An appalling distraction
Dear readers, I am curious to know how many of you have met Johnny Depp or Amber Heard? You have probably heard about them; there is a defamation trial in the United States, which is attracting a bit of publicity.
But I mean actually met them, at a movie premiere or a Hollywood cocktail party? Or perhaps you were once invited to their home or homes?
Probably not. But I would be prepared to bet many of you think you know them and have already delivered your verdict on the case in which Depp is suing Heard for defamation over allegations that he is a domestic abuser and Heard is countersuing him.
You will have joined the social media jury making up its mind before swapping hats to become the judge and then the executioner (at least in career terms).
The real jury need not bother since social media seems to have decided that this is a case of good (Depp) versus evil (Heard).
My verdict: this is an appalling spectacle that is a distraction from more serious matters and which features a tsunami of misinformation. Supporters of Team Depp or Team Heard (the fact that those terms are widely used, as if it is a sporting contest, is disgusting) cherry-pick bits of testimony that support their side and circulate that. I don’t know who is telling the truth here and neither do you.
A Facebook post or tweet cannot possibly capture all of the sometimes-contradictory information from a day in court, nor carefully weigh all the evidence as judge and jury will.
I do wonder whether Heard would be more likely to be believed if she were alleging she was abused by a person less famous than Depp.
It is worth noting that when Depp sued the publishers of the Sun newspaper for libel over an article that called him a “wife beater”, a British judge, having assessed all the evidence, ruled that the “great majority” of Heard’s accusations of abuse could be proven to a civil standard
– meaning the abuse was more likely than not to have occurred.
Depp’s appeal in that case was denied.
Does the fact that the Virginia trial has turned into
Never mind the Ukraine invasion or rising Covid cases, come and see Depp vs Heard in the Colosseum!
grotesque theatre matter?
Yes, it does. It is not healthy that so-called body language experts call Heard’s testimony mawkish or that someone sitting in their living room is debating the meaning of the act of throwing a can of Red Bull.
T
hese events only amplify the social media tendency to rush to judgment or to become distracted by spectacle.
In ancient Rome, emperors would stage games to distract their citizens from worrying about real-world issues. Never mind the Ukraine invasion, or rising Covid cases, or global warming or hunger, come and see Depp vs Heard in the Colosseum! Get the chance to give your thumbs up or down to their careers!
I don’t expect Vladimir Putin is following the trial, but I am sure he will be glad to see the “I Stand with Ukraine” posts no longer trending, replaced by analysis of the meaning of poo on the bed.
As I waded through the Depp vs Heard posts online, I found a small shared New York
Times story about Iryna Abramova and the love of her life, husband Oleh.
On the morning of March 5, Iryna told the paper, Russian soldiers attacked her house. They threw a grenade through the window, which started a fire, and marched her and Oleh outside at gunpoint. “Then they took Oleh into the street. They ordered him to strip off his shirt. They made him kneel. The next thing Iryna remembers is running to Oleh’s side, plunging to the ground, grabbing his hands, seeing blood spurt from his ears and feeling a wild rage explode out of her.”
The love of her life was dead. The couple lived in Bucha where, say numerous posts on Twitter and TikTok, no civilians were killed by Russians. ▮