In text messages to pals, Johnny Depp fantasized about murdering his then-wife, the actress Amber Heard. “I’ll fuck her burnt corpse afterwards to fabricate obvious that she’s pointless,” Depp wrote. In other texts, he disparaged his wife’s physique in luridly misogynist terms. “Soundless pointless dangling overused floppy fish market,” he known as her.
The texts grew to change into public as a part of Depp’s defamation suit against Heard, now at trial in a Virginia courtroom. Ostensibly, Depp is suing over a 2018 article that Heard published within the Washington Publish, titled “I spoke up against sexual violence – and confronted our custom’s wrath.” In the portion, the actress writes, “Two years ago, I grew to change into a public resolve representing home abuse.” The article does now no longer point out Depp, however his attorneys speak that the portion change into as soon as about him – and change into as soon as defamatory. For those 11 phrases, Depp is seeking $50m.
A jury belief he deserved it. On Wednesday, the case’s verdict came in, finding that Heard defamed Depp, performing with “malice,” when she described herself as a sufferer of home abuse. Bizarrely, the same jury chanced on that practical one of Depp’s criminal educated’s defamed Heard when he acknowledged that her memoir of abuse change into as soon as “a hoax.” The decision came after a trial that change into as soon as televized – a namely uncommon deliver for a proceeding that considerations allegations of home violence – and which change into as soon as field to nearly inescapable media protection, nearly all of it in resolve on of 1 litigant, even as the jury change into as soon as now no longer sequestered. The unfamiliar, illogical, and unjust ruling has the carry out of sanctioning Depp’s alleged abuse of Heard, and of punishing Heard for talking about it. This would in actual fact get a devastating carry out on survivors, who will be silenced, now, with the guidelines that they are able to now no longer talk about their violent experiences at men’s hands without the specter of a ruinous libel suit. In that sense, girls’s speech most practical grew to change into plenty less free.
Over the past six weeks, as the trial change into as soon as reside-streamed on-line, a quantity of oldsters that get tuned in to peek get treated Heard with the same contempt that Depp did in his texts. A huge consensus has emerged on-line that Heard ought to tranquil be lying about her abuse. She has been accused of faking the photos of her injuries from Depp’s alleged beatings, painting bruises on with make-up. She’s been accused of convincing the just a few witnesses who speak Depp abused her to lie – continuously and below oath – for years. These conspiracy theories are unsupported by the details of the case, however that has now no longer stopped them from spreading. On-line, the case has taken on a heady mythology, and belief in Depp’s righteousness persists self reliant of the proof.
In the provider of this memoir, any cruelty would per chance even be justified. When Heard took the stand, she grew to change into emotional as she recounted how Depp allegedly hit her, manipulated and controlled her, surveilled her and sexually assaulted her. Afterwards, fashioned folks, along with about a celebrities and even producers be pleased Duolingo and Milani, took to social media to mock or undermine Heard. They took screenshots of her weeping face and made it a meme. Many performed mocking re-enactments of her testimony, lip-syncing along as she recounted the alleged abuse. The audio of her crying grew to change into a TikTok pattern. This cruelty has now been joined in and compounded by the jury, who get long gone past mocking her for telling her memoir, and now declared that she if truth be told broke the regulation by doing so.
Here is now no longer the predominant time Depp has sued over the allegations. In 2020, a British courtroom heard Depp’s lawsuit against the British tabloid the Solar, which Depp sued for defamation after a chunk of writing referred to him as a “wife beater”. UK courts are draw more amenable to defamation claims than American ones, however Depp tranquil couldn’t prevail: the British decide chanced on that the Solar’s characterization of Depp change into as soon as “considerably most practical”. That same trial chanced on that Depp physically abused Heard on on the very least 12 times. But the actor and his fans claim that it change into as soon as Heard, now no longer Depp, who change into as soon as the abuser in their marriage.
The trial has turned accurate into a public orgy of misogyny. Whereas many of the vitriol is nominally directed at Heard, it is miles laborious to shake the feeling that in actual fact, it is miles directed at all girls – and in explicit, at those of us who spoke out about gendered abuse and sexual violence in some unspecified time in the future of the height of the #MeToo motion. We’re in a moment of virulent antifeminist backlash, and the modest gains that get been made in that technology are being retracted with a gleeful demonstrate of sufferer-blaming at a huge scale. One girl has been made into an emblem of a motion that many belief with bother and hatred, and she’s being punished for that motion. In this model, Heard is tranquil in an abusive relationship. But now, it’s now no longer most practical with Depp, however with the general nation.
Since she published her Publish portion, Heard’s life has been consumed by the fashion and retaliation of Depp and his fans. Misplaced within the scandal and spectacle of the lawsuit has been this truth: it is miles Heard, now no longer Depp, who has been placed on trial, and she is on trial for announcing issues whose truth is evidenced by the true truth of the lawsuit itself. Depp’s frivolous and punitive suit, and the frenzy of misogynist contempt for Heard that has accompanied it, get performed a limiteless deal to vindicate Heard’s fashioned point: that girls are punished for coming ahead. What happens to girls who insist abuse? They rep publicly pilloried, professionally blacklisted, socially ostracized, mocked eternally on social media and sued. Wrath, indeed.
But mainstream protection of the trial has now no longer regarded to construct up this. As a replace, there’s been huge contend with Heard’s mistakes and worst moments over the direction of her relationship with Depp. As is conventional of home abuse victims, Heard does appear to get performed issues a quantity of us would now no longer be happy with. She fought support. Depp’s outbursts and insults left Heard resentful and angry with him, and as soon as quickly, she told him so. Many are rapid to point out that Heard is now no longer a ideally suited sufferer. We’re told that the lawsuit is “hard”. But no girl is. We’re told that the lawsuit is “hard.” However the lawsuit is now no longer hard. It’s abuse. Now, that abuse has been sanctioned by a jury.
Maybe the persistence of this belief that Heard is by hook or by crook equally culpable for what took remark to her is why folks be pleased the Contemporary York Occasions’ Michelle Goldberg get characterized the trial as “the loss of life of Me Too”: it reveals how without problems a sufferer can tranquil be blamed and isolated, how without problems what took remark to her would per chance even be taken as a failure of her inner most character, fairly than as a part of a social pattern. Now not all girls are alike, however feminism change into as soon as supposed to permit us to explore how we’re all in an identical fashion inclined – every to gendered abuse and to the gendered application of double standards and unjust blame. No sufferer is ideally suited. No sufferer ought to tranquil will get to be. In spite of all the pieces, if a particular person can now no longer be practical abusive against an rotten girl, then most practical how ideally suited does a girl will get to be before it turns into atrocious to beat her?
For their part, Depp’s fans appear to now no longer so considerable announce Depp’s alleged violence against Heard, however to approve of it. “He would per chance even get killed you,” says one viral Tiktok supporting Depp, the text superimposed over photos of Heard’s bruised face. “He had every appropriate.” The publish has greater than 222,200 likes.
The backlash to #Me Too has prolonged been below procedure. Critics of the motion painted girls’s efforts to pause sexual violence as excessive and intemperate from the beginning up, claiming #MeToo had “long gone too far” before it if truth be told bought below procedure at all. And yet the Heard trial does if truth be told feel be pleased a tipping point in our custom’s response to gender violence. The forces of misogynist reaction are even maybe stronger now for having been rapid repressed. Where as soon as girls refused, en masse, to withhold men’s secrets, or to remain tranquil about the truth of their possess lives, now, a resurgence of sexism, virulent on-line harassment, and the specter of lawsuits, all purpose to compel girls support into silence – by force.
In some ways, one can even explore the defamation suit itself as an extension of Depp’s abuse of Heard, a fashion to expand his humiliation and adjust over her. The explicit distinction is that now, the lawful machine and the public get been conscripted to construct up part. This appears to be like to be on the very least partly how Depp sees it. In 2016, as their marriage broke apart, Depp texted his pal Christian Carino, vowing revenge against Heard. “She is begging for global humiliation,” Depp wrote. “She’s going to rep it.”
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist