Amber Heard

[vanitas]

I have to agree with you here. Although Heard is hardly a "perfect victim", I find the constant barrage of Tik Toks and YouTube videos using the trial (and her) as a source of comedy or entertainment to be disrespectful. At the end of the day, this is still a serious case and I don't really find the blasé treatment of it appropriate. Even if a person is in the wrong, they can still be treated with some level of decency and respect, at least in my opinion.

It's definitely got way out of hand and also, the people turning up at the courtroom each day to yell stuff at her as she leaves is insanity.

If the best thing someone can find to do with their free time is go and stand outside for hours waiting for a celebrity to leave a building so they can yell verbal abuse at them then it's time to get a better hobby.

I started watching a lot of the trial coverage because my ex is very invested in this being proof that claims of abuse made by women are vindictive lies designed to gaslight the real victim (vulnerable men - in his opinion) and so I really wanted to see what actually happened, not the soundbite versions.

And after a few weeks of this I have a lot of questions about a number of her claims but I think the only thing I am sure about is that this was a horrible relationship that involved two messed up people who would have been better dealing with their issues privately.

I still find Depp's version of events closer to reality but a large part of what makes his version more convincing is that he owns up to some crappy behaviour and to portray him some sort of innocent victim of a girl who was half his age when they first met is as unbalanced as just taking every single thing she says at her word without reviewing any of it critically.

He probably shouldn't have got together with a twenty five year old and she shouldn't have called TMZ to film her getting a temporary restraining order and the whole case seems to be differing versions of two people making awful decisions while they're either high or angry.

 

[FashionThin]

the longer this goes on, the more I feel sorry for Amber and find Johnny to be an absolute cretin

They both have some blame but I'll never be able to bring myself to feel sorry for her, she's too much of a disgusting person.

 

[SecretMelody17]

Wholeheartedly agree! Honestly before this trial my view was along the lines of ‘it was a toxic relationship and they were both abusive’ but the longer this goes on, the more I feel sorry for Amber and find Johnny to be an absolute cretin. The way the public is treating the case is absolutely revolting too

I was one of the ones rolling my eyes at her before. You can even see my previous post in this thread to that effect. Now I wish I could delete it.

It's so easy to make someone the villain, but this whole affair seems to me to expose him way more than it exposes her. It's confusing and disgusting to me to see the entire public becoming one giant mob against her and apparently not noticing or perhaps refusing to see the signs that he is very clearly not innocent here either. Everyone keeps referring to him as an "innocent victim" I just feel like we're not living in the same reality. It's honestly disturbing. Like watching mob mentality in action.

To me it seems extremely obvious that JD was physically and verbally abusive to AH. I'm sure that she was as well. The evidence against both of them is very strong in this respect. But what's worse to me is the fact that he's bringing this whole trial into the public light and very clearly just trying to destroy her publicly (and succeeding at it!). The case itself is ridiculous because the interview he's suing her for doesn't even mention him or anything he did. She's talking about her experience now that she's perceived a certain way. He clearly just wants to punish her for leaving him and making him look bad. It seems to me a pretty transparent DARVO tactic and the whole public is falling for it.

We love to do this historically. To attack the women who get with super famous men who we (the culture, I mean) feel some sort of ownership over. It's Yoko Ono, Courtney Love, people even did it to Ariana Grande when Mac Miller died... we just love to blame and tear down women rather than have to see the men we idolize as flawed and human. There's an interesting article about this trend as it applies to the AH/JD case, I'll link it below.

To be clear, I'm not saying that I think AH is an innocent victim either. There was clearly abuse on both sides. But the more JD insists that he was totally passive all the time, the more I see him as a downright liar who's refusing to take responsibility, and feel the need to defend AH against a completely hysterical mob. It's one thing to be critical of someone's behavior, it's another thing to demonize them beyond reason.

Why the Internet Hates Amber Heard

Notes on the paranoid style in online fandom

www.theatlantic.com

 

[SecretMelody17]

Not to mention how her lawyer asks a specific question and she ends up talking for ages, far more than what was asked, which seems so rehearsed to me.

I agree with you. That eye contact thing is crazy. For the talking for ages, I don't know much about the US system, just based on tv shows I've watched that that is what they do - they rehearse so they make sure they get the answers they want because they can't ask leading questions that are yes/no to put words in their client's mouth, they can only do that for witnesses that aren't theirs? They can't suggest an answer.

This is a $50 million trial. Do you think she and her lawyers wouldn't rehearse? Do you think JD and his legal team didn't also rehearse?
People talking about things being "rehearsed" like it invalidates what someone says drives me crazy. Everyone goes into a trial like this with at least some degree of preparation.

 

[lattelover]

But what's worse to me is the fact that he's bringing this whole trial into the public light and very clearly just trying to destroy her publicly (and succeeding at it!).

Disagreed with your post mostly because of this - all of their problems were already very much in the public light. Johnny lost all of his major roles in movies and suffered immensely career-wise, while Amber went unscathed by the whole affair until now. Maybe I’m just petty, but if I were him I’d do the same thing because he’s not the only one at fault and they should both suffer the same consequences.

With that said, I’m certainly not taking sides - I think they’re both awful and abusive. But I also think they should face the same career repercussions, which wasn’t happening until the trial went mainstream. Why should she continue getting big roles like she did in Aquaman while he lost everything? They’re both fucked up.

 

[bingeonvogue]

I understand that everyone is doing it but personally find both the spectacle-driven extreme degree to which this trial is currently being conducted and looked into/consumed with, what seems to me, the glee of looking through someone’s trash thoroughly unpleasant on all sides.

Edit: somewhat confused by people who appear to be avidly following the publicized events purporting to ‘agree’ with this post. We do not need to agree, it is fine; this is just an expression of my own feeling.

 

[SecretMelody17]

Disagreed with your post mostly because of this - all of their problems were already very much in the public light. Johnny lost all of his major roles in movies and suffered immensely career-wise, while Amber went unscathed by the whole affair until now. Maybe I’m just petty, but if I were him I’d do the same thing because he’s not the only one at fault and they should both suffer the same consequences.

With that said, I’m certainly not taking sides - I think they’re both awful and abusive. But I also think they should face the same career repercussions, which wasn’t happening until the trial went mainstream. Why should she continue getting big roles like she did in Aquaman while he lost everything? They’re both fucked up.

I somewhat agree, but to suggest that they're dealing with the same repercussions now is simply not true.

First of all, he was way more famous and established than her to begin with, so the power dynamic is not the same. Second, she's being mobbed and torn down publicly in a way that I never saw anyone doing to him. I feel like this is a combination of the general sexist treatment I was talking about before but also the fact that everyone is SOOOOOO eager to have someone to use as an example that women who accuse men of abuse are not to be trusted. It's playing into the agenda of "reverse sexism" or "not all men" bullshit which... yes, women do lie, don't believe all women blindly blahblahblah, but statistically women are WAY more likely not to be believed for credible allegations than men are to be falsely accused. Third, they settled their previous case and now both of them have to face consequences in their career. It seems to me like he's the one who's unable to let it go. I get that there would be bitterness about it like you said, but a big part of the losses he faced were natural consequences for his own actions. I personally don't feel like he's making himself look any better by kicking up a whole fuss about it again now. He looks very ugly to me here, as well as petty (though I'm clearly in the minority there if the opinions voiced on twitter are a genuine reflection of public opinion).

 

[SecretMelody17]

To be clear, I'm not saying that I think AH is an innocent victim either. There was clearly abuse on both sides. But the more JD insists that he was totally passive all the time, the more I see him as a downright liar who's refusing to take responsibility, and feel the need to defend AH against a completely hysterical mob. It's one thing to be critical of someone's behavior, it's another thing to demonize them beyond reason.

Been educating myself about DV since I wrote this and can now say that I take it back about abuse being on both sides. Here's a great article explaining the difference between situational and domestic violence and why "mutual abuse" is not a thing:

There Is No Such Thing as Mutual Abuse

Recently, the term “mutual abuse” was popularized as a result of the defamation case filed against Amber Heard by Johnny Depp. During the trial, a psychologist testified on behalf of Depp that the former couple engaged in “mutual abuse.” The problem with this testimony? There is no such thing as...

www.blackburncenter.org

 

[FashionThin]

Been educating myself about DV since I wrote this and can now say that I take it back about abuse being on both sides. Here's a great article explaining the difference between situational and domestic violence and why "mutual abuse" is not a thing:

There Is No Such Thing as Mutual Abuse

Recently, the term “mutual abuse” was popularized as a result of the defamation case filed against Amber Heard by Johnny Depp. During the trial, a psychologist testified on behalf of Depp that the former couple engaged in “mutual abuse.” The problem with this testimony? There is no such thing as...

www.blackburncenter.org

From that article:

The abuse isn’t “mutual” when one person is reacting to the other’s emotional, physical, financial, or other abuse.

 

[vanitas]

I had a lot of thoughts about this trial but one inescapable one was how unflattering this outfit was. I cannot look at it without thinking how uncomfortable it would make me to wear something like this at her current weight.

 

[SecretMelody17]

The abuse isn’t “mutual” when one person is reacting to the other’s emotional, physical, financial, or other abuse.

That's my point, yes.

I get that we're now in a he-said/she-said where each of them is claiming to have been only reacting to the other's abuse, but to me having looked into the actual evidence of the case as laid out in both the US and UK trial (as opposed to whatever tf people are citing as fact in their tiktok and youtube rants) it seems pretty irrefutable who has the stronger case there.

Don't worry. I get that I'm in the minority here. Exisitng on the internet has made that plenty clear.

 

[FashionThin]

That's my point, yes.

It wasn't mine. I wasn't saying that myself, I was quoting the article you posted.

 

[SecretMelody17]

It wasn't mine. I wasn't saying that myself, I was quoting the article you posted.

Oh, I misunderstood what you were getting at.

It's pretty well-established that there's a difference between reactionary violence and a pattern of violence.

What's more, when someone is stuck in a cycle of abuse, their reactions can gradually get more and more aggressive as they feel violated, trapped, and exhausted. This isn't to say that such reactions are excusable or ok, just that they are distinct from DV, which is an ongoing pattern of abuse used to maintain control.

 

[bingeonvogue]

Don't worry. I get that I'm in the minority here. Exisitng on the internet has made that plenty clear.

 

[FashionThin]

Oh, I misunderstood what you were getting at.

Apologies, I should have said it was a quote from that article. Anyway, I was mocking that quote.

Personally I'm not big on excuses. If you listen to that article, a woman can justify being physically violent to her BF ("reactionary violence") if he stops paying her bills ("fInAnCiAl aBuSe"). Try switching the genders and see if it still works for you. Is it OK for a guy to beat his GF if she spends too much of his money? I know those are extreme examples but that's what it is saying.

This isn't to say that such reactions are excusable or ok, just that they are distinct from DV, which is an ongoing pattern of abuse used to maintain control.

Well maybe (probably) you're smarter than me, but I just feel like those are philosophical distinctions without any real-life difference.

 

[bingeonvogue]

Well maybe (probably) you're smarter than me

 

[SecretMelody17]

Apologies, I should have said it was a quote from that article. Anyway, I was mocking that quote.

Personally I'm not big on excuses. If you listen to that article, a woman can justify being physically violent to her BF ("reactionary violence") if he stops paying her bills ("fInAnCiAl aBuSe"). Try switching the genders and see if it still works for you. Is it OK for a guy to beat his GF if she spends too much of his money? I know those are extreme examples but that's what it is saying.



Well maybe (probably) you're smarter than me, but I just feel like those are philosophical distinctions without any real-life difference.

I dunno. Have you personally been in an abusive relationship? Not like you have to have been to have an opinion, but a lot of this makes sense if you've experienced these forms of manipulation. Abuse dynamics are pretty helpful to understand to make sense of it when you find yourself trapped with someone who you know is violent and unstable and it can really wear you down.

I'm not saying it's an excuse to do whatever and still play the victim.

 

[SecretMelody17]

I just feel like those are philosophical distinctions without any real-life difference.

I would say it's more than a philosophical distinction between someone systematically abusing and controlling you over a period of time versus say shoving someone out of the way once when they're screaming in your face. As the article says, it doesn't excuse the reactionary violence, just points out that what we call domestic violence is an ongoing pattern of control and not all violence is that.

As for the idea that someone could use it as an excuse or claim "financial abuse" when they're just not getting their way... I'm gonna assume that that's a hypothetical example because I don't see that widely happening, but yes, if someone tried to use these terms in that way they would be full of shit and not what the article is actually talking about.