Johnny Depp: Cool or Fool?

Has anyone seen the film he directed, The Brave?

So, yeah, Depp performances. Is there anything to destroy? Probably not. But I'd say search above all Ed Wood, Dead Man, Pirates..., The Ninth Gate (not a great film, but a lovely performance), Arizona Dream (ditto), Edward Scissorhands.

The Man Who Cried is worth seeing just for its unreality, and the transcendent silliness of Depp playing this over-the-top gypsy himbo.

Cry-Baby eh. ("Eh" is my firm position on John Waters.)

Leonardo DiCaprio said, around the time of Titanic, that he saw Depp as his model for how he'd like his career to go.

How do you mean exactly, TH? Do you mean you can sense the effort or simply are aware of the artifice?

Anybody who gets Disney to let him play a pirate that aggressively swishy (hello! eyeliner! hello! holding compass like a makeup compact! hello! uberfayness!) is cool

Do you mean... Jerry Bruckheimer? (Cue ghoulish circus music.)

I really liked The Ninth Gate. "Boris Balkan" and all that.

pic.twitter.com/EejuOTt4wa

— Law Boy, Esq. (@The_Law_Boy) June 1, 2022

It’s been gut wrenching to follow this and watch the wholesale demonization of Heard on the one hand and the canonization of Depp on the other.

hope any comeback attempts by Depp following this flop hard and he ends in disgrace and obscurity

On my end the slutshaming has come from women.

It's def a pursuit that transcends gender lines

I guess it must be nice to not see the huge outpouring of male glee at this verdict. Yes, there’s tons of women shaming us all with their behaviour - a lot of people have drawn comparisons to the Bundy fans - but this verdict is being celebrated by men. A Twitter mutual of mine had to lock her account because of the amount of abusive messages out there gloating at her. So no, I have very little time for this atm.

Of course structural misogyny expresses itself thru women as well as men, but the awkward conversation I had with a couple of women friends last night who were on Depp's side was at least a bit more nuanced than the garbage that I've heard from male DV deniers

my gf has been watching this playout and had become somewhat sympathetic towards Depp as it went on. did the jury get it wrong? or is the issue more about people's reactions – that maybe the decision is correct but it doesn't absolve Depp of other problematic things?
would appreciate some clarity, as I've only gotten superficial updates on what's been going on and I'm weary of any summaries i might read in the media – or even from friends.

You can scroll up and read what I wrote about it on the 20th, post should still be there.

cheers

Actually I’m on a train for the next hour, let’s nail these theses to the door. Fair warning this is going to be all over the place, I know too much about this case.

- Depp filed a defamation case over this article, where only this part refers to him, arguing that it defamed him and affected his earnings.
- if you haven’t read the 2018 Rolling Stone article, you should. He invited the publication to give his side, thinking it would make him look good.
- Heard countersued him over the defamation claim, iirc this is standard. Her claim was about a Daily Mail article where Depp’s lawyer accused her and her friends of faking a crime scene.

If you have been on the internet the past few years, you’ve almost certainly seen the various trending topics about him trending. It has been alleged - and iirc in this case just gone evidenced- that a large part of this activity is bots boosting an unusually large and aggressive fanbase.

A large part of why Depp has so much sympathy going in is in part due to him being the more famous party and having appeared in more films people have seen and loved *;another is due to his then lawyer leaking selectively edited evidence to the Daily Mail, which he admitted to in court and was subsequently thrown off the case for; and finally, mens’ rights activists have been rallying around this case for years and pushing disinfo about it. The edited clip most people have heard is part of a large and not pleasant argument but the context is extremely different from what has been portrayed.

Then there’s the trial itself. Depp wanted it to be held in Virginia, for the possibility of it being televised. Tons of content creators pivoted to following the trial and made lots of money of doing so, covering it like it was entertainment.

Here things are slightly hazy as I’m not that knowledgeable about the legal parts but as I understand it: the judge on this case prevented certain evidence of Heard’s being submitted to the court. Accounts of her talking about being abused by Depp in doctor’s notes were considered hearsay and not included; neither were the texts from Depp’s assistant where he is apologising to Heard for Depp kicking her and trying to get her to stay. I had read the UK judgement and seeing Depp’s witnesses, the majority of whom still work for him, and the picture coming through was of someone who was surrounded by staff that went to great lengths to protect him from the consequences of his own actions.

I read a piece on the BBC saying that certain tactics that are used in certain cases are more effective with juries than judges:

Mark Stephens, an international media lawyer, told the BBC that it's "very rare" that essentially the same case is tried on two sides of the pond and gets different results.

He believes the main factor that influenced Mr Depp's victory in America was the fact that his US trial was before a jury while his UK trial, over an article in the British tabloid that called him a "wife-beater", was before a judge only.

"Amber Heard has comprehensively lost in the court of public opinion, and in front of the jury," he said.
Three questions from the Depp-Heard trial answered
Depp wins defamation case against Heard
In both the UK and the US trial, Mr Depp's lawyers argued that Ms Heard was lying - to make their case, they attacked her character and claimed that she was in fact the abusive partner.

This is a common defence tactic in sexual assault and domestic violence trials called "deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender" or "Darvo", said Mr Stephens.

The strategy turns the tables on the alleged victim, shifting the conversation away from "did the accused commit abuse" to "is the alleged victim believable".
"They deny that they did anything, they deny they're the real perpetrator, and they attack the credibility of the individual calling out the abuse, and then reverse the roles of the victim and the offender," Mr Stephens said.

In the UK trial, Mr Stephens said the judge recognised that strategy, and dismissed a lot of the evidence that did not directly address whether Mr Depp committed assault or not.

"Lawyers and judges tend not to fall for it, but it's very, very effective against juries," he said. Men are more likely to believe Darvo arguments, but female jurors are also susceptible.

"People have a paradigm in their mind of how a victim of abuse might be like and how they might behave, and of course we all know that's often false."

“His star had dimmed due to it getting harder to get him jobs given the reputation he had acquired due to his lateness and other things,” Jacobs said, adding that “people were talking” about his substance abuse.

A Disney executive, Tina Newman, testified in another tape played on Thursday that the Rolling Stone article circulated among executives at the studio that would decide whether or not to greenlight another Pirates sequel, the sixth, and whether Depp would have a role in the movie. In an internal Disney email, Newman called the story “depressing.”

Post is a mess but tl;dr:

- Heard had lots of evidence
- case seemed to turn on how much the jury liked both parties rather than the evidence
- you have to ignore and dismiss an awful lot of that to come down on Depp’s side and well, an awful lot of people did!

that is super helpful thanks. i don't follow celebrity gossip at all (general rather loathe it normally) - so anything that assumes i have any clue what Depp is known or rumoured to be like will be lost on me.

case seemed to turn on how much the jury liked both parties rather than the evidence

ime this is what nearly all verdicts in civil cases come down to.

At least in the US.

great post gyac, I've tried my hardest to ignore everything about this (outside of its striking resemblance to the On Cinema trial) but it's dawned on me quickly that this is just another Kyle Rittenhouse culture war thing. the degree to which social media has been pushing this story (especially Twitter) is really gross. it's all weird to me because I remember an article some time ago (maybe 2017?) that went into detail about how fucked up Depp was, basically alleging that he'd done some horrible shit, and that most of his success came despite himself. who the fuck are all these people rallying around him now?? it's so weird.

One poster today on FB talked about how the pro-Heard bent is fronted by media bias. As if Depp's "innocence" wasn't pushed in the media as received wisdom for over a year.

You're saying the same things as Jim Jordan and fucking Ben Shapiro

Thanks for that post, gyac. Among other things I've been trying to remember for the past few weeks where I read an utterly damning profile of Depp a few years ago. It was the RS one you linked and having retained its broad themes, I've been pretty baffled by what's been going on during the trial

people remembered how much they liked Jack Sparrow, including the jury

Hollywood has always specialized in covering up the crimes of its starring actors.

xp
there is def a generational dynamic here: for me Jack Sparrow represented a sad decline from the actor I enjoyed when I was younger, not a beloved character from my childhood. i.e., another part of my confusion was why anyone was invested in this depressing addict who squandered his talent decades ago

that's definitely true (the generational dynamic).

I also wonder how many people are determined to make the (correct) point that men suffer abuse too, in order to appear more impartial in discussions, and this case looked like low-hanging fruit (see? I side with men sometime!)

god, what a terrible case to use as your anecdotal lede

two of my friends who are women who were battered by their spouses and still tortured by them even after divorce were pointing out that between the two of them, Heard was the one who looked like she was 'reacting to abuse', moreso than Depp.

yeah I read a first-person account of getting suckered by the soc med coverage of the trial that I can't find now, but the (female) writer admitted that the "men too" angle was important

Michael Hobbes (@rottenindenmark) on Twitter posted a piece about this.

By 2014, Heard was the only person in his life who told him the truth about his anger and his drug problem — a “lesbian camp counselor,” as he once memorably put it. He grew increasingly resentful that she treated him like an addict and an abuser, something his mind would not allow him to accept. His texts to her were apologetic, but his messages to everyone else were unrepentant.

267. Mr Depp said that Ms Heard behaved cruelly towards him at this time and withheld drugs from him that he was allowed or were intended to contribute to his recovery process. I have no doubt that the process of trying to rid himself of the addiction to Roxies was extremely stressful and painful for Mr Depp. However, I have seen notes made by Ms Lloyd. It is apparent from these that Ms Heard (referred to in the notes as ‘patient’s fiancée’) was keeping in close contact with Ms Lloyd and, after his arrival on the island, with Dr Kipper. There is no evidence that she did attempt to withhold from him any medication that he was supposed to have.

In his text to Paige Heard, Ms Heard’s mother, on 19th August 2014 Mr Depp said (see file 6/119/697.41),
‘I couldn’t have made it without her ... I would have gone for a swim and swallowed a big drink of ocean without her to be honest ... It was a hell of my own doing that your little girl walked through with me step by step ... I know you’re already proud of her, but if you’d seen her in action ... Amazing!!! It was an exercise of monumental patience and instinct. I wouldn’t be alive, sweetheart ... There were more than a few times when I thought it would be more simple to take that route. It was Amber and Amber only that got me through this ... And it was not easy ...’

268. On 17th August 2014 Ms Heard sent a text to Ms Lloyd and Dr Kipper which said (See file 6/119/f697.38),
‘Issue has arisen again. He took the meds about 30 mins ago (which seems to be the trend) as I reckon they haven’t kicked in yet – all of a sudden he’s flipping again. Just started screaming – he was so mad he pushed me and I asked him to get out. Don’t know what else to do. Sorry to keep at you guys.’

269. Mr Depp said that he had been in no condition to push or attack Ms Heard in any way. He said the text from Ms Heard could be explained as part of her ‘insurance policy’.

270. It was Mr Depp’s evidence that Ms Heard was withholding drugs that he was supposed to have or allowed to have, although he said that she did not do this all of the time and at other times she was very helpful.

It was a vicious cycle of Depp's PR push being picked up by the incel/"metoo has gone too far" crowd and once it was trending then every dumbass on social media had to pump out content to get on the trend and all of their initial info came via Depp's PR team and the incels and that getting filtered down to normal people who are unlikely to do any deeper research unless they (think they) have a good reason.

Michael hobbes was a guest on a podcast talking abt the whole Depp trial & the misinformation surrounding it
podcast is terribly named “Cancel Me Daddy” but he is great as always

https://www.readthepresentage.com/p/johnny-depp-amber-heard?s=r

I linked that a few posts ago.

oh sorry!

This is a good thread debunking bullshit Twitter discourse.

this is a classic entry in the fake expert twitter thread genre. absolutely full of shit from top to bottom. https://t.co/Q1LagyTWoY

— Law Boy, Esq. (@The_Law_Boy) June 3, 2022

it's amazing to me that this is being framed as "finally being a victory for victims of abuse" when in reality he was the one accused of abuse without being named in an Op-Ed and this entire case was "NUH UH, DIDN'T DO IT, btw u were actually the abuser".

like I get why asshole incels are cheering, but not people who are ostensibly reasonable human beings. I had to type "Depp" and "heard" and "#teamjohnny" (seriously that is fucked) into my FB Purity yesterday to stop seeing these posts.

I had only just seen this, but previously I’d seen Nicole Bedera (who studies and writes about sexual violence) tweeting about the phenomenon of female dv survivors supporting Depp and she wrote this piece about it before the verdict.

To understand this, it’s crucial to remember that survivors are not a monolith. Perpetrators do not select victims based on their political beliefs, and experiencing violence is not always a radicalizing event for women. In fact, one of the reasons violence is such a powerful tool in maintaining the patriarchy is that it reinforces traditional gender norms. This is especially true for women who already hold traditional gender values themselves.

In my own work, I have interviewed a lot of conservative survivors. They are quick to insist I should believe them, but not other victims, especially if those victims fail to meet white feminine ideals like chastity or subservience to men’s authority. Once, a conservative participant in my research emailed me a Jordan Peterson video and urged me to join in his argument that most survivors were promiscuous women who regretted participating in hook-up culture. To her, the injustice of her sexual assault wasn’t a loss of bodily autonomy but rather that a woman like her—a white conservative who had followed the rules—was the one violated. Disbelieving other victims did not conflict with her own narrative of victimization. In fact, she felt righteous in her anger that other women’s stories of sexual assault threatened her credibility.

Also saw a comment on ontd that I had been thinking about a lot:

andrea dworkin did not get everything right, but she was dead-on when she said "many women, i think, resist feminism because it is an agony to be fully conscious of the brutal misogyny which permeates culture, society, and all personal relationships”

This is one of the few sane discussion spaces on this trial I have seen. The “recommended” memes I see on Instagram that purport to prove Amber’s lies are simply ghoulish. To me it just looks like a person in distress people are being invited to laugh at. And the more I dig into this case, the clearer it becomes that the whole defamation suit was just another form of abuse—a violent drug addict blaming someone else for all of his problems instead of taking accountability, and vengefully deciding to make his ex the most hated woman in America.

I take two things away from it.

1.) This is a backlash to metoo. People were waiting for a “female abuser” to pounce on and demonize in order to discredit the narrative that male violence and harassment is a problem. Almost like a scapegoat. Her guilt or innocence was secondary to the function she served for people as a way to attack feminism.

2.) People are much worse judges of character than they think they are. People don’t find Amber Heard likable, she conforms to some archetype they have in their mind of the “scheming woman,” so they just adapt their understanding of the case to this impression without trying to figure out what happened. She “seems fake” and that is enough for people to decide she wasn’t a victim and should be punished for claiming to be.

3.) I hate what American society is or has become. There was a sadism to this trial that feels increasingly like a prevalent in American life. It was always there but there isn’t even a polite facade now. This poor woman was literally tortured by the American media. I was in Charleston this weekend and there were tons of novelty shops selling pro-Depp and anti-Heard t-shirts.

thank you gyac, that is a very good piece.

She was held to a way higher standard than Depp. Inconsistencies in her testimony were considered evidence that she was “bad,” fundamentally. Reports of drunken violence on Depp’s part dating back decades were simply ignored.

not to mention, people flocking to the 'this proves Amber was the abuser' narrative don't even understand that the trial was over fucking defamation, which, her losing at best means she fabricated some claims against him, not that she abused him, nor that he didn't abuse her.

(I really hope the appeal is successful, but not sure how likely that is? even if she does, though, the damage is already done and is going to be nigh impossible to reverse).

(don't take that to mean I didn't believe her claims, I mean we all know the UK bench trial went very differently)

Legally, defamation means she willfully misrepresented the truth. To prove she did that in the WaPo article, which doesn’t mention Depp by name but simply refers to the fact that she was a victim of domestic violence, Depp’s lawyers would have had to prove with a “preponderance of evidence” that he *never* abused Heard. They absolutely did not demonstrate this. Their whole strategy was designed to cast her as an abuser and a liar. Which was not even really relevant. If she sincerely believed herself to be abused, even if the record showed a more complicated picture of mutual abuse, that wouldn’t rise to the level of defamation because she would not have been willfully and maliciously distorting the facts.

the jury wasn't sequestered, were they? they probably arrived at their votes via TikTok

thanks for the link, gyac

Also the timeline shows a pretty plausible story of an alcoholic relapsing and lashing out violently. Over time, it seems she became enraged by dealing with this and that is where they were able to drag up evidence that made her look bad. But all of that is irrelevant. If she believed his drinking and violence precipitated the hell their marriage became when she wrote the op-ed, she wasn’t committing defamation, she was sharing her perspective. He could have his own version of events and that is fine but hers doesn’t become defamatory because he sees the breakdown of their marriage in different terms. The bar for defamation is supposed to be high.

Honestly this whole defamation trial just seemed like more abuse.

It’s also hard for me to disentangle the sadistic misogyny on display all over social media with the mass shootings that took place this week. It all forms a part of a really fucked up culture where people are seeking targets for their inarticulate rage.

Johnny Depp fans paid $3k to unseal the court documents just to get dirt on Amber, but ended up unintentionally exposing Depp and information he tried to keep private instead. A thread 🧵🪡 pic.twitter.com/NzH8eD1yJI

— chateau bunny (@cocainecross) July 30, 2022

An interesting (?) resolution to this case:
- settled by Heard (she was going through the appeal process with some very high profile 1st amendment lawyers and the case was thought to be strong)
- only has to pay $1m but is free to speak ???
- the resolution threads two themes that you see in a lot of cases like this: she was being put through the ringer financially and subject to such grotesque harassment that this is the result

Amber Heard settles with Johnny Depp and speaks out: "I will not be threatened, disheartened, or dissuaded by what happened from speaking the truth. No one can and no one will take that from me. My voice forever remains the most valuable asset I have." https://t.co/m6xTr4nwJA

— Variety (@Variety) December 19, 2022

My heart goes out to Amber Heard as she has made the decision to settle the defamation lawsuit against her by her abusive vindictive ex-husband, Johnny Depp. He and his team used misogyny, victim blaming, and lies to further abuse her on the stand. I hope she heals from this… pic.twitter.com/DdCKpQnVSu

— 𝝠sh (@starfallgoddess) December 19, 2022

Heartbreaking, the worst person you know, etc

The Sun is still calling him a violent wife-beater. #CannesYouNot pic.twitter.com/ePVgLq7CgP

— Xandra 39 (@carriecalista) May 19, 2023

fuck Johnny Depp

and Cannes for that matter.

hate teh stupid 'narrative' that won out thanks to Depp's abusive legal tactics