of her life, just as her abuser has intended. I never thought I could so despise a perfect stranger, but I despise Depp, because his sadistic playbook is so very obvious and very open.
posted by jokeefe at 2:56 PM on June 3, 2022 [28 favorites]
It was Amber Heard asked the judge to keep the identities of the jury members secret for a year after the end of the trial, I assume to try and protect them from Depp fans or other members of the public who would pursue and dox them. She understands what would happen to them, because it has happened to her.
The so-called "evidence" that she lied on the stand is just as trivial and nit-picky as I thought it might be. I do fear for that woman; this will follow her the rest of her life, just as her abuser has intended. I never thought I could so despise a perfect stranger, but I despise Depp, because his sadistic playbook is so very obvious and very open.
posted by jokeefe at 2:56 PM on June 3, 2022 [28 favorites]
survivors of DV and rape are already constantly policed for performing emotion incorrectly
Lindy Chamberlain was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, the Australian public having almost unanimously found her guilty of performing emotion incorrectly after her baby was killed by a dingo. She didn't even look angry as the cameras rolled and the reporters relentlessly hammered her for answers to their egregiously crass questions, just exhausted and flat and drained. So she didn't cry properly and as far as Australia was concerned, that was that. Her family belonging to a church that was considered somewhat fringe provided the fuel for an unstoppable wildfire of conspiracy theorizing and lurid stories about human sacrifice that make QAnon's look pedestrian by comparison.
I was among those who laughed along with and embellished and spread those stories, treating the whole thing as a bit of a hoot. My only excuse is that I was about the same age then that little ms flabdablet is now, and therefore similarly unaware of the degree to which my opinions could be shaped for me by propaganda I'd made no serious effort to avoid, let alone consciously analyze and dispute and resent.
People are basically fucking idiots once a mob of us starts stampeding, and those who consider themselves immune from that tendency are telling themselves a huge if comforting lie. Propaganda works. That's why it's done.
I despise Depp, because his sadistic playbook is so very obvious and very open
and then there's the hideous little slicked-back ponyfail. Nobody who deliberately flaunts one of those has standing to complain about reputational damage.
posted by flabdablet at 3:05 PM on June 3, 2022 [34 favorites]
Lindy Chamberlain was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, the Australian public having almost unanimously found her guilty of performing emotion incorrectly after her baby was killed by a dingo. She didn't even look angry as the cameras rolled and the reporters relentlessly hammered her for answers to their egregiously crass questions, just exhausted and flat and drained. So she didn't cry properly and as far as Australia was concerned, that was that. Her family belonging to a church that was considered somewhat fringe provided the fuel for an unstoppable wildfire of conspiracy theorizing and lurid stories about human sacrifice that make QAnon's look pedestrian by comparison.
I was among those who laughed along with and embellished and spread those stories, treating the whole thing as a bit of a hoot. My only excuse is that I was about the same age then that little ms flabdablet is now, and therefore similarly unaware of the degree to which my opinions could be shaped for me by propaganda I'd made no serious effort to avoid, let alone consciously analyze and dispute and resent.
People are basically fucking idiots once a mob of us starts stampeding, and those who consider themselves immune from that tendency are telling themselves a huge if comforting lie. Propaganda works. That's why it's done.
I despise Depp, because his sadistic playbook is so very obvious and very open
and then there's the hideous little slicked-back ponyfail. Nobody who deliberately flaunts one of those has standing to complain about reputational damage.
posted by flabdablet at 3:05 PM on June 3, 2022 [34 favorites]
All the bullshit about body language and expressions and being able to clearly tell what Heard is thinking on the stand that came out of this trial just chills me so deeply.
I still remember, extremely vividly, the day that my abusive first boss accused me of not caring about a colleague describing struggles in her personal life, because I was smiling as she told her stories, and how did I not see that. Or the time a little later when I went on an errand with said boss to pick up some supplies we were getting from the city health department, and she asked me after the fact how I went the trip went. I was like, “it was fine, the people were nice and now we have the condoms we need, what else is there to it” and she proceeded to rip into me for how clearly awkward and unsuited to my role I was.
I am neurodivergent, and being aware of exactly what micro-expressions and movements my face and body are doing at all times is not my strong suit, but that sure as hell does not mean that I don’t care about people’s struggles, or that I’m unfit to do something as simple as pick up a box of condoms. My work and personal lives have improved so much since this all happened, but the core belief that I somehow don’t know how to inhabit my body “correctly” has never 100% gone away.
Amber Heard is not neurodivergent in the particular ways that I am, and I don’t have the same horrific history of domestic abuse that she does. But I have a policy now that anyone who is pro-Depp specifically on the basis of Amber Heard’s tone, movements, expressions, anything like that, is immediately not to be trusted. Maybe they’d all swear up and down that they’re just buying into all this body language stuff because “we just don’t like her.” But their actions are telling me that they’re ready to pass misogyny-inflected snap judgments on anyone who acts in any way they find unusual. That could just as easily be me.
posted by I am a Sock, I am an Island at 3:14 PM on June 3, 2022 [47 favorites]
I still remember, extremely vividly, the day that my abusive first boss accused me of not caring about a colleague describing struggles in her personal life, because I was smiling as she told her stories, and how did I not see that. Or the time a little later when I went on an errand with said boss to pick up some supplies we were getting from the city health department, and she asked me after the fact how I went the trip went. I was like, “it was fine, the people were nice and now we have the condoms we need, what else is there to it” and she proceeded to rip into me for how clearly awkward and unsuited to my role I was.
I am neurodivergent, and being aware of exactly what micro-expressions and movements my face and body are doing at all times is not my strong suit, but that sure as hell does not mean that I don’t care about people’s struggles, or that I’m unfit to do something as simple as pick up a box of condoms. My work and personal lives have improved so much since this all happened, but the core belief that I somehow don’t know how to inhabit my body “correctly” has never 100% gone away.
Amber Heard is not neurodivergent in the particular ways that I am, and I don’t have the same horrific history of domestic abuse that she does. But I have a policy now that anyone who is pro-Depp specifically on the basis of Amber Heard’s tone, movements, expressions, anything like that, is immediately not to be trusted. Maybe they’d all swear up and down that they’re just buying into all this body language stuff because “we just don’t like her.” But their actions are telling me that they’re ready to pass misogyny-inflected snap judgments on anyone who acts in any way they find unusual. That could just as easily be me.
posted by I am a Sock, I am an Island at 3:14 PM on June 3, 2022 [47 favorites]
Speaking of those, I still blame him for River Phoenix. No matter how many Tim Burton cutiepie soft pitches he hit, I still can't stand him. All the pirate eyeliner in the world can't redeem that tool.
Disliked him for years for the same reason and I've been feeling like I'm the only person who remembers this. He didn't literally hand River the pills, but.
Offline, in real life, I've heard that Heard "reminds me of my abusive ex", "reminds me of my narcissistic mom", and "reminds me of that vice-principal no one liked". It's really disgusting how it became a popularity contest.
Unless Depp gets some rehab and gets his life together, he's going to Phil Spector someone and all his supporters will shrug helplessly, how could we have known this violent man would do more violence?
posted by betweenthebars at 3:17 PM on June 3, 2022 [18 favorites]
Disliked him for years for the same reason and I've been feeling like I'm the only person who remembers this. He didn't literally hand River the pills, but.
Offline, in real life, I've heard that Heard "reminds me of my abusive ex", "reminds me of my narcissistic mom", and "reminds me of that vice-principal no one liked". It's really disgusting how it became a popularity contest.
Unless Depp gets some rehab and gets his life together, he's going to Phil Spector someone and all his supporters will shrug helplessly, how could we have known this violent man would do more violence?
posted by betweenthebars at 3:17 PM on June 3, 2022 [18 favorites]
hank_14:
posted by klanawa at 3:19 PM on June 3, 2022 [41 favorites]
She testified under oath in the UK trial (this is cited by the judge as being incredibly favorable to her case there, because it eliminated motive), and does so in this trial as well, that she donated the money to the ACLU and Children's hospital.She'd agreed to pay the ACLU the amount over ten years. They concur with that, and she explained the issue with semantics in court, under cross-examination:
I use pledge and donation synonymous with one another. They mean the same thing.hank_14:
To be clear, I'm not really interested in defending Depp here.I don't think that's right. For someone "not interested" in defending Depp, you have collected quite the arsenal of talking points that seem compelling at first blush but don't really hold up under scrutiny.
posted by klanawa at 3:19 PM on June 3, 2022 [41 favorites]
he's going to Phil Spector someone and all his supporters will shrug helplessly, how could we have known this violent man would do more violence?
Man Who Lost Everything In Crypto Just Wishes Several Thousand More People Had Warned Him
We're all fucking idiots some of the time, and we all believe in far too many things we don't understand on no better basis than a vague impression that they're kind of cool.
posted by flabdablet at 3:23 PM on June 3, 2022 [7 favorites]
Man Who Lost Everything In Crypto Just Wishes Several Thousand More People Had Warned Him
We're all fucking idiots some of the time, and we all believe in far too many things we don't understand on no better basis than a vague impression that they're kind of cool.
posted by flabdablet at 3:23 PM on June 3, 2022 [7 favorites]
It's a nasty one that's for sure. I'm having trouble figuring out the best way to express my contribution so, fuck it, I'm just going to throw it out there. I have serious suspicious about the supposedly "most informed" people on this case. Like: you watched the whole trial? Sorry if that doesn't make me inclined to trust your judgement.
There are some serious parallels and differences to the Smollett case, and it's hard to bring up the parallels because the differences are really strikingly in Heard's favor, but the parallels are that: there's really only a big payoff for the racists and misogynists respectively, not vice versa.
Like... if you're a decent person, you're just not looking for a particularly bad-acting Black person or woman to hang a big narrative on. Even if Heard was the worst, it wouldn't really change my opinion of metoo, feminism, the patriarchy, etc, etc. And why the fuck would it? But it's mostly those people who are looking for that one-off case to hang their bullshit beliefs on. AKA, folks who think that white males are getting the short end of the stick.
posted by Wood at 3:32 PM on June 3, 2022 [20 favorites]
There are some serious parallels and differences to the Smollett case, and it's hard to bring up the parallels because the differences are really strikingly in Heard's favor, but the parallels are that: there's really only a big payoff for the racists and misogynists respectively, not vice versa.
Like... if you're a decent person, you're just not looking for a particularly bad-acting Black person or woman to hang a big narrative on. Even if Heard was the worst, it wouldn't really change my opinion of metoo, feminism, the patriarchy, etc, etc. And why the fuck would it? But it's mostly those people who are looking for that one-off case to hang their bullshit beliefs on. AKA, folks who think that white males are getting the short end of the stick.
posted by Wood at 3:32 PM on June 3, 2022 [20 favorites]
I knew the trial was happening, I knew what it was about. I didn't watch any of it. Reasons why unimportant.
The volume of it being pushed at me on Twitter and YouTube was berserker. No matter how much I blocked, reported, etc it never left my feeds. Something about it feels like testing in prod. I'm now kind of twigged on to wondering what the next target of that sort of all-consuming campaign will be and I have no doubt it will happen again.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 3:42 PM on June 3, 2022 [20 favorites]
The volume of it being pushed at me on Twitter and YouTube was berserker. No matter how much I blocked, reported, etc it never left my feeds. Something about it feels like testing in prod. I'm now kind of twigged on to wondering what the next target of that sort of all-consuming campaign will be and I have no doubt it will happen again.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 3:42 PM on June 3, 2022 [20 favorites]
OK, so I have been avoiding this thing for so long. However, I am actually glad I clicked the link here, it was a good OP, and a good discussion here.
I've been avoiding any news about Johnny Depp for so long that I had no idea he was in a relationship with Amber Heard, let alone married and divorced her. I haven't seen a movie with him in it since the 1990s.
Because I am a victim of abuse, and I have long felt that I could recognize him as an abuser, just from his facial expressions and body language. Up above, mygothlaundry wrote about how he is completely typical, as seen from a professional point of view, I'd say he is also recognizable from a victim's point of view, though I see in the thread some accounts of victims not seeing it. As part of my PTSD treatment, I have been in group therapy, and I have seen that there are very different experiences and reactions. One person in my group went right out and dated a new abuser while we were in therapy.
In spite of avoiding it, yesterday and today it became impossible not to hear about it on radio and TV, and it has been immensely triggering. My therapist wants me to share my story with some specific people that are important to me, to explain why I have drawn back from a lot of social activities and friendships, and why I hold back in important emotional situations, and this case precisely proves my point, that if I do so, they certainly will confront my abuser, and he will claim that I am insane, untrustworthy and also an abuser and I will not have the energy or the support to address his lies. A lot of people even in my close family will believe him, and that is regardless of the fact that in our case, I am actually the more powerful person today, though I wasn't back when it happened. Because I am a woman.
There are a couple of things I would like to explain, for people who know nothing of domestic abuse. And I'll start from the back.
I have once knocked out my abusive ex-husband. Before that, I had perhaps done that girly thing of very weakly pounding his chest while crying, which I really do not think qualifies as abuse. Mostly, I literally had no power in my body, I felt so useless and powerless. I constantly thought of suicide. But one day, while I was pregnant, events were so extreme that I found the strength to slap him, and I knocked him out. Or maybe he just pretended to be knocked out. Who knows? I became very frightened, and went and fetched a bucket of cold water and poured it over him. Regardless, if I had called the police about his relentless, repetitive violent abuse over several years, where I several times thought he would kill me, that one time I hit back would have doomed me. The neighbors called the police through those years, and he would go out and answer the door and say everything was OK, I was a bit hysterical, but he was in control.
If I told people about his abuse now, that knock-out is the one thing he would bring up and they would fixate on. My therapist has tried to tell me I am wrong in my analysis. Now, looking at the Depp/Heard case and the social media reactions referred to in this thread, I know I am not.
Before the violence began, gaslighting was my ex's basic order of the day. I met him when I was 19, he was several years older, and he would constantly tell me that my perception of reality was wrong. It wasn't. But I bet I could and would appear as untrustworthy because I became increasing insecure about my own lived experiences. It wasn't till after our divorce that I realized that he had been lying. As in, our divorce settlement was bad for me and our daughter, because at that point I still didn't understand that he had not only verbally and physically abused me, but also robbed me, been repetitively unfaithful to me, been unable to care for our daughter and lied to our friends and family about me.
Apart from dealing with PTSD, I suffer from mental health issues -- which might end up being diagnosed as complex PTSD (we're working on that in therapy). But I am also very good at my job, my kids are doing well, I have cared for my parents and grandparents during their last years, I can keep house fairly well. But in a good relationship, you will naturally be open about your mental health issues with your partner. My abusive ex used my mental health issues against me, basically telling me that I was crazy every time I questioned his judgement or his accusations against me. I am vulnerable. I can't take up the fight. I can't even begin to handle how I would deal with my ex if he was a world famous actor with all the money to launch anti-defamation suits against me. Heck, when I was bullied and eventually fired at my old workplace, my union said they wouldn't take it to court because they were worried I couldn't handle it, and that was just a job, not about my child and property. (BTW Eventually they found a more robust colleague and ran and won a case against my employer, so that was fine).
posted by mumimor at 3:51 PM on June 3, 2022 [70 favorites]
I've been avoiding any news about Johnny Depp for so long that I had no idea he was in a relationship with Amber Heard, let alone married and divorced her. I haven't seen a movie with him in it since the 1990s.
Because I am a victim of abuse, and I have long felt that I could recognize him as an abuser, just from his facial expressions and body language. Up above, mygothlaundry wrote about how he is completely typical, as seen from a professional point of view, I'd say he is also recognizable from a victim's point of view, though I see in the thread some accounts of victims not seeing it. As part of my PTSD treatment, I have been in group therapy, and I have seen that there are very different experiences and reactions. One person in my group went right out and dated a new abuser while we were in therapy.
In spite of avoiding it, yesterday and today it became impossible not to hear about it on radio and TV, and it has been immensely triggering. My therapist wants me to share my story with some specific people that are important to me, to explain why I have drawn back from a lot of social activities and friendships, and why I hold back in important emotional situations, and this case precisely proves my point, that if I do so, they certainly will confront my abuser, and he will claim that I am insane, untrustworthy and also an abuser and I will not have the energy or the support to address his lies. A lot of people even in my close family will believe him, and that is regardless of the fact that in our case, I am actually the more powerful person today, though I wasn't back when it happened. Because I am a woman.
There are a couple of things I would like to explain, for people who know nothing of domestic abuse. And I'll start from the back.
I have once knocked out my abusive ex-husband. Before that, I had perhaps done that girly thing of very weakly pounding his chest while crying, which I really do not think qualifies as abuse. Mostly, I literally had no power in my body, I felt so useless and powerless. I constantly thought of suicide. But one day, while I was pregnant, events were so extreme that I found the strength to slap him, and I knocked him out. Or maybe he just pretended to be knocked out. Who knows? I became very frightened, and went and fetched a bucket of cold water and poured it over him. Regardless, if I had called the police about his relentless, repetitive violent abuse over several years, where I several times thought he would kill me, that one time I hit back would have doomed me. The neighbors called the police through those years, and he would go out and answer the door and say everything was OK, I was a bit hysterical, but he was in control.
If I told people about his abuse now, that knock-out is the one thing he would bring up and they would fixate on. My therapist has tried to tell me I am wrong in my analysis. Now, looking at the Depp/Heard case and the social media reactions referred to in this thread, I know I am not.
Before the violence began, gaslighting was my ex's basic order of the day. I met him when I was 19, he was several years older, and he would constantly tell me that my perception of reality was wrong. It wasn't. But I bet I could and would appear as untrustworthy because I became increasing insecure about my own lived experiences. It wasn't till after our divorce that I realized that he had been lying. As in, our divorce settlement was bad for me and our daughter, because at that point I still didn't understand that he had not only verbally and physically abused me, but also robbed me, been repetitively unfaithful to me, been unable to care for our daughter and lied to our friends and family about me.
Apart from dealing with PTSD, I suffer from mental health issues -- which might end up being diagnosed as complex PTSD (we're working on that in therapy). But I am also very good at my job, my kids are doing well, I have cared for my parents and grandparents during their last years, I can keep house fairly well. But in a good relationship, you will naturally be open about your mental health issues with your partner. My abusive ex used my mental health issues against me, basically telling me that I was crazy every time I questioned his judgement or his accusations against me. I am vulnerable. I can't take up the fight. I can't even begin to handle how I would deal with my ex if he was a world famous actor with all the money to launch anti-defamation suits against me. Heck, when I was bullied and eventually fired at my old workplace, my union said they wouldn't take it to court because they were worried I couldn't handle it, and that was just a job, not about my child and property. (BTW Eventually they found a more robust colleague and ran and won a case against my employer, so that was fine).
posted by mumimor at 3:51 PM on June 3, 2022 [70 favorites]
Oh wait, I forgot something important: I fell for my abuser, and he could seduce me, because I was a vulnerable person. I don't know enough about Amber Heard to dare project that on her, but it is typical for abusers.
When I finally divorced my ex, he entered a new relationship, and after a few weeks, the woman called me to ask if he had been abusive. I said yes, and she cut him off instantly, like any sane person would do. She saw the signs and she reacted accordingly. Contrariwise, when I met him, he was in a relationship which he denied, with a very vulnerable person. I believed his lie that she was just temporarily sharing his apartment, and bed (yeah, I know, but apart from being vulnerable, I grew up in a very open-minded family).
posted by mumimor at 4:04 PM on June 3, 2022 [18 favorites]
When I finally divorced my ex, he entered a new relationship, and after a few weeks, the woman called me to ask if he had been abusive. I said yes, and she cut him off instantly, like any sane person would do. She saw the signs and she reacted accordingly. Contrariwise, when I met him, he was in a relationship which he denied, with a very vulnerable person. I believed his lie that she was just temporarily sharing his apartment, and bed (yeah, I know, but apart from being vulnerable, I grew up in a very open-minded family).
posted by mumimor at 4:04 PM on June 3, 2022 [18 favorites]
I wonder if the people uncritically repeating Depp's legal team's lines about Heard understand that they're just echoing this century's answer to "If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit."
They're buying the con. Bamboozled by expensive lawyers into accepting false framework about what happened and what needs to come next.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:14 PM on June 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
They're buying the con. Bamboozled by expensive lawyers into accepting false framework about what happened and what needs to come next.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:14 PM on June 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
It's intuitive to me that if you cherry pick a truth and say so in public then that could still be a harm to another person
That's a perfectly reasonable rubric for moral evaluation of someone's acts, but it is very much not the legal standard for actionable harm (in the US). The case law on what constitutes defamation, and particularly what constitutes defamation of a public figure, is well established, and if you tell a misleadingly phrased and selected sequence of true statements about someone, that is not defamation.
So even if you feel Heard's narrative is skewed, that doesn't actually meet a legal standard for defamation. She has to have actually promulgated untruths in the specific text she's being accused of defaming Depp with. (Actually, she needs to have done more that that: to have promulgated untruths with either foreknowledge that they were lies or a demonstrated indifference to their truth, and the burden of proof is on the plaintiff. It's not my understanding Depp's team established any of that.)
posted by jackbishop at 4:16 PM on June 3, 2022 [11 favorites]
That's a perfectly reasonable rubric for moral evaluation of someone's acts, but it is very much not the legal standard for actionable harm (in the US). The case law on what constitutes defamation, and particularly what constitutes defamation of a public figure, is well established, and if you tell a misleadingly phrased and selected sequence of true statements about someone, that is not defamation.
So even if you feel Heard's narrative is skewed, that doesn't actually meet a legal standard for defamation. She has to have actually promulgated untruths in the specific text she's being accused of defaming Depp with. (Actually, she needs to have done more that that: to have promulgated untruths with either foreknowledge that they were lies or a demonstrated indifference to their truth, and the burden of proof is on the plaintiff. It's not my understanding Depp's team established any of that.)
posted by jackbishop at 4:16 PM on June 3, 2022 [11 favorites]
I’m not wholly convinced that it was just Depp’s team that were so adept at fueling the social media narrative here. The deluge of ads and push media on my social media feeds for this were mostly from extreme right wing outlets like the Daily Wire.
It’s well known that walking ballbags like Steve Bannon and Milo Yiannopoulos correctly recognized Gamergate as an opportunity to move men along the misogyny to Alt Right pipeline.
The new generation of right wing extremists like Ben Shapiro also correctly recognized the Depp trial as a radicalizing moment and invested their resources accordingly. In fact, Vice covered this: https://www.vice.com/en/article/3ab3yk/daily-wire-amber-heard-johnny-depp .
It’s a great move for these extremists to solidify their narratives about how cancel culture hurts men and to put the final dagger in to the metoo movement. As Susan Faludi famously observed in the 90s: “A backlash against women's rights is nothing new. Indeed it's a recurring phenomenon: it returns every time women begin to make some headway towards equality, a seemingly inevitable early frost to the brief flowerings of feminism.”
posted by Skwirl at 4:42 PM on June 3, 2022 [37 favorites]
It’s well known that walking ballbags like Steve Bannon and Milo Yiannopoulos correctly recognized Gamergate as an opportunity to move men along the misogyny to Alt Right pipeline.
The new generation of right wing extremists like Ben Shapiro also correctly recognized the Depp trial as a radicalizing moment and invested their resources accordingly. In fact, Vice covered this: https://www.vice.com/en/article/3ab3yk/daily-wire-amber-heard-johnny-depp .
It’s a great move for these extremists to solidify their narratives about how cancel culture hurts men and to put the final dagger in to the metoo movement. As Susan Faludi famously observed in the 90s: “A backlash against women's rights is nothing new. Indeed it's a recurring phenomenon: it returns every time women begin to make some headway towards equality, a seemingly inevitable early frost to the brief flowerings of feminism.”
posted by Skwirl at 4:42 PM on June 3, 2022 [37 favorites]
Defund Hollywood
but, but, but ... how will the american people be protected from facing reality if you defund hollywood?
posted by pyramid termite at 4:43 PM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
but, but, but ... how will the american people be protected from facing reality if you defund hollywood?
posted by pyramid termite at 4:43 PM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
. Even the people I know IRL who have tried to avoid the case entirely (which is most of them) end up having an opinion about it, and their opinion is usually a both-sidesist scowl of disgust at both Heard and Depp.
i'll admit that's pretty much been my take, but with the growing idea that only a rank asshole would have taken this to court to begin with
he could have acted like a man and just dropped the whole business and moved on, but i guess that isn't the sort of acting he's known for
posted by pyramid termite at 5:03 PM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
i'll admit that's pretty much been my take, but with the growing idea that only a rank asshole would have taken this to court to begin with
he could have acted like a man and just dropped the whole business and moved on, but i guess that isn't the sort of acting he's known for
posted by pyramid termite at 5:03 PM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
That's a perfectly reasonable rubric for moral evaluation of someone's acts, but it is very much not the legal standard for actionable harm (in the US)
Which is why unradicalness of the sort I discussed above is structurally and culturally pervasive. If you actually look at Wikipedia, the first paragraph of "defamation" explicitly lays out how it is a culturally relativized legal concept. So you can't even appeal to case law being a good definition of defamation. There are cultural, and thus moral, presuppositions one is making when one is deciding what counts and what doesn't. And if you allow that the perfectly reasonable rubric is not the legal theory resting on case law, then just maybe there's something wrong with application of the law or incomplete about the theory. Last I checked, the law at least ought to try to reflect basic morals.
N.b. I did write multiple paragraphs explaining my frustration with the overall discourse, so please do not confuse these criticisms with support for/against the individual celebrities, by quoting the first sentence and basically ignoring the rest of the context.
A broader question to summarize my previous comments is this, from yet another angle. Why should defamation civil law even be allowed to resolve an accusation that would imply likely criminal offenses? I am law-ignorant layperson, but I think that sounds stupid enough to even happen structurally. And again it an example of something being independent of the actual evidence, i.e. the notion this trial is a bad trial asking a wrong question in the first place. E.g., allowing it to proceed was a recipe for disaster.
posted by polymodus at 5:05 PM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
Which is why unradicalness of the sort I discussed above is structurally and culturally pervasive. If you actually look at Wikipedia, the first paragraph of "defamation" explicitly lays out how it is a culturally relativized legal concept. So you can't even appeal to case law being a good definition of defamation. There are cultural, and thus moral, presuppositions one is making when one is deciding what counts and what doesn't. And if you allow that the perfectly reasonable rubric is not the legal theory resting on case law, then just maybe there's something wrong with application of the law or incomplete about the theory. Last I checked, the law at least ought to try to reflect basic morals.
N.b. I did write multiple paragraphs explaining my frustration with the overall discourse, so please do not confuse these criticisms with support for/against the individual celebrities, by quoting the first sentence and basically ignoring the rest of the context.
A broader question to summarize my previous comments is this, from yet another angle. Why should defamation civil law even be allowed to resolve an accusation that would imply likely criminal offenses? I am law-ignorant layperson, but I think that sounds stupid enough to even happen structurally. And again it an example of something being independent of the actual evidence, i.e. the notion this trial is a bad trial asking a wrong question in the first place. E.g., allowing it to proceed was a recipe for disaster.
posted by polymodus at 5:05 PM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
There are, as I understand it, a number of situations that tend to be litigated through civil law (if they are litigated at all) despite being potentially criminal offences. Domestic violence is a big one, not in the Depp defamation suit sense, but when victims of domestic violence are able to get some attempt at justice, it can be through a civil procedure rather than a criminal one, since the standards of evidence differ, and most domestic violence victims aren’t able to collect the necessary evidence for a criminal trial and/or (rightly, sadly) worry that they are not a sufficiently pure or innocent victim and will essentially be put on trial instead (this being an infuriatingly common tactic used by defence lawyers in domestic violence cases). The idea of people having a choice to either pursue a criminal suit or a lesser civil suit isn’t necessarily always bad - it can help victims of some crimes find some feeling of justice or closure even in cases where insufficient evidence exists to prove the more serious criminal charge to criminal defence standards, or may just be better suited to what the victims want out of a resolution (especially if they have reason to be wary or philosophically unsupportive of the whole criminal justice system in general). None of that applies in this specific case where Depp appears to have filed a civil charge as a form of harassment and retaliation or ongoing control., of course.
posted by eviemath at 6:16 PM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by eviemath at 6:16 PM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
Regarding otherwise feminist friends falling for this misogynistic ruse. My social media feed aggressively pushed pro-Depp takes even though I never engaged with them and often clicked to hide them. Among the Youtube streamers I watch, many of whom are women or have "wholesome" brands, jokes about Amber Heard are normal. I didn't follow the trial, and the impression I got from this coverage was that somehow an issue at stake was whether men could be abused... the "actually it's about ethics in video game journalism" of 2022. I was disturbed by how eagerly reddit men seemed to want to tear her down but I didn't know anything else about the actual facts of the matter.
What opened my eyes was my NPR station interviewing an expert in domestic abuse about the trial. She pointed out how people were siding with the wealthier, more famous star. And I went: oh. Of course that's what this is. Astrotrufing. The metafilter thread also helped deprogram me.
I consider myself a fairly skeptical person, even. The effectiveness of social media propaganda is actually terrifying.
posted by Emily's Fist at 6:24 PM on June 3, 2022 [29 favorites]
What opened my eyes was my NPR station interviewing an expert in domestic abuse about the trial. She pointed out how people were siding with the wealthier, more famous star. And I went: oh. Of course that's what this is. Astrotrufing. The metafilter thread also helped deprogram me.
I consider myself a fairly skeptical person, even. The effectiveness of social media propaganda is actually terrifying.
posted by Emily's Fist at 6:24 PM on June 3, 2022 [29 favorites]
I’ve formed exactly two opinions on the case, which are this:
1) The fervor over the psychologist being “not board certified” is misinformation. Most psychologists are not (only 4% are), it is not required, basically the only reason to obtain it is marketability and the ability to skip re-licensing yourself if you want to practice another state. The question is whether she is licensed, which she is. She passed the EPPP which is the exam given to psychologists and met all other requirements to practice psychology. Her credentials are not in question.
2) The fact that she had dinner at Depp’s house is a huge issue re: dual relationships and bias. Astronomical. The media, despite its breathless reporting, is not actually highlighting this as much as it should IMHO. I was taught that if I am in a coffee shop and a client walks in I need to leave the coffee shop. Now, this is on the extreme end, and opinions vary on how much this is required (generally this is not possible in rural or small town areas) but good fucking god I can’t imagine any situation where dinner and alcohol at the home of the ex (even OUTSIDE him being her accused abuser) of the person you are meant to evaluate would ever be considered appropriate. I ran into a client’s mom at the library once and stupidly responded to “How are you?” with “Good, and you?” and was PANICKING to get out of there. I do not have to tell you this was not part of a legal trial, even.
I have nothing to say about Amber Heard or Johnny Depp as people but I do not trust that psychologist and would not even if she were board-certified. The board certification is not the issue people should be focusing on. I’m not even going to touch the diagnoses because that’s a whole huge other thing and we can already throw everything out starting from her “interview.”
posted by brook horse at 6:38 PM on June 3, 2022 [25 favorites]
1) The fervor over the psychologist being “not board certified” is misinformation. Most psychologists are not (only 4% are), it is not required, basically the only reason to obtain it is marketability and the ability to skip re-licensing yourself if you want to practice another state. The question is whether she is licensed, which she is. She passed the EPPP which is the exam given to psychologists and met all other requirements to practice psychology. Her credentials are not in question.
2) The fact that she had dinner at Depp’s house is a huge issue re: dual relationships and bias. Astronomical. The media, despite its breathless reporting, is not actually highlighting this as much as it should IMHO. I was taught that if I am in a coffee shop and a client walks in I need to leave the coffee shop. Now, this is on the extreme end, and opinions vary on how much this is required (generally this is not possible in rural or small town areas) but good fucking god I can’t imagine any situation where dinner and alcohol at the home of the ex (even OUTSIDE him being her accused abuser) of the person you are meant to evaluate would ever be considered appropriate. I ran into a client’s mom at the library once and stupidly responded to “How are you?” with “Good, and you?” and was PANICKING to get out of there. I do not have to tell you this was not part of a legal trial, even.
I have nothing to say about Amber Heard or Johnny Depp as people but I do not trust that psychologist and would not even if she were board-certified. The board certification is not the issue people should be focusing on. I’m not even going to touch the diagnoses because that’s a whole huge other thing and we can already throw everything out starting from her “interview.”
posted by brook horse at 6:38 PM on June 3, 2022 [25 favorites]
If you don't understand the basic relationships and purposes of the legal system you live under, maybe your problem with the discourse is less its lack of radicalness and more your complete lack of relevant knowledge.
Look, this is a serious topic. Some comment threads don't actually need vague poststructuralist analysis.
posted by howfar at 7:01 PM on June 3, 2022 [12 favorites]
Look, this is a serious topic. Some comment threads don't actually need vague poststructuralist analysis.
posted by howfar at 7:01 PM on June 3, 2022 [12 favorites]
You can read and see the defendant’s (Heard) motion for leave here
This seems to be classic DV over a 3 year period. One could argue that she carefully groomed the witnesses, staged the scenes in the moment, got Depp’s own employees to falsely corroborate her accounts in writing, somehow tricked Depp to put into writing how he had abused her. I don’t think you can do that and be intellectually honest with yourself. I don’t understand and cannot explain how the jury reached their conclusions of defamation and malice on her part.
posted by pdoege at 7:25 PM on June 3, 2022 [11 favorites]
This seems to be classic DV over a 3 year period. One could argue that she carefully groomed the witnesses, staged the scenes in the moment, got Depp’s own employees to falsely corroborate her accounts in writing, somehow tricked Depp to put into writing how he had abused her. I don’t think you can do that and be intellectually honest with yourself. I don’t understand and cannot explain how the jury reached their conclusions of defamation and malice on her part.
posted by pdoege at 7:25 PM on June 3, 2022 [11 favorites]
She testified under oath in the UK trial (this is cited by the judge as being incredibly favorable to her case there, because it eliminated motive), and does so in this trial as well, that she donated the money to the ACLU and Children's hospital
As far as I can tell this was a fairly minor part of the defense in the U.K. case - the core of it was a a defense on the basis that the abuse allegations in the article were substantially true, which renders the other dimensions of purported libel pretty much irrelevant. And they were successful in convincing the court of the truth of 12 of 14 alleged incidents. I’ve seen multiple people online repeating a couple of claims about the U.K. trial - basically that it was about something other than the truth of the allegations evaluated in the U.S. trial - that certainly don’t look accurate to me, when I actually look up anything about the U.K. trial. I would guess these are popular online rumors/factoids of some sort?
posted by atoxyl at 7:39 PM on June 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
As far as I can tell this was a fairly minor part of the defense in the U.K. case - the core of it was a a defense on the basis that the abuse allegations in the article were substantially true, which renders the other dimensions of purported libel pretty much irrelevant. And they were successful in convincing the court of the truth of 12 of 14 alleged incidents. I’ve seen multiple people online repeating a couple of claims about the U.K. trial - basically that it was about something other than the truth of the allegations evaluated in the U.S. trial - that certainly don’t look accurate to me, when I actually look up anything about the U.K. trial. I would guess these are popular online rumors/factoids of some sort?
posted by atoxyl at 7:39 PM on June 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
I've come to be a pretty avid listener of the You're Wrong About podcast, which can be very shocking sometimes in exploring just how wildly wrong conventional wisdom and sensible moderate takes can be, in ways that don't really come out until much later. I think the most striking episode was the one on ebonics, where by the time the issue had gotten enough attention to become a "debate" in the media had already mutated through the game of telephone into something that was just completely disconnected from its original kernel of truth (which had in turn become moot anyway IIRC). All the grandstanding, government hearings, op-eds, and they were just debating a complete fiction.
(Oh and to flabdablet's point they had a good episode too about Lindy Chamberlain, whose baby really was killed by a dingo, but she was convicted because she performed grief wrong -- and shoddy forensics work for a bonus!)
Anyway that's all prelude: around the time of the UK trial I was starting to hear the story and smelling a rat. It felt for all the world like one or more PR groups were trying to lay down the pile-on for what would end up making a great episode of You're Wrong About 2050. So I not just avoided the story but actively rejected the temptation to think I had to try to form an opinion at all. I just didn't trust the system to give me anything reliable and looked forward to reading about the "true story" in thirty years time.
Well so that worked for a while, until like most everyone else's stories here The Algorithm decided it was time to blast me with sarcastic videos about how dumb Heard's lawyers are for blinking the wrong way or whatever. So I gave in, looked into sources I trust to summarize the legal questions at hand in the trial and what might end up happening. Which yeah, notwithstanding the broader celebrity gossip stuff or domestic violence stuff, as a defamation case it was thought that Depp had a very difficult case to make, was not doing well at making it, and in fact speculated that Heard may end up with grounds for an anti-SLAPP countersuit against him for bringing such a baseless case and perhaps even abusing the mechanisms of the law to dig up material he could use to defame her in the media.
So it was increasingly frustrating that the firehose of videos and sarcastic tweets and other social media BS was still just piling on constantly at all this stuff that was, as far as I could tell, absolutely irrelevant to the legal case. Even naughty people have constitutional rights! Every single video about how no really Heard is even naughtier than that because poop and something about donations and look how she cried the wrong way again this one time and don't we all just suspect the micro-expressions in her left eyebrow??!?! Well no, none of that makes her article any closer to libel. The plain fact of the matter is there's no consistent reality in which the Sun is legally able to write what they did but Heard is not allowed to write what she did.
But yeah, in the end, I'm afraid of a world where "the system" got to me, and the entire rest of social media, so completely like they have. And like a few others have pointed out, I'm afraid of someday having my grief performances judged by people who believe they can tell if my non-NT butt is lying just by my whole general vibe or something.
posted by traveler_ at 7:45 PM on June 3, 2022 [22 favorites]
(Oh and to flabdablet's point they had a good episode too about Lindy Chamberlain, whose baby really was killed by a dingo, but she was convicted because she performed grief wrong -- and shoddy forensics work for a bonus!)
Anyway that's all prelude: around the time of the UK trial I was starting to hear the story and smelling a rat. It felt for all the world like one or more PR groups were trying to lay down the pile-on for what would end up making a great episode of You're Wrong About 2050. So I not just avoided the story but actively rejected the temptation to think I had to try to form an opinion at all. I just didn't trust the system to give me anything reliable and looked forward to reading about the "true story" in thirty years time.
Well so that worked for a while, until like most everyone else's stories here The Algorithm decided it was time to blast me with sarcastic videos about how dumb Heard's lawyers are for blinking the wrong way or whatever. So I gave in, looked into sources I trust to summarize the legal questions at hand in the trial and what might end up happening. Which yeah, notwithstanding the broader celebrity gossip stuff or domestic violence stuff, as a defamation case it was thought that Depp had a very difficult case to make, was not doing well at making it, and in fact speculated that Heard may end up with grounds for an anti-SLAPP countersuit against him for bringing such a baseless case and perhaps even abusing the mechanisms of the law to dig up material he could use to defame her in the media.
So it was increasingly frustrating that the firehose of videos and sarcastic tweets and other social media BS was still just piling on constantly at all this stuff that was, as far as I could tell, absolutely irrelevant to the legal case. Even naughty people have constitutional rights! Every single video about how no really Heard is even naughtier than that because poop and something about donations and look how she cried the wrong way again this one time and don't we all just suspect the micro-expressions in her left eyebrow??!?! Well no, none of that makes her article any closer to libel. The plain fact of the matter is there's no consistent reality in which the Sun is legally able to write what they did but Heard is not allowed to write what she did.
But yeah, in the end, I'm afraid of a world where "the system" got to me, and the entire rest of social media, so completely like they have. And like a few others have pointed out, I'm afraid of someday having my grief performances judged by people who believe they can tell if my non-NT butt is lying just by my whole general vibe or something.
posted by traveler_ at 7:45 PM on June 3, 2022 [22 favorites]
From @AmandaMarcotte: One thing that jumped out at me was that Depp literally used "men's rights" lingo in his texts. Which you really are only going to pick up if you read a bunch of those pathetic online forums dedicated to misogynist whining.
If you're not familiar, "hitting the wall" is a dumb manoshpere cope in which the "sexual marketplace value" of all women declines after they are 30 years old, as they age out out of sexual desirability; meanwhile red-pilled a-hole doods believe their over-30-year old vinegar dad-bods will turn into fine wine, somehow.
posted by peeedro at 8:02 PM on June 3, 2022 [16 favorites]
If you're not familiar, "hitting the wall" is a dumb manoshpere cope in which the "sexual marketplace value" of all women declines after they are 30 years old, as they age out out of sexual desirability; meanwhile red-pilled a-hole doods believe their over-30-year old vinegar dad-bods will turn into fine wine, somehow.
posted by peeedro at 8:02 PM on June 3, 2022 [16 favorites]
And if you allow that the perfectly reasonable rubric is not the legal theory resting on case law, then just maybe there's something wrong with application of the law or incomplete about the theory. Last I checked, the law at least ought to try to reflect basic morals.
Er, "a perfectly reasonable rubric" is a very different thing from "the only correct moral stance". You are obviously welcome to embrace the view that any act that causes harm to others is an immoral act as your personal morality. You'll find pretty much everyone to be a terrible sinner, but you wouldn't be the first to take that view. There are many "reasonable rubrics". Why should the law reflect that one?
The law does reflect a morality. It might not be your morality, and it's not the moral framework I gave the faint praise of "perfectly reasonable" to earlier, but it strives to tread a reasonable course between people's right to freedom from malicious lies and their right to communicate their viewpoint in potentially hurtful ways. By and large the Sullivan standard has good reasons for existing and seems like it ought to provide a good way for anyone, regardless of their personal morality, to know what kinds of potentially harmful communication is permitted. And that's the damn point of the law, that people shouldn't have to guess at what is permissible based on the individual and idiosyncratic morality of whoever's judging them, but are given clear rules.
Unfortunately, apparently nobody associated with this case except for the defense seems to care about the legal standards here either, so it looks like you're not the only one who prefers going with your gut to following established procedures.
posted by jackbishop at 8:13 PM on June 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
Er, "a perfectly reasonable rubric" is a very different thing from "the only correct moral stance". You are obviously welcome to embrace the view that any act that causes harm to others is an immoral act as your personal morality. You'll find pretty much everyone to be a terrible sinner, but you wouldn't be the first to take that view. There are many "reasonable rubrics". Why should the law reflect that one?
The law does reflect a morality. It might not be your morality, and it's not the moral framework I gave the faint praise of "perfectly reasonable" to earlier, but it strives to tread a reasonable course between people's right to freedom from malicious lies and their right to communicate their viewpoint in potentially hurtful ways. By and large the Sullivan standard has good reasons for existing and seems like it ought to provide a good way for anyone, regardless of their personal morality, to know what kinds of potentially harmful communication is permitted. And that's the damn point of the law, that people shouldn't have to guess at what is permissible based on the individual and idiosyncratic morality of whoever's judging them, but are given clear rules.
Unfortunately, apparently nobody associated with this case except for the defense seems to care about the legal standards here either, so it looks like you're not the only one who prefers going with your gut to following established procedures.
posted by jackbishop at 8:13 PM on June 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
Last month, I rather obliviously found myself in a hotel down the street from the courthouse. Kid Ruki and I had driven down so she could attend a K-pop concert at GMU. I spent some time chatting with the friendly, polite, but very overwhelmed, desk clerk. Our room wasn’t ready and he was so apologetic.
“It’s just been so crazy lately. One night, one of our guests came in screaming that she had found Johnny Depp…” I stared at him blankly, wondering what Johnny Depp had to do with Monsta X. “The trial? We’re right down the street from the courthouse. We’ve just been booked solid.”
The jury was absolutely incapable of being impartial when Fairfax was swarming with Johnny Depp supporters. I literally hid in my room while I was there because just having to sit in the packed lobby for twenty minutes while waiting to check in was, idk, way more Deppiness than I could handle. Staying off social media would hardly matter when social media came to them.
posted by Ruki at 8:56 PM on June 3, 2022 [20 favorites]
“It’s just been so crazy lately. One night, one of our guests came in screaming that she had found Johnny Depp…” I stared at him blankly, wondering what Johnny Depp had to do with Monsta X. “The trial? We’re right down the street from the courthouse. We’ve just been booked solid.”
The jury was absolutely incapable of being impartial when Fairfax was swarming with Johnny Depp supporters. I literally hid in my room while I was there because just having to sit in the packed lobby for twenty minutes while waiting to check in was, idk, way more Deppiness than I could handle. Staying off social media would hardly matter when social media came to them.
posted by Ruki at 8:56 PM on June 3, 2022 [20 favorites]
I'm completely baffled as to how anyone can still be pro-Depp at this point. He sounds like a fucked up, too drugged to function (redacted) (redacted) (redacted). Regardless of how you feel about Amber Heard, and I am neutral on her personally, literally nobody should have to endure the shit she did from him.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:16 PM on June 3, 2022 [19 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:16 PM on June 3, 2022 [19 favorites]
Anybody who still thinks this case was ever about defamation will undoubtedly be breathless in anticipation of Depp's suit against Michael Hobbes.
posted by flabdablet at 11:02 PM on June 3, 2022 [25 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 11:02 PM on June 3, 2022 [25 favorites]
The jury was absolutely incapable of being impartial when Fairfax was swarming with Johnny Depp supporters.
Nor was Heard capable of being relaxed to testify when she had to literally face a gauntlet of people screaming at her. I would really love to know why that was allowed to take place for the Depp trial when whenever ten people show up for courthouse defense to peacefully hold signs for an actual wrongly imprisoned person the cops are swarming and arresting people lest the jurors be tainted by the sight of somber prison abolition activists.
posted by corb at 12:59 AM on June 4, 2022 [32 favorites]
Nor was Heard capable of being relaxed to testify when she had to literally face a gauntlet of people screaming at her. I would really love to know why that was allowed to take place for the Depp trial when whenever ten people show up for courthouse defense to peacefully hold signs for an actual wrongly imprisoned person the cops are swarming and arresting people lest the jurors be tainted by the sight of somber prison abolition activists.
posted by corb at 12:59 AM on June 4, 2022 [32 favorites]
Metafilter: (redacted) (redacted) (redacted).
posted by sammyo at 5:46 AM on June 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by sammyo at 5:46 AM on June 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
Finally got around to reading this. I’m just so angry for Heard and for the many many people in situations just like her, but lower profile. It’s fucking disgusting.
posted by obfuscation at 2:41 PM on June 4, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by obfuscation at 2:41 PM on June 4, 2022 [4 favorites]
I'm completely baffled as to how anyone can still be pro-Depp at this point.
I think that Heard's case was lost by her lawyers. But I am not pro-Depp. And I was wrong about it simply being Hollywood.
This case matters more than I thought it did. It is about gender and access to justice and then it being twisted even further.
And this whole fuckery won't seem to stop getting worse.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/kyle-rittenhouse-depp-heard-verdict-1362386/
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 4:44 PM on June 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think that Heard's case was lost by her lawyers. But I am not pro-Depp. And I was wrong about it simply being Hollywood.
This case matters more than I thought it did. It is about gender and access to justice and then it being twisted even further.
And this whole fuckery won't seem to stop getting worse.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/kyle-rittenhouse-depp-heard-verdict-1362386/
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 4:44 PM on June 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
people having real Gift of Fear type reactions to Heard
I know it's been a while, but I want to swing back to bartleby's comments about people who have no particular reason to already believe Depp having a strong negative gut reaction to Heard. The kind of gut reaction we're told we should listen to.
I'm autistic. I am, as is apparently common for people on the spectrum, honest to a literal fault, earnest, and very trusting. And yet, I get the "Nope, I just DO NOT like her" reaction a LOT. Misogyny doubtless plays a huge part, but I know my male compatriots struggle with this as well.
Because I don't pick up on subtext, I usually answer the actual question. Not the question the other person thinks I know they meant. Answering like that gets interpreted as dodging the actual question. Which gets interpreted as being dishonest and scheming.
And, when I do answer the literal question, because it wasn't the question that was meant, my answer often gets interpreted as being intentionally rude and insensitive. Which gets interpreted as me wanting to cause harm to the person I'm answering. Which gets interpreted as me being a cruel, abusive, calculating person.
Because I don't pick up on subtle social cues, I'm usually a half-beat behind in the tiny social undertone reactions. This slight pause gets read as me acting--badly--and deliberately manipulating my emotional reactions in a conversation. Which gets interpreted as being dishonest and scheming.
Because social interactions have gone so badly for me so many times, I'm now hypervigilant of the conversation itself. Any reaction that may have had a chance to happen in real time is now examined closely. This makes me overly alert. My shoulders go up, my body gets tense. I'm simultaneously trying to figure out how to avoid the Very Bad Social Interaction and dreading its inevitability. This anxiety gets read as me being afraid to be caught doing something bad (when what I'm afraid of is being accused of doing something bad that I'm not doing). Which gets interpreted as dishonest and scheming.
I'm not saying Heard is on the spectrum. I'm saying that being deeply traumatized and having to be hyper aware of how you're coming across while anxiety is playing havoc with your executive functioning will likely cause exactly the same kinds of displays. NO ONE can watch her body language or analyze the specific words she chose and know what's motivating it. There are too many layers of distorting interference between what's in her brain and what's come pre-installed in the observer's brain.
posted by tllaya at 5:14 PM on June 4, 2022 [44 favorites]
I know it's been a while, but I want to swing back to bartleby's comments about people who have no particular reason to already believe Depp having a strong negative gut reaction to Heard. The kind of gut reaction we're told we should listen to.
I'm autistic. I am, as is apparently common for people on the spectrum, honest to a literal fault, earnest, and very trusting. And yet, I get the "Nope, I just DO NOT like her" reaction a LOT. Misogyny doubtless plays a huge part, but I know my male compatriots struggle with this as well.
Because I don't pick up on subtext, I usually answer the actual question. Not the question the other person thinks I know they meant. Answering like that gets interpreted as dodging the actual question. Which gets interpreted as being dishonest and scheming.
And, when I do answer the literal question, because it wasn't the question that was meant, my answer often gets interpreted as being intentionally rude and insensitive. Which gets interpreted as me wanting to cause harm to the person I'm answering. Which gets interpreted as me being a cruel, abusive, calculating person.
Because I don't pick up on subtle social cues, I'm usually a half-beat behind in the tiny social undertone reactions. This slight pause gets read as me acting--badly--and deliberately manipulating my emotional reactions in a conversation. Which gets interpreted as being dishonest and scheming.
Because social interactions have gone so badly for me so many times, I'm now hypervigilant of the conversation itself. Any reaction that may have had a chance to happen in real time is now examined closely. This makes me overly alert. My shoulders go up, my body gets tense. I'm simultaneously trying to figure out how to avoid the Very Bad Social Interaction and dreading its inevitability. This anxiety gets read as me being afraid to be caught doing something bad (when what I'm afraid of is being accused of doing something bad that I'm not doing). Which gets interpreted as dishonest and scheming.
I'm not saying Heard is on the spectrum. I'm saying that being deeply traumatized and having to be hyper aware of how you're coming across while anxiety is playing havoc with your executive functioning will likely cause exactly the same kinds of displays. NO ONE can watch her body language or analyze the specific words she chose and know what's motivating it. There are too many layers of distorting interference between what's in her brain and what's come pre-installed in the observer's brain.
posted by tllaya at 5:14 PM on June 4, 2022 [44 favorites]
On the Gamergate redux side of things:
@whatthep0p: thread of full on anti-media campaign happening on /r/JusticeForJohnnyDepp right now. this movement is a pipeline into right wing echo chambers and that sub is The_Donald 2.0: https://t.co/Op9lW5IyZ9
Main highlight to me, like QAnon, socialization is occuring in making these fans completely disregard mainstream media and fact-based reporting.
posted by cendawanita at 8:31 PM on June 4, 2022 [4 favorites]
@whatthep0p: thread of full on anti-media campaign happening on /r/JusticeForJohnnyDepp right now. this movement is a pipeline into right wing echo chambers and that sub is The_Donald 2.0: https://t.co/Op9lW5IyZ9
Main highlight to me, like QAnon, socialization is occuring in making these fans completely disregard mainstream media and fact-based reporting.
posted by cendawanita at 8:31 PM on June 4, 2022 [4 favorites]
My phone has been treating comments as an image lately for whatever bizarre reason, which means that I can’t select and copy text. Could someone put the Rolling Stone url from three comments up into an actual link? Thanks!
posted by eviemath at 7:28 AM on June 5, 2022
posted by eviemath at 7:28 AM on June 5, 2022
Once again, I owe a profound thank you to the people Metafilter for prying my eyes open. I'd somehow missed everything about Depp/Heard, including that there had been a UK trial. I began watching about nine or ten days in, but that was just another misstep: I began watching it on television, which seemed convenient but proved to be a bad idea for all the usual reasons.
I watched on and off until the end and didn't talk about it much, but I was both-sidesing the whole thing and thought Amber had lied several times and hadn't produced sufficient evidence (I see now that I was confusing the whole point of the trial, repeatedly, and had it framed in my head incorrectly). I offered my opinion to a friend who heard me out then gave a slight nudge of pushback—just enough to make me wonder if I was missing something by watching just the trial, which, on its face, sounded backward to me... I thought that watching just the trial would be a good thing, somehow. I was even saying out loud, "I can't believe I'm not believing the victim... this is surreal... why would she expose herself to this treatment just for money, or whatever?" I see it all very clearly now, but I'm human, and I just hadn't pieced it together yet.
After the trial ended, I sought out the thread on the blue and read it, absorbing several comments that I considered to be in "scold and teach" mode—but by now, I've learned to keep calm and just read them and absorb what they're saying. This has revealed holes in my thinking/processing in the past. To me, this is what Metafilter does best.
Thanks to everyone for their links to all the evidence that I completely missed coming up in that trial, which I admittedly only half-watched yet still formed an opinion about.
Thanks especially to Eyebrows for the legal lens and SLAPP mention; that's new to me and radically changed my framing of how this trial came to be. And a big, big thanks to corb for the post above in this thread, which perfectly describes how the internalized misogyny got me this time. Keep calm and never stop reading. Everyone is vulnerable to this stuff.
Thanks, Metafilter, for giving me a safe space to explore whether I've accidentally ingested some fucking kool-aid.
posted by heyho at 10:16 AM on June 5, 2022 [30 favorites]
I watched on and off until the end and didn't talk about it much, but I was both-sidesing the whole thing and thought Amber had lied several times and hadn't produced sufficient evidence (I see now that I was confusing the whole point of the trial, repeatedly, and had it framed in my head incorrectly). I offered my opinion to a friend who heard me out then gave a slight nudge of pushback—just enough to make me wonder if I was missing something by watching just the trial, which, on its face, sounded backward to me... I thought that watching just the trial would be a good thing, somehow. I was even saying out loud, "I can't believe I'm not believing the victim... this is surreal... why would she expose herself to this treatment just for money, or whatever?" I see it all very clearly now, but I'm human, and I just hadn't pieced it together yet.
After the trial ended, I sought out the thread on the blue and read it, absorbing several comments that I considered to be in "scold and teach" mode—but by now, I've learned to keep calm and just read them and absorb what they're saying. This has revealed holes in my thinking/processing in the past. To me, this is what Metafilter does best.
Thanks to everyone for their links to all the evidence that I completely missed coming up in that trial, which I admittedly only half-watched yet still formed an opinion about.
Thanks especially to Eyebrows for the legal lens and SLAPP mention; that's new to me and radically changed my framing of how this trial came to be. And a big, big thanks to corb for the post above in this thread, which perfectly describes how the internalized misogyny got me this time. Keep calm and never stop reading. Everyone is vulnerable to this stuff.
Thanks, Metafilter, for giving me a safe space to explore whether I've accidentally ingested some fucking kool-aid.
posted by heyho at 10:16 AM on June 5, 2022 [30 favorites]
It seems to me that one of the big lessons of the discussion of this trial is that, at root, legal disputes between two parties will have controversial and disputed social significance — so we need to be very careful and judicious in order to avoid misinterpreting the social significance of the event. I find the eagerness to pronounce about the social significance event dismaying — but Metafilter comments are obviously not immune from it.
posted by PaulVario at 10:26 AM on June 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by PaulVario at 10:26 AM on June 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
Domestic violence advocacy groups have almost unanimously said that the social significance of this trial will be to convince domestic violence victims to not come forward with their stories lest they be harassed like Heard was, but okay. I guess we must accept that this outcome is "controversial" and not fucking horrifying.
Meanwhile, Marilyn Manson is sueing Rachel Evans Woods for defaming him and requesting a jury trial, and Kyle Rittenhouse just announced that "fueled" by the Depp trial he would be doing the same, so I suppose we'll see soon if the Depp playbook can be successfully repeated by others.
posted by subdee at 1:58 PM on June 5, 2022 [22 favorites]
Meanwhile, Marilyn Manson is sueing Rachel Evans Woods for defaming him and requesting a jury trial, and Kyle Rittenhouse just announced that "fueled" by the Depp trial he would be doing the same, so I suppose we'll see soon if the Depp playbook can be successfully repeated by others.
posted by subdee at 1:58 PM on June 5, 2022 [22 favorites]
Something fishy has definitely been going on. When I look for animated gifs to post in Messenger, the second gif that it shows me, before I type in anything to search for, is of Depp smiling at the verdict. F*ck Messenger.
posted by UltraMorgnus at 2:31 PM on June 5, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by UltraMorgnus at 2:31 PM on June 5, 2022 [7 favorites]
subdee — I think that response is not serious. The verdict has no precedential force. It doesn’t discourage victims of domestic violence from coming forward to pursue their remedies at all. I can see how it might *encourage* such victims to end bad relationships, get restraining orders, call the cops, etc. And I can see how it might discourage victims of domestic violence from making claims in op-eds that are vulnerable to defamation suits. But that is just a bit different. For what it’s worth, I don’t think the judgment materially improves Sandmann’s litigation chances, either.
It’s startling and disturbing to me that so many people I know (and so many that I don’t) are drawing large conclusions about American life just because they’ve been watching a lawsuit between two crazy people.
(Important: “crazy” here is a term of opinion — and, indeed, abuse — and is not intended to serve as a statement of fact or clinical diagnosis!)
I think there is an alternate possibility here: Depp v. Heard teaches us (more or less) absolutely nothing important about anything. In my view, you’ll learn more important things by watching a football game. In fairness, though, I actually think I have learned something from reading coverage of the trial — namely: gifts like fame, wealth, power, and beauty create immense opportunities that some people apparently cannot handle responsibly.
posted by PaulVario at 3:50 PM on June 5, 2022
It’s startling and disturbing to me that so many people I know (and so many that I don’t) are drawing large conclusions about American life just because they’ve been watching a lawsuit between two crazy people.
(Important: “crazy” here is a term of opinion — and, indeed, abuse — and is not intended to serve as a statement of fact or clinical diagnosis!)
I think there is an alternate possibility here: Depp v. Heard teaches us (more or less) absolutely nothing important about anything. In my view, you’ll learn more important things by watching a football game. In fairness, though, I actually think I have learned something from reading coverage of the trial — namely: gifts like fame, wealth, power, and beauty create immense opportunities that some people apparently cannot handle responsibly.
posted by PaulVario at 3:50 PM on June 5, 2022
Part of managing my trauma is recognising it goes off inappropriately. Brick walls, music, even people who look like my rapist are not actually bad things or bad people. Disentangling trauma from judgement is vital to recovery. It's not an appropriate rationale for guilt in court.
posted by geek anachronism at 4:40 PM on June 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by geek anachronism at 4:40 PM on June 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
Fuck Marylin Manson and fuck Kyle Rittenhouse. For what it‘a worth. I hope karma is real, because y’all are going to get yours
posted by badbobbycase at 4:49 PM on June 5, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by badbobbycase at 4:49 PM on June 5, 2022 [3 favorites]
It’s startling and disturbing to me that so many people I know (and so many that I don’t) are drawing large conclusions about American life just because they’ve been watching a lawsuit between two crazy people.
You watched an abuser use the legal system to ruin his victim's reputation, career prospects, and finances in one of the most discussed public events of the last decade and your take away is "these celebs are crazy"?
Jesus christ.
posted by zymil at 4:54 PM on June 5, 2022 [22 favorites]
You watched an abuser use the legal system to ruin his victim's reputation, career prospects, and finances in one of the most discussed public events of the last decade and your take away is "these celebs are crazy"?
Jesus christ.
posted by zymil at 4:54 PM on June 5, 2022 [22 favorites]
Besides that, the opinion pieces coming out about the "meaning" of this trial verdict are also about how if you have enough money to run a massive PR campaign, and a story that resonates with the public, you can change public opinion on a massive scale and get the legal verdict you wanted. And it's pretty obvious why that's a story we should care about.
posted by subdee at 4:59 PM on June 5, 2022 [18 favorites]
posted by subdee at 4:59 PM on June 5, 2022 [18 favorites]
Subdee — there, I agree with you. That’s why choosing up sides and picking Team Heard or Team Depp isn’t simply bad manners or grotesquely inappropriate behavior: it’s actually quite socially dangerous.
posted by PaulVario at 5:03 PM on June 5, 2022
posted by PaulVario at 5:03 PM on June 5, 2022
What? That's not what they're saying; Amber Heard was not the one deploying weapons-grade astroturfing.
posted by sagc at 5:06 PM on June 5, 2022 [14 favorites]
posted by sagc at 5:06 PM on June 5, 2022 [14 favorites]
It’s startling and disturbing to me that so many people I know (and so many that I don’t) are drawing large conclusions about American life just because they’ve been watching a lawsuit between two crazy people.
But I don't think Michael Hobbes and other writers are drawing a conclusion only from this trial itself though. There are a lot of trends going on in American life that events like this trial both can influence and are influenced by.
posted by FJT at 5:08 PM on June 5, 2022 [7 favorites]
But I don't think Michael Hobbes and other writers are drawing a conclusion only from this trial itself though. There are a lot of trends going on in American life that events like this trial both can influence and are influenced by.
posted by FJT at 5:08 PM on June 5, 2022 [7 favorites]
To be clear, fuck JD all the way to hell and back too. This is coming from someone for whom Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was a formidable high school experience. And Ed Wood and Edward Scissorhands. Eat shit, bro. Say hi to the wrong side of history
posted by badbobbycase at 5:13 PM on June 5, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by badbobbycase at 5:13 PM on June 5, 2022 [3 favorites]
It doesn’t discourage victims of domestic violence from coming forward to pursue their remedies at all.
and all the victims of domestic violence who have publicly and privately said that it is both discouraging and terrifying are liars, is that it? excuse me, I mean "crazy" liars. "crazy" being a pleasant term of abuse with many useful misogynist applications, as you take such care to explain, not a clinical diagnosis. naturally.
the victims I'm scared for aren't the ones who are giving up. them I'm sorry for, but not scared. the ones I'm scared for are the ones who really aren't discouraged. what could amber heard's experience possibly have to do with them? why would anyone ever dream of treating them like they treated her? surely everyone will see that they're a good woman, not a bad lady, and behave accordingly.
those are the ones who are going to be absolutely destroyed.
posted by queenofbithynia at 12:12 AM on June 6, 2022 [21 favorites]
and all the victims of domestic violence who have publicly and privately said that it is both discouraging and terrifying are liars, is that it? excuse me, I mean "crazy" liars. "crazy" being a pleasant term of abuse with many useful misogynist applications, as you take such care to explain, not a clinical diagnosis. naturally.
the victims I'm scared for aren't the ones who are giving up. them I'm sorry for, but not scared. the ones I'm scared for are the ones who really aren't discouraged. what could amber heard's experience possibly have to do with them? why would anyone ever dream of treating them like they treated her? surely everyone will see that they're a good woman, not a bad lady, and behave accordingly.
those are the ones who are going to be absolutely destroyed.
posted by queenofbithynia at 12:12 AM on June 6, 2022 [21 favorites]
PaulVario, you really need to read the links posted both in the fpp and the thread before coming in with your counterfactual hot takes. I generally at least try to engage with the substance of folks’ comments, but it’s pretty hard to take any part of your analysis seriously when all of your conclusions in the first paragraph have already been thoroughly shown to be incorrect.
The tl/dr: your claims have already been empirically verified to be wrong. Do your homework before coming into a thread, especially one on a topic with such serious consequences.
posted by eviemath at 2:53 AM on June 6, 2022 [11 favorites]
The tl/dr: your claims have already been empirically verified to be wrong. Do your homework before coming into a thread, especially one on a topic with such serious consequences.
posted by eviemath at 2:53 AM on June 6, 2022 [11 favorites]
The verdict has no precedential force. It doesn’t discourage victims of domestic violence from coming forward to pursue their remedies at all.
Putting this up on the gaslighting board alongside "they'll never strike down Roe" and "they'll never pass laws mandating sexually assaulting girls merely suspected to be trans" and "they'll never come after birth control" and "they'll never try to recriminalize homosexuality" and the ton of other shit already here or coming down the pike very soon.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 5:26 AM on June 6, 2022 [21 favorites]
Putting this up on the gaslighting board alongside "they'll never strike down Roe" and "they'll never pass laws mandating sexually assaulting girls merely suspected to be trans" and "they'll never come after birth control" and "they'll never try to recriminalize homosexuality" and the ton of other shit already here or coming down the pike very soon.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 5:26 AM on June 6, 2022 [21 favorites]
choosing up sides and picking Team Heard or Team Depp isn’t simply bad manners or grotesquely inappropriate behavior: it’s actually quite socially dangerous.
With all due courtesy: what a load of pearl-clutching horseshit.
The only grotesquely inappropriate and deeply socially dangerous behaviour available here is failing to be clearly, unambiguously, unashamedly, loudly and publicly on Team Heard. What any other stance amounts to is condoning the weaponization of "good manners" by domestic abusers as tools for the concealment, extension and perpetuation of abuse.
What you're effectively advocating for by characterising this as a matter of poor etiquette is the idea that social cohesion requires us all to avert our eyes and stop up our ears and keep on pretending that the ongoing abuse we all know is ongoing is not ongoing.
This "defamation" suit was transparently motivated by nothing more than petty vindictiveness on Depp's part and once the dogs have barked and the caravan has moved on it will eventually become clear even to that drug-addled self-deluding fuckhead himself that in bringing it he's shot his own reputation in the foot regardless of what the jury decided.
It may well be the case that the world's most toxic and abusive PR campaign has indeed managed to suck many more people into being on Team Depp than on Team Heard or Team IDNGAF for the time being. But it is also the case that many many times more people now think "contemptible abuser" whenever they see his self-satisfied little smirk than ever thought anything like that before he brought this suit, that our opinion on this is solidly rooted in what is demonstrably true, that we have from now until approximately forever to argue that case whenever the subject of Depp comes up in conversation, and that his choice to rub all our noses in the huge steamer he left on the world's living-room carpet has has left us much more motivated to do so.
Lies do indeed rush all the way around the world before the truth can get its boots on, but they're being firmly laced up right now and they will be kicking heads.
posted by flabdablet at 9:00 AM on June 6, 2022 [14 favorites]
With all due courtesy: what a load of pearl-clutching horseshit.
The only grotesquely inappropriate and deeply socially dangerous behaviour available here is failing to be clearly, unambiguously, unashamedly, loudly and publicly on Team Heard. What any other stance amounts to is condoning the weaponization of "good manners" by domestic abusers as tools for the concealment, extension and perpetuation of abuse.
What you're effectively advocating for by characterising this as a matter of poor etiquette is the idea that social cohesion requires us all to avert our eyes and stop up our ears and keep on pretending that the ongoing abuse we all know is ongoing is not ongoing.
This "defamation" suit was transparently motivated by nothing more than petty vindictiveness on Depp's part and once the dogs have barked and the caravan has moved on it will eventually become clear even to that drug-addled self-deluding fuckhead himself that in bringing it he's shot his own reputation in the foot regardless of what the jury decided.
It may well be the case that the world's most toxic and abusive PR campaign has indeed managed to suck many more people into being on Team Depp than on Team Heard or Team IDNGAF for the time being. But it is also the case that many many times more people now think "contemptible abuser" whenever they see his self-satisfied little smirk than ever thought anything like that before he brought this suit, that our opinion on this is solidly rooted in what is demonstrably true, that we have from now until approximately forever to argue that case whenever the subject of Depp comes up in conversation, and that his choice to rub all our noses in the huge steamer he left on the world's living-room carpet has has left us much more motivated to do so.
Lies do indeed rush all the way around the world before the truth can get its boots on, but they're being firmly laced up right now and they will be kicking heads.
posted by flabdablet at 9:00 AM on June 6, 2022 [14 favorites]
In terms of tweets I've found regarding the social energy surrounding this case:
@obscuricom: The Kevin Spacey trial is getting so little coverage & attention that it underlines that the Depp trial was really just about punishing women rather than getting justice for male victims, but thankfully that means there won't be a cosplay conversation outside Spacey's courthouse.
@greatdynasty13: footage of the grown ass #DeppfordWives harassing Amber a mother with a baby at home. no matter what side of this case you’re on this isn’t okay.
@cocainecross: It’s funny how all the Depp bots magically stopped infesting my tweets after the trial ended, and most of the ones I argued with last week deactivated their accounts
@illumigomez: it’s crazy how johnny depp fans have been noticing amber’s bruises and denying abuse since 2013… long before she made public accusations (with screencaps)
posted by cendawanita at 9:28 AM on June 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
@obscuricom: The Kevin Spacey trial is getting so little coverage & attention that it underlines that the Depp trial was really just about punishing women rather than getting justice for male victims, but thankfully that means there won't be a cosplay conversation outside Spacey's courthouse.
@greatdynasty13: footage of the grown ass #DeppfordWives harassing Amber a mother with a baby at home. no matter what side of this case you’re on this isn’t okay.
@cocainecross: It’s funny how all the Depp bots magically stopped infesting my tweets after the trial ended, and most of the ones I argued with last week deactivated their accounts
@illumigomez: it’s crazy how johnny depp fans have been noticing amber’s bruises and denying abuse since 2013… long before she made public accusations (with screencaps)
posted by cendawanita at 9:28 AM on June 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
The only grotesquely inappropriate and deeply socially dangerous behaviour available here is failing to be clearly, unambiguously, unashamedly, loudly and publicly on Team Heard. What any other stance amounts to is condoning the weaponization of "good manners" by domestic abusers as tools for the concealment, extension and perpetuation of abuse.
So I'm supposed to tell that to the women/AFABs in my life that support Depp's side of things too, or is this just for internet strangers and strawmen?
Seriously, just another reminder that there might be lots of reasons people have opinions, and there can be a line between disagreement and castigation.
posted by Jarcat at 11:26 AM on June 6, 2022 [4 favorites]
So I'm supposed to tell that to the women/AFABs in my life that support Depp's side of things too, or is this just for internet strangers and strawmen?
Seriously, just another reminder that there might be lots of reasons people have opinions, and there can be a line between disagreement and castigation.
posted by Jarcat at 11:26 AM on June 6, 2022 [4 favorites]
Warner Bros has now Deleted Amber Heard from Aquaman 2
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:13 PM on June 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:13 PM on June 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
So I'm supposed to tell that to the women/AFABs in my life that support Depp's side of things too
If you think they'll listen, then yes.
This campaign has been running at least the last two years and it's ensnared a lot of people through social pressure who would normally know better. Even pointing them toward this thread or the last thread could work.
What gets me is the people who normally happy to call "age gap!" and "25 year old minor!" don't seem to be applying that same logic to a relationship where a man with a history of assault changes, drug abuse and dating women half his age (and trashing hotel rooms with them in in it) got into a relationship with a 22 year old up and coming actor.
posted by subdee at 1:09 PM on June 6, 2022 [15 favorites]
If you think they'll listen, then yes.
This campaign has been running at least the last two years and it's ensnared a lot of people through social pressure who would normally know better. Even pointing them toward this thread or the last thread could work.
What gets me is the people who normally happy to call "age gap!" and "25 year old minor!" don't seem to be applying that same logic to a relationship where a man with a history of assault changes, drug abuse and dating women half his age (and trashing hotel rooms with them in in it) got into a relationship with a 22 year old up and coming actor.
posted by subdee at 1:09 PM on June 6, 2022 [15 favorites]
The thing that has most amazed me and depressed me about this trial and its outcome is the way very different groups and members of groups in my life have come together to celebrate, gleefully, the judgement against Amber Heard.
I've seen comments from friends and family that express similar sentiments dunking on Heard from:
- Dudes I know who are if not outright MRA/incel members, very much MRA/incel-adjacent
- AFAB and AMAB people who are of the "God intended the man to be the head of the family/wielder of power in a relationship" mentality
- Trans women
- AMAB and AFAB feminists
- People who have been in abusive relationships
I don't know if the astroturfing campaigns and algorithms are working such that I'm not seeing posts from friends who share my views on the trial and verdict, or if I'm an outlier in my social circle, or what.
I share the fear expressed by many others in this thread that we have just witnessed a truly horrific example of the power of targeted campaigns.
posted by lord_wolf at 1:52 PM on June 6, 2022 [9 favorites]
I've seen comments from friends and family that express similar sentiments dunking on Heard from:
- Dudes I know who are if not outright MRA/incel members, very much MRA/incel-adjacent
- AFAB and AMAB people who are of the "God intended the man to be the head of the family/wielder of power in a relationship" mentality
- Trans women
- AMAB and AFAB feminists
- People who have been in abusive relationships
I don't know if the astroturfing campaigns and algorithms are working such that I'm not seeing posts from friends who share my views on the trial and verdict, or if I'm an outlier in my social circle, or what.
I share the fear expressed by many others in this thread that we have just witnessed a truly horrific example of the power of targeted campaigns.
posted by lord_wolf at 1:52 PM on June 6, 2022 [9 favorites]
So I'm supposed to tell that to the women/AFABs in my life that support Depp's side of things too
are you...asking for special instructions on how to speak rationally and tell the truth to everyone who's not a cis man? or just permission? is it our fragile intellects or our brittle bones that make you think this might not be a good idea?
you can just talk to us when the subject comes up, same as you would to people. feel free.
posted by queenofbithynia at 2:28 PM on June 6, 2022 [13 favorites]
Putting a robust case against an ill-conceived and consequential opinion even when - hell, especially when - it's espoused by somebody I know and like is, for me, part and parcel of respecting those people as people.
The appropriate amount of diplomacy to be employed will vary, of course, but leaving people I respect with the impression that I have no objection at all to some opinion they've expressed that's so tragically fucked up as to be deeply offensive amounts to lying, and lying to somebody right to their face is a thing I do only to people for whom I have almost entirely lost respect. Which, incidentally, it generally takes much more than a mere difference of opinion - even strongly held opinion - to achieve.
I cannot find within myself any remaining shred of respect for Depp; the last of it disappeared on reading the "flappy fish market" text. If anybody reading this still has any, might I gently suggest to you that you've been badly misled as to his character.
posted by flabdablet at 4:31 PM on June 6, 2022 [10 favorites]
The appropriate amount of diplomacy to be employed will vary, of course, but leaving people I respect with the impression that I have no objection at all to some opinion they've expressed that's so tragically fucked up as to be deeply offensive amounts to lying, and lying to somebody right to their face is a thing I do only to people for whom I have almost entirely lost respect. Which, incidentally, it generally takes much more than a mere difference of opinion - even strongly held opinion - to achieve.
I cannot find within myself any remaining shred of respect for Depp; the last of it disappeared on reading the "flappy fish market" text. If anybody reading this still has any, might I gently suggest to you that you've been badly misled as to his character.
posted by flabdablet at 4:31 PM on June 6, 2022 [10 favorites]
So I'm supposed to tell that to the women/AFABs in my life that support Depp's side of things too
I think it's sometims difficult for some to figure out the difference between letting impacted people speak and be heard, and assuming that any impacted person is the authority. One good way I would approach this personally is, "I hear you, but I am also hearing from other impacted people that they are feeling afraid and intimidated to come forward about their actual abuse. I am hearing from neurodivergent people that they are frightened by how many people are making decisions based off their subjective impressions of how Heard comes off to them. Have you considered this aspect? What are your thoughts? I've read some of the texts sent by Depp and they come off as deeply misogynist. What is your take?"
Women and AFAB people can be wrong sometimes, especially when there's a multimillion dollar PR extravaganza being spun up. It's okay to let them know that, just don't be a jerk about it.
posted by corb at 10:59 PM on June 6, 2022 [21 favorites]
I think it's sometims difficult for some to figure out the difference between letting impacted people speak and be heard, and assuming that any impacted person is the authority. One good way I would approach this personally is, "I hear you, but I am also hearing from other impacted people that they are feeling afraid and intimidated to come forward about their actual abuse. I am hearing from neurodivergent people that they are frightened by how many people are making decisions based off their subjective impressions of how Heard comes off to them. Have you considered this aspect? What are your thoughts? I've read some of the texts sent by Depp and they come off as deeply misogynist. What is your take?"
Women and AFAB people can be wrong sometimes, especially when there's a multimillion dollar PR extravaganza being spun up. It's okay to let them know that, just don't be a jerk about it.
posted by corb at 10:59 PM on June 6, 2022 [21 favorites]
The Daily Wire Spent Thousands of Dollars Promoting Anti-Amber Heard Propaganda - Vice.com
posted by Lanark at 1:01 AM on June 7, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by Lanark at 1:01 AM on June 7, 2022 [8 favorites]
Johnny Depp’s History of Racism and Broken Promises to Native Americans via @justiceamberheard
posted by Lanark at 5:06 AM on June 7, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Lanark at 5:06 AM on June 7, 2022 [6 favorites]
Hi I just wanted to point out that it's extremely hard for me to believe that Depp was a "victim" here regardless of what Heard may have done in retaliation/defense in the moment and that's because he fucking HELD HER DOWN AND PENETRATED HER WITH A BEER BOTTLE during one of their fights.
I have never thought that Depp was talented and I've never seen Heard in anything so I tried to remain agnostic about this circus and tried to stay away from the details of this trial desperately but like many of us here I couldn't avoid it. When I read that detail about the beer bottle it made me physically sick.
The fact that anyone wants to defend Depp here or anywhere, even if it's just based on semantics and technicalities, even if they swear up and down that they are not misogynistic, I don't know how you could hear that detail in particular and not see who had the actual power in that relationship. Poor poor baby Johnny Depp with his addiction issues, he can't be held responsible for anything, even actual rape.
I have a lot of female friends who identify as feminists who think she was lying and are thrilled that Depp has been "vindicated". Why? Honestly why? He was a cute teenager? Edward Scissorhands is the Citizen Kane of our generation? The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is that good? JD's Captain Jack Sparrow is so brilliant that it surpasses Lawrence Olivier as Hamlet? Aww, he was Willy Wonka!!! How sweet. I love Willy Wonka. Johnny Depp is a genius!!! Like, is this the mental calculus being made?
What is going on, what is the appeal of this man? Or is it just that society hates women who don't perform femininity and victimhood "properly"?
This whole thing makes me want to vomit.
posted by nayantara at 7:51 AM on June 7, 2022 [21 favorites]
I have never thought that Depp was talented and I've never seen Heard in anything so I tried to remain agnostic about this circus and tried to stay away from the details of this trial desperately but like many of us here I couldn't avoid it. When I read that detail about the beer bottle it made me physically sick.
The fact that anyone wants to defend Depp here or anywhere, even if it's just based on semantics and technicalities, even if they swear up and down that they are not misogynistic, I don't know how you could hear that detail in particular and not see who had the actual power in that relationship. Poor poor baby Johnny Depp with his addiction issues, he can't be held responsible for anything, even actual rape.
I have a lot of female friends who identify as feminists who think she was lying and are thrilled that Depp has been "vindicated". Why? Honestly why? He was a cute teenager? Edward Scissorhands is the Citizen Kane of our generation? The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is that good? JD's Captain Jack Sparrow is so brilliant that it surpasses Lawrence Olivier as Hamlet? Aww, he was Willy Wonka!!! How sweet. I love Willy Wonka. Johnny Depp is a genius!!! Like, is this the mental calculus being made?
What is going on, what is the appeal of this man? Or is it just that society hates women who don't perform femininity and victimhood "properly"?
This whole thing makes me want to vomit.
posted by nayantara at 7:51 AM on June 7, 2022 [21 favorites]
My boyfriend and I just saw Paul McCartney perform in Syracuse this past Saturday and I prayed and prayed he wouldn't play the Johnny Depp/Natalie Portman music video when he did "My Valentine" (the song he wrote many years ago for his current wife). He did. When Depp's face appeared on the big screen the whole fucking crowd CHEERED for a good ten seconds. They weren't cheering for the song. It's not a good song. Paul is one of the reasons I became a musician and my heart just dropped into my stomach when I saw that. Passive support is still support. Fuck you, Paul. Really. Fuck you.
posted by nayantara at 7:56 AM on June 7, 2022 [19 favorites]
posted by nayantara at 7:56 AM on June 7, 2022 [19 favorites]
Nayantara, I know what you mean--last night I was watching a streaming channel that's got ads, and that fucking Sauvage ad came up a couple times. And now I feel like I can't finish watching the series because I don't want to see his fucking face. Just...the people who've supported him...they are dead to me, like Taika Waititi, which breaks my heart a little. They can all just go to hell.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 11:55 AM on June 7, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by kitten kaboodle at 11:55 AM on June 7, 2022 [7 favorites]
the people who've supported him...they are dead to me, like Taika Waititi, which breaks my heart a little
Again, I'd like to suggest that the most appropriate response to somebody you know personally revealing membership in Team Depp is to find an appropriate time to sit down and have a serious conversation with them about it and make sure they understand why you disagree so strongly with their position. If you can, get them to agree to read the UK judgement so they'll at least understand the basis for your opposition. If there's any good faith there at all then you should be able to induce, at the very least, some degree of reflection on their part as to why they're unwilling to read that judgement.
People we don't know personally who express attitudes that are heartbreakingly disappointing are something we can't really do anything about. We just need to hope that there will be people in their own lives who are in a position to take on that job instead.
It helps to remind ourselves that parasocial relationships are not real relationships and that the ending of them, even when several collapse at the same time, can feel deeply unpleasant but is nowhere near as consequential for any of us as the loss of an actual personal relationship. The latter are usually worth putting much more effort into trying to preserve.
This is a pill that's made a little less difficult to swallow by reflecting on the parasocial relationships that keep Depp fans in thrall to the graven images of their idol that they carry around inside their own heads.
posted by flabdablet at 1:39 PM on June 7, 2022 [8 favorites]
Again, I'd like to suggest that the most appropriate response to somebody you know personally revealing membership in Team Depp is to find an appropriate time to sit down and have a serious conversation with them about it and make sure they understand why you disagree so strongly with their position. If you can, get them to agree to read the UK judgement so they'll at least understand the basis for your opposition. If there's any good faith there at all then you should be able to induce, at the very least, some degree of reflection on their part as to why they're unwilling to read that judgement.
People we don't know personally who express attitudes that are heartbreakingly disappointing are something we can't really do anything about. We just need to hope that there will be people in their own lives who are in a position to take on that job instead.
It helps to remind ourselves that parasocial relationships are not real relationships and that the ending of them, even when several collapse at the same time, can feel deeply unpleasant but is nowhere near as consequential for any of us as the loss of an actual personal relationship. The latter are usually worth putting much more effort into trying to preserve.
This is a pill that's made a little less difficult to swallow by reflecting on the parasocial relationships that keep Depp fans in thrall to the graven images of their idol that they carry around inside their own heads.
posted by flabdablet at 1:39 PM on June 7, 2022 [8 favorites]
what is the appeal of this man?
It's the best appeal that money can buy.
posted by flabdablet at 1:41 PM on June 7, 2022 [5 favorites]
It's the best appeal that money can buy.
posted by flabdablet at 1:41 PM on June 7, 2022 [5 favorites]
lord_wolf, I don’t think you’re being sexist or whatever because you’re dismayed by the amount of AFAB, queer, trans, and otherwise progressive people who’ve fallen for the bullshit. It’s been really scary and imo very notable that this is the alt right firehose of disinformation campaign to make it through the left vs right barrier— all kinds of progressives and queer people are acting like facebook boomers being led awry by antivaxx memes. Mainstream left twitter was full of people mocking Jordan Peterson for being a misogynist pig and then immediately flipping to making Depp v Heard poop jokes. I’m ashamed to say it got me for a minute with the “but what about ipv between queer women and Amber’s ex wife?” fake item. The campaign has been disturbingly good and you’re not some weirdo incel treating women like aliens for being knocked off balance by the way it sucked in feminists, survivors, and queer people who were impervious to the similar disinformation attacks on Hillary Clinton, Christine Blasey Ford, and Leni Robredo. It’s a real phenomenon and a frightening one. “I hear you but the disinformation going on here is a lot, and I believe her” is a good start.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 4:07 PM on June 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by moonlight on vermont at 4:07 PM on June 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
Another possible approach for talking with people you have a mutually trusting and caring relationship with who support Depp is to begin by affirming shared values: that abuse is bad, that high profile abuse cases can be hard for survivors and can influence public conversations (sometimes positively, but also often negatively). Lay the groundwork so that when you bring up why it appears the abuse is going the other direction from what the people you are talking to think, it is clear that the disagreement is not about abuse or how to react to abuse victims in general, but only about interpretation of who is on which side of this specific case. That could look like “Hmm, I have a slightly different interpretation, but I know this case, being so public, has been really difficult for many survivors, so I want to be really clear that …”. You could bring up, in a fully generic sense, details about reactive violence versus mutual abuse not really being a thing, as part of a “this is what I’ve read and understand so far about abuse and how it works in general”, as part of that. Definitely bring up the power dynamics that underlie abuse.
And then, if it’s someone who you are surprised is taking the anti-Heard position and they agree with you on the generic details and understanding, ask them why they interpret the situation as they do, then pause and wait for a response, ask gently challenging further questions (eg. “I’m worried about reliance on that sort of analysis of micro expressions, given how it has been used against women in [bring up past cases or situations that you know or have good reason to expect they would support], etc. - basically, take the approach that they’ll likely see your side if stepping through things outside of the propaganda blitz. Reminder that you don’t need to get all the way there in one conversation: planting a seed and letting them mull it over is sometimes more productive in the long run.
If it’s someone you aren’t as close with (but who is AFAB, queer, trans, or feminist who supports Depp), they won’t have trust or patience to engage with you in the whole process outlined above, so a more direct approach will likely come across as more respectful. Still affirm shared values at the beginning, but also be upfront that you see the abuse going in the other direction. That may be as far as you’re able to get, but if you have the opportunity to explain why, reiterating the shared values periodically can help keep that conversation respectful and less threatening-feeling to the other people.
(I don’t have the energy to be quite as careful with folks who I neither have a close relationship with nor have greater relative privilege than, so if I were talking to just some random dude acquaintance or coworker, I’d be even more direct and succinct, and less worried about phrasing the case to emphasize respect for the other person and avoid harm. But that’s not the situation that was asked about, of course.)
posted by eviemath at 7:42 PM on June 8, 2022 [6 favorites]
And then, if it’s someone who you are surprised is taking the anti-Heard position and they agree with you on the generic details and understanding, ask them why they interpret the situation as they do, then pause and wait for a response, ask gently challenging further questions (eg. “I’m worried about reliance on that sort of analysis of micro expressions, given how it has been used against women in [bring up past cases or situations that you know or have good reason to expect they would support], etc. - basically, take the approach that they’ll likely see your side if stepping through things outside of the propaganda blitz. Reminder that you don’t need to get all the way there in one conversation: planting a seed and letting them mull it over is sometimes more productive in the long run.
If it’s someone you aren’t as close with (but who is AFAB, queer, trans, or feminist who supports Depp), they won’t have trust or patience to engage with you in the whole process outlined above, so a more direct approach will likely come across as more respectful. Still affirm shared values at the beginning, but also be upfront that you see the abuse going in the other direction. That may be as far as you’re able to get, but if you have the opportunity to explain why, reiterating the shared values periodically can help keep that conversation respectful and less threatening-feeling to the other people.
(I don’t have the energy to be quite as careful with folks who I neither have a close relationship with nor have greater relative privilege than, so if I were talking to just some random dude acquaintance or coworker, I’d be even more direct and succinct, and less worried about phrasing the case to emphasize respect for the other person and avoid harm. But that’s not the situation that was asked about, of course.)
posted by eviemath at 7:42 PM on June 8, 2022 [6 favorites]
Add Brad Pitt to the list of Hollywood men suing their ex-wives for defamation in the wake of the Depp-Heard trial (and seeking trial by jury).
https://leepacey.tumblr.com/post/686369722771652608/brad-pitt-is-already-suing-angelina-jolie-for
posted by subdee at 9:20 PM on June 8, 2022 [7 favorites]
https://leepacey.tumblr.com/post/686369722771652608/brad-pitt-is-already-suing-angelina-jolie-for
posted by subdee at 9:20 PM on June 8, 2022 [7 favorites]
Rayne Fisher-Quann: Who's Afraid of Amber Heard?
One of the most frustrating aspects of the cultural response to the suit is the sheer volume of people now insisting that it’s both radical and necessary to declare that women can lie. “Women CAN do bad things,” proclaim the viral tweets and pseudo-philosophical TikToks, boldly assuming an affect of subversion despite occupying the same philosophical position as a sanitorium baron from 1955. If the never-ending barrage of amateur political punditry on the internet is to be believed, we need to be having this conversation, lest feminism go too far (nevermind the fact that women’s liberation is no nearer now than it was before #MeToo went viral on Twitter). The idea that the dominant culture has moved forward enough for the systemic distrust of women to be anything other than a default setting is somewhere between bizarre fantasy and bold-faced manipulation: in reality, everyone still thinks women are lying all the time, and they never stopped for a second.
The spectacle around the Depp trial is being called a large-scale backlash to the MeToo movement, and I don’t disagree — but this is uniquely terrifying because I don’t think the mainstream MeToo movement was ever actually materially effective in the first place. In Walter Benjamin’s essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, he writes that an oppressive structure “sees its salvation” in allowing the masses to express themselves freely in lieu of granting them their rights. Similarly, the mainstream MeToo movement offered temporary catharsis in place of systemic change; Hollywood play-acted a revolution so that its men could keep up their abuse unscathed. There is something phenomenally painful in watching a material backlash erupt in response to a movement that was never allowed to be anything more than aesthetic. Now that the state of discourse has moved forward without bringing women’s material conditions with it, men like Johnny Depp are able to benefit from violent systemic misogyny while posturing themselves as radical, anti-establishment activists. Recent events are not so much a pendulum swing as they are a pendulum being repeatedly beaten in one direction for fear it might one day gain a centimetre of ground.
posted by cendawanita at 7:05 PM on June 10, 2022 [13 favorites]
One of the most frustrating aspects of the cultural response to the suit is the sheer volume of people now insisting that it’s both radical and necessary to declare that women can lie. “Women CAN do bad things,” proclaim the viral tweets and pseudo-philosophical TikToks, boldly assuming an affect of subversion despite occupying the same philosophical position as a sanitorium baron from 1955. If the never-ending barrage of amateur political punditry on the internet is to be believed, we need to be having this conversation, lest feminism go too far (nevermind the fact that women’s liberation is no nearer now than it was before #MeToo went viral on Twitter). The idea that the dominant culture has moved forward enough for the systemic distrust of women to be anything other than a default setting is somewhere between bizarre fantasy and bold-faced manipulation: in reality, everyone still thinks women are lying all the time, and they never stopped for a second.
The spectacle around the Depp trial is being called a large-scale backlash to the MeToo movement, and I don’t disagree — but this is uniquely terrifying because I don’t think the mainstream MeToo movement was ever actually materially effective in the first place. In Walter Benjamin’s essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, he writes that an oppressive structure “sees its salvation” in allowing the masses to express themselves freely in lieu of granting them their rights. Similarly, the mainstream MeToo movement offered temporary catharsis in place of systemic change; Hollywood play-acted a revolution so that its men could keep up their abuse unscathed. There is something phenomenally painful in watching a material backlash erupt in response to a movement that was never allowed to be anything more than aesthetic. Now that the state of discourse has moved forward without bringing women’s material conditions with it, men like Johnny Depp are able to benefit from violent systemic misogyny while posturing themselves as radical, anti-establishment activists. Recent events are not so much a pendulum swing as they are a pendulum being repeatedly beaten in one direction for fear it might one day gain a centimetre of ground.
posted by cendawanita at 7:05 PM on June 10, 2022 [13 favorites]
The idea that the dominant culture has moved forward enough for the systemic distrust of women to be anything other than a default setting is somewhere between bizarre fantasy and bold-faced manipulation: in reality, everyone still thinks women are lying all the time, and they never stopped for a second.
Thank you for posting this cendawanita
(content warning as I'm going to mention sexual abuse) The whole time I'm reading this thread, I'm having this internal dialogue in which I try to think what I'm going to say if this topic comes up in my friend group.
They are left wing, consider themselves not sexist. But they didn't even get on board with the Me Too movement.
I remember a dinner party back when Me Too first became a thing (and dinner parties still happened) where the consensus was basically that women often gained power by manipulating men sexually, and that it was hypocritical to complain about it, let alone in such a "performative, public" way that was clearly just people wanting to get on the latest social media outrage band wagon.
This was both men and women talking.
I'm female. I listened to this with growing discomfort, and when I started talking, I guess it was clear from my demeanour that I was going to disagree.
One of the men, a guy who I don't know well, and isn't usually a touchy-feely huggy kind of person, reached across and put his *hand on my shoulder*, smiled fondly at me, and said (I can't remember his exact words) "yes I know what you are going to say but we've all heard it before so let's just skip it."
And then the conversation went happily on as I was still trying to pull myself back from being TOUCHED BY A VIRTUAL STRANGER (I don't like people touching me!) and SILENCED in the most patronising way, and everyone else was apparently fine with that?
And the thing I'd been wanting to say was going to be super polite and gentle, a small nudge.
I was *already* not going to tell them "excuse me, but I was repeatedly sexually abused by a doctor when I was 17 and lying in a hospital bed, concussed after being in a car accident".
That guy is still part of our friend group and I find it incredibly difficult to even look at him now. I don't know what to do with my disgust and rage, because I let the moment pass as I didn't want to make a scene at the time.
So thank you from my heart to everyone here reaffirming that I'm not insane for being horrified at the public reaction to this particular case.
I actually hope this topic doesn't come up with my friends because I just don't know what I'm going to say.
I love my friends and they are mostly kind, open minded, generous people but what the hell is going on with their attitude to this topic?
posted by Zumbador at 10:17 PM on June 10, 2022 [19 favorites]
Thank you for posting this cendawanita
(content warning as I'm going to mention sexual abuse) The whole time I'm reading this thread, I'm having this internal dialogue in which I try to think what I'm going to say if this topic comes up in my friend group.
They are left wing, consider themselves not sexist. But they didn't even get on board with the Me Too movement.
I remember a dinner party back when Me Too first became a thing (and dinner parties still happened) where the consensus was basically that women often gained power by manipulating men sexually, and that it was hypocritical to complain about it, let alone in such a "performative, public" way that was clearly just people wanting to get on the latest social media outrage band wagon.
This was both men and women talking.
I'm female. I listened to this with growing discomfort, and when I started talking, I guess it was clear from my demeanour that I was going to disagree.
One of the men, a guy who I don't know well, and isn't usually a touchy-feely huggy kind of person, reached across and put his *hand on my shoulder*, smiled fondly at me, and said (I can't remember his exact words) "yes I know what you are going to say but we've all heard it before so let's just skip it."
And then the conversation went happily on as I was still trying to pull myself back from being TOUCHED BY A VIRTUAL STRANGER (I don't like people touching me!) and SILENCED in the most patronising way, and everyone else was apparently fine with that?
And the thing I'd been wanting to say was going to be super polite and gentle, a small nudge.
I was *already* not going to tell them "excuse me, but I was repeatedly sexually abused by a doctor when I was 17 and lying in a hospital bed, concussed after being in a car accident".
That guy is still part of our friend group and I find it incredibly difficult to even look at him now. I don't know what to do with my disgust and rage, because I let the moment pass as I didn't want to make a scene at the time.
So thank you from my heart to everyone here reaffirming that I'm not insane for being horrified at the public reaction to this particular case.
I actually hope this topic doesn't come up with my friends because I just don't know what I'm going to say.
I love my friends and they are mostly kind, open minded, generous people but what the hell is going on with their attitude to this topic?
posted by Zumbador at 10:17 PM on June 10, 2022 [19 favorites]
Zumbador, I'm so sorry you had to deal with that person. No matter the topic of discussion, that is not an acceptable way to behave, let alone that it's a man silencing a woman talking about an issue that affects primarily women. In my opinion your friends have seriously let you down by letting that stand unchallenged.
posted by biogeo at 10:51 PM on June 10, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 10:51 PM on June 10, 2022 [11 favorites]
Seconding that that sounds awful Zumbador, and adding that you deserve a better friend group. (And that those people don’t sound remotely leftist, though maybe they’re bizarrely regressive on this one issue but still somehow anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist, and support police or prison abolition and reparations or something? Like, one would have to be seriously left on other issues to make up for such a regressive attitude on the one issue and still be able to call oneself leftist. Though folks in the US, if this is in the US, do tend to have an odd baseline for what they consider left of center.)
posted by eviemath at 4:46 AM on June 11, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 4:46 AM on June 11, 2022 [6 favorites]
I don't know what to do with my disgust and rage, because I let the moment pass as I didn't want to make a scene at the time.
The thing to do with disgust and rage arising from a circumstance like that is bottle it. Not bottle it up; bottle it like a fine wine, and lay it down in a cool dark place and give it time to mature. So that the next time either that guy, or somebody interchangeable with that guy, does what that guy did - either to you, or to somebody in your presence - you'll be ready to fetch it out of storage and decant it.
At which point, instead of the conversation just moving happily on as either you or anybody else stays frozen inside in disbelief and horror, one of your eyebrows will fractionally raise itself above the other, and in a voice that is completely in control and perfectly capable of modulating its volume without changing its tone, you will shut that pompous, presumptuous, self-satisfied motherfucker down even if the consequences of doing so include walking away from the charred and smoking ruin of what was once a dinner party without a backward glance.
Let's just skip it?
How about let's just don't.
How about let's just give that oozing prick a full strength medicinal dose of it, at length, in detail, with citations and footnotes. And how about let's all right now lay down a bottle of that particular vintage and get similarly prepared while we're at it.
Fuxache. Some people make me ashamed to share a gender with them. I'm sorry you got some of that one on you.
posted by flabdablet at 8:37 AM on June 11, 2022 [8 favorites]
The thing to do with disgust and rage arising from a circumstance like that is bottle it. Not bottle it up; bottle it like a fine wine, and lay it down in a cool dark place and give it time to mature. So that the next time either that guy, or somebody interchangeable with that guy, does what that guy did - either to you, or to somebody in your presence - you'll be ready to fetch it out of storage and decant it.
At which point, instead of the conversation just moving happily on as either you or anybody else stays frozen inside in disbelief and horror, one of your eyebrows will fractionally raise itself above the other, and in a voice that is completely in control and perfectly capable of modulating its volume without changing its tone, you will shut that pompous, presumptuous, self-satisfied motherfucker down even if the consequences of doing so include walking away from the charred and smoking ruin of what was once a dinner party without a backward glance.
Let's just skip it?
How about let's just don't.
How about let's just give that oozing prick a full strength medicinal dose of it, at length, in detail, with citations and footnotes. And how about let's all right now lay down a bottle of that particular vintage and get similarly prepared while we're at it.
Fuxache. Some people make me ashamed to share a gender with them. I'm sorry you got some of that one on you.
posted by flabdablet at 8:37 AM on June 11, 2022 [8 favorites]
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posted by chernoffhoeffding at 8:34 AM on June 3, 2022 [69 favorites]