The Amber Heard verdict was a travesty
The verdict in Johnny Depp’s defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife Amber Heard is difficult to explain logically. The confounding part isn’t that the jury sided with him over her; this is the country that elected Donald Trump, where convicted domestic abuser Chris Brown is
still a major pop star. The explosion of defiant, desperate feminist energy that was #MeToo has now been smothered by an even fiercer reaction. #MeToo was a movement of women telling their stories. Now that Heard has been destroyed for identifying as a survivor, other women will think twice.
What’s baffling is the jury ruled the way it did even though, in at least one instance, it appeared to believe Heard. In one incident, a friend of Heard’s named iO Tillett Wright testified that Heard had called him so he could respond to an accusation Depp was making about a soiled bed. While on the phone, Wright said he overheard what sounded like Depp attacking Heard, and he called 911. Heard would later say that Depp threw the phone at her, and another friend photographed a bruise on her cheek.
When police arrived, Heard refused to cooperate but soon after she got a domestic violence restraining order. Depp’s former lawyer said the police call had been part of “an ambush, a hoax”. The jury ruled this was defamation, and awarded Heard US$2 million (69 million baht) for it. Yet that same jury ruled that Heard had defamed Depp when she described herself, in a Washington Post opinion essay, as a “public figure representing domestic abuse”, and awarded Depp more than $10 million.
As a First Amendment issue, the verdict is a travesty. By the time Heard wrote the essay, the restraining order she’d received had been all over the news, and a photo of her with a bruised face and bloody lip had appeared on the cover of People magazine. Even if Heard lied about everything during the trial — even if she’d never suffered domestic abuse — she still would have represented it. But if the police call wasn’t part of a hoax, then it’s hard to see how Heard hadn’t suffered as well.
It might be impossible to dismiss all the evidence against Depp, but he’s still the more sympathetic figure. This finding echoes the conventional wisdom of the internet, where Depp is widely viewed as the sensitive prey of a vicious and conniving gold-digger, and of much of the conservative movement, which has cheered Depp, a man who once joked about assassinating Mr Trump, for slaying the #MeToo gorgon. After the verdict was announced, the Twitter account of Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee tweeted out a GIF of Depp as pirate Jack Sparrow, looking dashing and determined.
During the trial, jurors heard a recording in which Depp sneered at Heard, using an obscenity: “I head-butted you in the forehead. That doesn’t break a nose.” They heard from a makeup artist who testified about covering up Heard’s bruises. They saw video of him rampaging around, smashing cabinets while she tried to calm him down. They heard a recording of him screaming at her for daring to speak to him in an “authoritative” way, and another in which he threatened to cut himself while she begged him to put the knife down.
But they also heard Heard admitting to hitting Depp and taunting him. They heard Depp’s lawyer grilling Heard about notes in which she falls over herself apologising for “hurting” Depp, although such behaviour would hardly be anomalous for someone being abused. They heard Depp’s claim that he’d lost out on a major movie role after Heard’s essay was published. And they put a price on their respective injuries.
The repercussions of this case will reach far beyond Heard. Marilyn Manson is already suing actor Evan Rachel Wood, one of a number of women who have alleged sadistic abuse at his hands. He won’t be the last. As the Daily Beast noted, few of the Hollywood figures who spoke up during the height of the #MeToo movement are showing any solidarity with Heard, a stance that would require a modicum of courage given the power of the #MeToo backlash and Depp’s popularity. One of the statements in her Washington Post essay that was deemed defamatory was: “I had the rare vantage point of seeing, in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse.” The trial that she lost proved her point.
Heard is no irreplaceable genius like Roman Polanski, who pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a 13-year-old, and she’s no huge moneymaker like Mel Gibson, who pleaded no contest to hitting his former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva. According to Heard’s countersuit against Depp, in addition to calling her a “pig”, a “whore”, a “junkie hooker” and numerous other slurs, Depp referred to her as “disposable”. About that, at least, he may turn out to be right.