What's Eating Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp is not our hero
This past month, Johnny Depp's defamation case against Amber Heard has dominated headlines and social media feeds. This trial has been held in Fairfax, Virginia, following another defamation case sued by Johnny Depp in the UK that started in 2018. The trial has aroused commentary, but it seems like little of it has been crafted from factual discourse.
A brief timeline: celebrities Amber Heard and Johnny Depp started dating each other in 2012. After three years of dating, Depp and Heard got married in 2015, but quickly divorced in 2016 over what Heard alleged to be "irreconcilable differences". Two years later, Amber Heard wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post detailing her struggles with sexual and domestic violence, and the flack she received as a domestic violence survivor who was also a woman. Prior to Heard’s publication, Johnny Depp filed a lawsuit against The Sun for libel for an article that accused Johnny Depp of being a wife beater. Despite this lawsuit being on the table when Heard published her op-ed, Depp turned around and also filed a lawsuit against Heard for defamation (even though she never specified that Depp was the perpetrator of her abuse). The lawsuit for the Sun went to trial in 2020, which Depp lost in court (and also lost in his attempt to appeal). Heard, who countersued Depp’s $50 million defamation case with $100 million, is now in trial, again, with Johnny Depp in Fairfax, Virginia.
In mainstream media outlets and in conversations with the general populace, this case is seen, at best, as a “he said, she said” case of abuse. “Messy details”, “back-and-forths”, and all the other euphemisms implicating a tit-for-tat war between bitter ex-lovers is how this court battle has been portrayed in many outlets. But, in fact, this case is not a “he said, she said” case by any stretch of the imagination. What isn’t discussed or well-known with this case, for one thing, is that twelve of fourteen counts of abuse that were brought up in trial were found to be “proved to civil standard”. Amber Heard came to court in Fairfax with photographs, medical notes, and texts to indicate how abusive Deep had been towards her throughout their relationship. But the evidence that Amber Heard has brought up to the stand has not been taken as canonical by the public eye. Rather, Amber Heard’s testimonies have been met with reactionary lies and commentary accusing her of setting up Johnny Depp to lose everything in his life and career.
Take, for example, a video that was shared in the courtroom as evidence. At one point in their marriage, Amber Heard shot a video of Johnny Depp angrily smashing cabinets and bottles in their kitchen at the time. Astonishingly, the thirty eight thousand comments posted underneath the video accuse Amber of “being evil” and setting up a poor and innocent Johnny Depp for legal punishment. A few to list:
“Look at her trying to act like she’s sad. She knows what she’s doing.”
“A victim does not chase their abuser around while recording. Apparently she does not know what it is like to be a victim for real.”
“This video just shows how manipulative she is. “We didn’t fight this morning, I just say sorry”… after a long night of arguing, she pretends that her partner simply wakes up with amnesia, like nothing happened and then she recorded him, because it seems that she was indeed trying to get that reaction from Johnny…. Seriously, there’s something strange in her look…”
As I scrolled down through the comments, I saw others that looked almost the exact same in rhetoric. Heard was labelled as being evil, manipulative, and diabolical, as Depp was given a caricature of a pitiful, suffering man who was innocent and in the right. Yet, the public eye seems to take no notice of the many other pieces of proof that indicate that Depp, indeed, was the abuser here, and not Heard.
The media portrayal of this case, as many other essay writers and reporters have written it better than I have, has been an all-out win for the “men’s rights” movement. Depp’s lawyers have successfully shaped a narrative that Depp is a victim of domestic abuse thanks to the legions of men’s rights activists online who have even gone so far as creating thousands of bot accounts in support of him. This trial has not only displayed the strength that men’s rights activists can exert in very public moments like this one, but it further demonstrates how men’s rights activists are willing to push disinformation in order to discredit real victims of domestic and sexual violence on the basis of toxic feminism.
Outside of the support that men’s rights activists have widely shown in this venture, Depp’s and Heard’s trial is timely. Last week, Politico leaked Justice Alito’s draft majority opinion that Roe V. Wade would be overturned, suggesting a dark turn for women’s rights in the US. Moreover, times have become harder for LGBTQ+ folks, and especially teenagers, as legislation implemented in various states is putting LGBTQ+ people and Trans people in danger. It should be noted that their is a large correlation between LGBTQ+ people and incidents of domestic and sexual violence (whom also experience spikes in domestic violence throughout the pandemic).
As I argued in a piece prior to this, men’s rights activists have “failed” to mention statistics, thorough arguments, or even nuanced arguments supporting why Depp is a victim. It’s because the men’s rights movement is reactionary; men online see feminism and an increased advocacy for women and LGBTQ+ people as a threat to their health and safety (read: their power in society).
It is frustrating as hell to see Johnny Depp get defended by thousands of people online for a label that is not for him to don. Heard has approached each of her trials with loads of evidence as Depp has walked into every hearing with smear campaigns at the ready; in a country where the preciseness and importance of evidence is ostensibly valuable, Depp has won the public's favor. And what it shows of US society, and very particularly of men in the US, is that we stand in a moment where overwhelming amounts of men are not willing to accept women as human beings.
As a survivor on the sideline, it rages me blind to see Heard being considered "guilty" on the basis that she is not a "perfect victim". While Heard seemed to react questionably in some instances, Heard was being threatened physically, and in some cases, with her life. In moments where people feel unsafe, it makes sense that they look to strike back before looking for justification in the name of safety, and at minimum, they should be granted that grace of consideration. But Heard is not being granted that, and instead is facing a public haranguing of exponential proportions when compared to Depp. And what I wish this society would internalize is that, more often than not, a "perfect victim" in domestic violence often ends up trapped, missing, and even dead.
It infuriates me more that men are standing so strongly with Depp. If their effort is to advocate for men that are being abused in relationships, this is beyond just a slight miss of an attempt. Plenty of men suffer from domestic violence (one out of seven), but the majority of online advocacy for Depp is not looking to explain reasoning, promote policy, or even look to suggest how typical dynamics of domestic violence may explain why Depp would be a survivor in their eyes. The furthest analysis I have seen are short clips are amateur body language analyses of Heard as Depp looks sad, which is standing to apparently be incriminating enough to prove that Heard is the perpetrator, and Depp the abuser.
What is purportedly eating Johnny Depp is really eating Amber Heard and all other domestic violence survivors. The outright public support for Depp is an outright indictment of toxic masculinity and patriarchal leanings that remain in our society well after #MeToo. So long as men rights activists have radio waves and twitter accounts, domestic violence survivors will feel less and less safe to speak out.
When my dad was first taken away by the cops and they first separated, my mom was the one who was excommunicated by our church. It was not my father, who they had been leading marriage counseling sessions with. It wasn't my father, who had complaints of heavior from other leaders in our scout troop that was chartered by the church. It was my mom. She was ostracized from a support network she thought she had, and although she is fine with it now, my dad was the one who won the support of the church despite them knowing what they did. I can't scream to you how this is gendered violence in institutional form, how this is a frequent symptom of domestic abuse, how institutions cradle abusive men into arms while shoving women outwards.
I see a pattern repeating with Depp and Heard here. While there is plenty, plenty of evidence to show that Depp is an abuser, he is receiving the largest amount of support online. People are hailing it to be a win for male victims, but it isn't. It's not a win for any men that Depp is falsely being considered a victim of domestic abuse.
Male survivors don't look like Depp. We don't drag women through court. We don't lament over "harmful" labels that are based on truthful evidence. We run to hide from death threats and harassment. We worry if perpetrators will show up unannounced. We feel exposed to the core, working to hide ourselves in locked social media accounts and stay up all night thinking about how our perpetrators could find our address on a bad night. We think about how we could write a letter without addressing anyone, and end up in court, in the hospital, or dead. We would be lucky to wonder how our careers might be damaged. If anything, male survivors look like Heard in that we often suffer the same consequences she has - being punished for crimes that were committed against her, by someone who is winning public support despite the evidence.
Gendered violence begins and ends with the most profound callousness humans could fathom. Women facing abusers are granted a "what else did you expect?" Men facing abusers are considered "weak". Men who are abusers are protected by overexaggerated worries of cancel culture and misguided pity, all the while survivors worry about economic, health, and struggles of safety (not to mention the several other struggles that come along with having kids in these situations). Johnny Depp lost a multimillion dollar franchise he could retire on. Amber Heard lost a public life.
We aren't where we need to be in understanding gender, family, society, and how domestic violence works. We arrn't even open enough to start that conversation. We aren't even willing women autonomy over their bodies. And while this conversation has been about men and abuse, the loss of women's rights costs everyone something. If victims who are women cant even be treated with respect, there is no way that men will be. We confuse "things that are better for men" with the "patriarchy". Having societal power grants us access to resources and more public support, but it doesn't offer us happiness or health. It doesn't offer a sustainable path forward for male society. If anything, this toxic patriarchy eats us, as it's probably eating Johnny Depp now.
As Roe V Wade's legacy comes to a close, as this trial goes on, and as gendered violence so flagrantly continues on, we won't know true equality. I hope to fight like hell for as long as I can, and I hope you will too. But in the meantime, I just hope that what's eating Johnny Depp won't eat me, too.