The jury is deliberating on the competing defamation lawsuits between movie stars Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. I read this article by Travis Andrews in the Washington Post because it promised to explain to me why I should care about the outcome of this case, but I still can’t fathom any relevance to my life.
Admittedly, the world of Hollywood doesn’t much interest me. Prior to accusations that Depp has been abusive, I probably liked him more than the average big box office actor, so I guess I was a bit saddened to learn that he is perhaps a giant asshole. As for Amber Heard, I had to look her up on IMDB to see if she’d been in anything I’ve watched. I had no preexisting opinion of her whatsoever, and I was completely unaware that she and Depp had ever been in any kind of relationship.
So, I have basically no emotional investment in the trial. Still, I followed it just enough to understand the basic outlines of the dispute. Depp says that Heard broke an agreement not to talk publicly about their troubled marriage and badly damaged his reputation. Heard says that Depp’s lawyer wrongly called her a liar and damaged her reputation. Despite the rather narrow scope of the dispute, everyone seems to agree that it’s basically an argument about whether Depp was abusive or not.
That question isn’t technically what the jury is supposed to decide, and the trial wasn’t designed to settle it. It’s a civil case about defamation. I don’t feel like I know Depp did or did not do. But, more importantly, I don’t know how the jury’s decision is important in a larger cultural sense. Depp could win the case on the merits and still be guilty of abuse, and the opposite is also true. Heard could be a genuine victim or a spiteful fabricator, but the outcome of the case won’t decide which is true.
Now, if you’ve decided what the truth is, then I suppose you can have an opinion on whether justice was or was not done. But to really have some wide-ranging significance, the outcome must demonstrate something or change something or lead somewhere new. And all I see is the possibility that Depp might gain enough vindication to land some new roles. A few more major Johnny Depp movies might please some audiences, but it hardly adds up to something I feel I should care about.
On the other side, maybe Heard will be vindicated and then that might provide some comfort or encouragement to women who find themselves in abusive relationships. But for that to be justified, Heard would have to actually be telling the truth, which isn’t something the trial really demonstrated one way or the other.
There’s also the idea that the whole trial is just an act of spite on Depp’s part, and that he wins either way. In this telling, which Andrews seems to buy, Depp brought the case not to win necessarily but to abuse Heard all over again by humiliating her on a very large stage. If accurate, then a favorable decision for Depp would show, once again, how powerful men can get away with anything and that the cards are stacked against victims of abuse. But, of course, that narrative is only valuable if it happens to be true. I am not convinced it’s not true, but it isn’t proven.
From what I see, there are a lot of people who are invested in this case for their own reasons, and who will either be happy or upset about the verdict. But I don’t see it as meriting that kind of personal investment. If the jury thinks Depp was abusive, they’ll probably rule against him, but that’s not what they’re supposed to decide. It’s quite possible that the jury will rule in Depp’s favor simply because they like him more or find him more credible, even if Heard has the better argument that she was defamed. Of course, the opposite is also true.
In the abstract, there is a sense in which justice will or won’t be done, but since the truth is unknown all we’ll have is opinions about how things turned out. I hope justice is done, but I can tell you that I won’t know if it has been done. And I don’t see how that can form the basis for an important cultural event.
It’s like a “Jeopardy” category: “Things That Are Utterly Irrelevant To My Life.”
It’s easy to dismiss this case as a bunch of dopes who deserve each other. But, as I am probably one of the few people who have had incredible accusations hurled at him in a court of law, I can understand Mr. Depp’s desire to clear his name. I’m not a movie star or even someone of any public stature, but being called an abuser can lead to consequences. Like losing jobs (as Mr. Depp indicate that he did) and having one’s career stunted. And as this is basically a “He said, She said” kind of thing, it’s almost impossible to disprove a lie.
It’s a publicity stunt.
No matter what their legal fees, the daily exposure each of them has gotten in every medium is cheap at the price.
If you listen to podcasts, I recommend Derek Thompson’s “Plain English” pod in general, and specifically in this case the one he put out a couple of weeks ago titled “Why does the Internet hate Amber Heard?” I don’t know if it will give you an actual reason why you should care, but it’s a look at the trial in the broader context of current culture and as a reaction to the recent “#MeToo” movement.
See also Michael Hobbes Twitter feed. I haven’t followed the case closely, but what little trickles over to me makes it clear that Heard has effectively become a stand-in for all the hatred society has for women, even and especially when it doesn’t make sense.
As I noted, people became invested in the outcome for their own reasons. Men’s rights assholes wanted Depp to not only win but crush and humiliate Heard, and now that Heard has lost we see all these stories lamenting that the #MeToo movement is dead, but these two groups, while not equivalent, are both investing too much.
A jury found that Heard acted with malice but their rightness or wrongness of their judgment is summarily dismissed in favor of agenda pushing. For the Men’s Rights folks, it’s probably better if Depp is guilty and got away with it, and for the #MeToo lamenters, they’re (rightly) worried about the consequences for future victims of abuse who will be dissuaded from coming forward, but they never consider who is to blame for this since they long ago made up their mind that Heard’s story was substantially true.
And that was my point in writing this. It wasn’t about everyone else’s agenda. It was really just two famous people suing each other for saying nasty things about each other in the media. No one disputes they had a toxic and mutually traumatizing relationship, nor that they both treated each other in absolutely deplorable ways.
As I understand it, Heard prevailed on the narrow point that you can’t trash your house and then have your lawyer lie and blame the destruction on your spouse. That finding hardly vindicates Heard or excuses all her behavior. Likewise, the finding that Heard wasn’t uniformly truthful and acted with malice doesn’t get Depp off the hook for being a complete car-wreck of a husband and a person. But if it’s true that he didn’t do many of the more serious things she accused him of doing, then it’s her fault if future victims are dissuaded from coming forward. I’m not saying this is accurate, but it’s the finding of the jury, essentially.
And my last point is that while I might have my own opinions (where I’d place money) about the truth of what did or did not happen in their relationship, I don’t think I can look you in the face and say I am better informed than the jury who heard the case. Still, the jury could be wrong.
If this case has cultural importance, it’s not because justice was done or not done, but because so many people decided that it mattered how it turned out.
Maybe they’re right. They probably are right. But that’s a problem.
What might be interesting is that this trial might be even a bigger deal in more “normal” times. It’s hard to give a shit about Johnny Depp in a world of mass shootings.
I tried to follow this thinking Heard was a bad person and Depp was about to prove it to us. And then I forgot what I was thinking. Hoo hum. Next Pirates of the Caribbean anyone?. With all the shit around us every day this just won’t get us there.
5