From "Amber Heard and the Death of #MeToo" by Michelle Goldberg (NYT).
May 19, 2022
"If Depp somehow prevails, one can expect similar lawsuits against other women who say they’ve survived abuse."
"Already, the singer Marilyn Manson has filed a defamation suit against his ex-fiancée Evan Rachel Wood, one of several women who have accused him of sexual violence.
But Depp needn’t succeed in court to achieve his ends. In a 2016 email to his former agent, Christian Carino, Depp wrote that Heard was 'begging for total global humiliation.' Now this televised trial has resulted in an explosion of hatred and derision directed at her. The volatile actress — who at times was violent toward Depp, and who never made good on a promise to donate her entire divorce settlement to charity — is very far from a perfect victim. That made her the perfect object of a #MeToo backlash.
Online, there’s a level of industrial-scale bullying directed at Heard that puts all previous social media pile-ons to shame.... Meanwhile, every platform appears to be full of adoring pro-Depp memes.... [T]here’s a history of online communities fixating 'on theories that the male objects of their fandom were being manipulated and tortured by less-famous, female romantic partners.'
There seems, however, to be a broader misogynist frenzy at work, one characteristic of the deeply reactionary moment we’re living through."
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"deeply reactionary moment"? It's hard to take seriously someone who would write that.
I think it's clear they abused each other. Perhaps people will wake up and realize we don't want to see that dirty laundry. I know I don't.
"Amber Heard and the Death of #MeToo"
One can Always Hope!
No woman must be made to feel bad about, or responsible for, anything, ever.
If we are in a "deeply reactionary moment", it's in a response to a fifty-year swerve to the Left.
Perhaps we are relearning something that we seem to have forgotten- women are good at lying, too.
If women hadn't been given the benefit of the doubt, protected, and coddled throughout millions of years of history, we wouldn't have a parallel history of women engaged in deception, poisoning, gossiping, strategizing to destroy others, and doing other nefarious things. Humans are a predatory species and all humans can kill. Women aren't often physically violent to other humans, but the "Me Too" movement was insane propaganda in the extreme.
Ma'am, please enjoy your burger or chicken sandwich for lunch. Killer without bloody hands.
Goldberg always writes in this weird roundabout manner. She wants to defend Heard because she's a woman, so she comes up with "If Depp wins, it will be bad for ABUSED women". OK, so what? based on the evidence, Herd either deserves to win or she doesn't. And if her loss, prevents other women from from acting badly, good.
But again, look how Goldberg gets away from the actual facts of the specific case, and just argues that we should root for Herd because "Yay, Team Female'. WHo WHom. Of course, goldberg is a moron, and writing this way is probably the only way she can get a column out.
a level of industrial-scale bullying directed at Heard that puts all previous social media pile-ons to shame
Doubt it.
I agree with Can of Cheese that they are simply two disturbed people who treated each other badly. Enough with the media picking sides. Turn off the cameras and let them go their separate ways.
“Misogynistic frenzy” or anger that people were initially duped by a lying vengeful woman who attempted to manipulate the very real concerns behind Me Too for her own personal gain?
I would have thought that the most outraged population would be precisely those who have fought the hardest to raise awareness of domestic violence and sexual harassment. But perhaps their ambivalence is understandable. One of the underpinnings of the movement is that women never or at least rarely lie. Any public acknowledgment that Ms Heard may be lying would undermine that narrative.
I find the description of Heard as "not a perfect victim" to be the most egregious thing in the clip. She's a perpetrator of domestic violence, by her own testimony. And other than her own highly discredited testimony, there is zero evidence that Depp ever abused anyone. So how is Heard a victim, even an imperfect one? She is the abuser.
This is why there is a pile-on, because half our culture cannot conceive of the possibility that a woman could be the bad guy in a relationship. The other half of us have met women. These are not "imperfect victims", these are criminals, abusers, liars and perjurers. If a dude beats up his wife for burning his dinner, I don't refer to the prick as an "imperfect culinary victim".
The volatile actress...is very far from a perfect victim.
Very far from "perfect" victim, and very far from establishing that she is any kind of "victim."
So far, she looks more like the perpetrator.
Can we have the death of generalizing according to broad categories?
I think one of the key markers of intelligence and maybe wisdom is understanding that similar situations aren't the same, and the differences are very important.
What Depp and Heard are dealing with has no relevance to Manson. And there are definitely both bad men and bad women in every context.
Broad generalizations, however, can use fancy words and big platforms to put on a show of intelligence that takes up a lot of space without actually saying anything, while getting people who think they are more intelligent than they are to nod and feel whatever emotion they're being manipulated to feel.
What did Goldberg say when Stormy Daniels sued Trump for defamation because he dared to deny her accusations?
It must have been inevitable that MeToo would die in the soap opera genre it started from.
Women aren't often physically violent to other humans
Leaving aside the 70 million dead in the last 50 years, women tend to be more subtle with their violence, and most men would never complain publicly about women being physically violent with them.
"Amber Heard and the Death of #MeToo" Did Ms Goldberg mean to say, 'suicide'?
"If Depp somehow prevails, one can expect similar lawsuits against other women who say they’ve survived abuse."
Good.
Because "who say they’ve" clearly doesn't mean "it actually happening"
Further, it's clear that Michelle Goldberg couldn't care less whether or not the abuse actually happened, so her being sad is pretty much a required outcome of any decent situation
I've only seen clips, but she is wholly unlikeable and not even remotely hot.
He's a nut case but seemingly a harmless one.
In his favor, he can actually act.
Deeply reactionary moment = our team is losing badly (deeply badly) in the court of public opinion.
Since men are generally not paying much attention to this trial, the “misogyny” is really women judging and bullying other women.
It seems as though they abused each other, but he is the one who dragged her into court and threatened to take $50 million from her. This should have been resolved quietly... except that his very big career got ruined because of the force of #MeToo. He had to resolve it publicly or he wouldn't get his reputation back.
I blame the ACLU.
'I blame the ACLU.'
What about the lawyers for even taking this on?
His lawyers should have told him it was pointless...I don't think she has the money in any case.
But his lawyers (and hers) are doing very well indeed...
One could avoid a lawsuit on defamation by not defaming. If somehow Depp wins, it will be because his legal team established Heard as a routine liar, who by the way never fulfilled her promise to give all the money from her divorce to charity. She’s not a perfect victim because she is not a victim. The premise of victimhood was based on a lie.
And all this time I thought Tara Reade was the death of MeToo.
This is the wrong take. The case is not about who abused whom. It's about who will have a career when this is all over. Depp sued (as Althouse just remarked) because Heard had succeeded in impacting his work. Is it fair that Heard comes out of the trial looking unemployable? Whatever. Depp looks like a weirdo, but all actors are on the strange scale. He'll get gigs again.
If I remember right you have a “Lawsuits I hope fail” tag. This is one of those cases where I wish I were on the jury so I could side with the plaintiff and then award him a single dollar in damages.
I blame people who watch this drivel and think that it's important.
I don't think we'd be having this backlash if they hadn't tried to lash culture to the idea that we must believe all women.
Althouse, I agree with you. The ACLU tried to use her upcoming blockbuster to get a high profile as a protector of women in their "gender based violence" of domestic violence. Which really bothers me to begin with. DV isn't gender based.
#IStandWithAmberHeard is trending on Twitter.
Depp won't get his reputation back. Cancel culture doesn't return stolen goods.
As for "deeply reactionary" and social media pile ons. There's nothing reactionary about wishing for both of these people to lose. And for social media pile ons, Ms. Jankowicz, aka "Scary Poppins" --a name earned from her ill considered Tik Tok pieces has gotten a real pile on in the last week. Not that she didn't deserve it, but it was a tsunami of disapproval.
Admittedly my attention to the trial has been intermittent and less than fully when it is on TV, but it seems if she had said publicly just after the op-Ed what she said this week, “It wasn’t about Johnny,” then he would have had no action on which to sue her. She liked the ambiguity of it all right up until the actual trial. Now she is trying to undo what he asked her to undo years ago, but it’s too late. He has photos video audio and experts who testified to his injuries. She has her acting ability and no evidence for the extraordinary claims of being pounded with his fists and ringed fingers, yet no photos at all of facial injuries. It “rings” hollow so to speak.
The jury could award them each $50 million in damages.
I blame Depp for marrying her. Good grief, you're a movie star with millions. Why saddle yourself with this basket-case? It reminds moe of why some actor used prostitutes. "I don't pay them to show up, I pay them to leave".
there are so many level-headed women - but maybe that's what Depp really wanted. The drama, the fights, the tears, the makeup sex. One kook wanting another kook.
Anyway, I'm rooting against her. Any women who gives $1 million to the ACLU deserves to lose.
Depp doesn't need the $50M from Heard, he needs to have his reputation restored to the point where studios will hire him. That's the goal of this case - resolving it quietly was never an option although I think that would Henr been better for each of them personally (not professionally).
I'm sure a lot of this Depp admission is the result of the extensive efforts of his publicist team. Goldberg's column is likely a result of Heard's publicist team.
OMG, men might actually be able to defend themselves...the horror, the horror.....
Depp does not need the money from Heard, given that she doesn't have it and he is supposed to be worth $100 million.
He doesn't need to work either, but he does need to be invited to Hollywood cocktail parties. Being a druggie is not an impediment, but being an abuser of women certainly is.
If the jury returns a verdict in favor of Depp (which seems likely) he will be "acquitted" of domestic violence. That is the entire point of the lawsuit.
Maybe people should have used their brains. It was obvious from the first that Heard was a terrible example to pick as a victim.
I thought Me, Too was dead when James Carville, who famously said “Drag a hundred dollar bill through a trailer park and you never know what you’ll get”, to smear Paula Jones, NEVER paid a price for that among liberals and is still a go-to talking head for MSNBC/CNN.
“Perhaps we are relearning something that we seem to have forgotten- women are good at lying, too”
Better. Women are better at lying than men are. And probably do it more. It’s one of their defenses to our superior strength.
Perhaps I'm influenced by the Bari Weiss' article today about Dr. Sabatini, but it seems to me a lot of ambitious women are using MeToo to achieve their desire for revenge and they are being supported by a theoretical idea about oppression. It's pretty clear Heard is lying about the physical assaults no matter how psychically she has been battered by her more successful spouse and the patriarchy in general.
Women aren't often physically violent to other humans
Dated, but still interesting, and contradicting that unsupported claim, is this article:
https://time.com/2921491/hope-solo-women-violence/
"Research showing that women are often aggressors in domestic violence has been causing controversy for almost 40 years, ever since the 1975 National Family Violence Survey by sociologists Murray Straus and Richard Gelles of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire found that women were just as likely as men to report hitting a spouse and men were just as likely as women to report getting hit. The researchers initially assumed that, at least in cases of mutual violence, the women were defending themselves or retaliating. But when subsequent surveys asked who struck first, it turned out that women were as likely as men to initiate violence—a finding confirmed by more than 200 studies of intimate violence. In a 2010 review essay in the journal Partner Abuse, Straus concludes that women’s motives for domestic violence are often similar to men’s, ranging from anger to coercive control."
But...that data doesn't satisfy the "narrative" that all men are beasts, so....let's all ignore it and "believe the wymyn".
Online, there’s a level of industrial-scale bullying directed at Heard that puts all previous social media pile-ons to shame....
Was reading at the Guardian last evening an article about a pregnant climber who had been, so the headline told me, the object of 'bullying' (climbing while pregnant is evidently a potentially risky business). Reading it, so far as I could tell said 'bullying' consisted of 'judgments and funny looks'. Millions of judgments and funny looks (am reading 'industrial-scale' in the first place to mean 'lots') are still just 'judgments and funny looks'. The poor woman (AH, I mean; the climber, Shauna Coxsey, seems fairly reasonable and decent etc etc although I think that giving an interview to the G. writer was a regrettable mistake-- perhaps she's always read The Times and so wouldn't know what was coming) has already willingly participated in ruining her reputation so I can't imagine that a billion judgments and funny looks are going to bother her too much.
Perhaps I'm influenced by the Bari Weiss' article today about Dr. Sabatini....
Knew nothing about the affair but I'd give Dr Sabatini a job and research facility too if I had a few hundreds of millions of dollars laying about-- that was a lovely piece of rhetoric, the Suzy Weiss essay.
Ann Althouse said...
It seems as though they abused each other, but he is the one who dragged her into court and threatened to take $50 million from her. This should have been resolved quietly.
That option went away when she publicly accused him of abusing her.
Yes, they should have settled it quietly and privately. But Amber wasn't willing to do that.
It takes two sides to make peace, it only takes one side to make war
Depp has the burden of proof here and I don’t think he’s come close to meeting it.
I don't think there are many women in the category of Amber Heard.
Michelle Goldberg believed Christine Blasey Ford.
One of my sons was at a friend’s house when the father came home and had evidently done something to irritate the mother. As he walked in the door my son witnessed him getting conked in the side of the head with a cast iron frying pan.
Yes, women can initiate violence.
According to his friend- not the first. And from stories from other friends not an uncommon thing in the local town when both husband and wife were of Italian descent.
My children never witnessed violence at home. All five are now successful adults. All have told me we were the weird family, but in a good way. They had friends stay overnight far more often than they stayed with friends. And according to my children they were all well behaved because they knew if they crossed the line I’d beat the living crap out of them. They can’t explain where that thought came from, but it’s there…
The jury should award some damages to the public for having to endure this crap.
The volatile actress — who at times was violent toward Depp, and who never made good on a promise to donate her entire divorce settlement to charity — is very far from a perfect victim.
She didn't just fail to follow through on a promise to donate her $7 million divorce settlement to charity. She incorrectly testified under oath that she made the donations before Depp started the libel suit, and that Depp's lawyer was wrong to say she "still" hadn't made the donations. She eventually corrected herself, but only because Depp's lawyer kept grilling her — if the lawyer had moved on earlier, the jury would've been left believing the opposite of the truth based on Heard's testimony. Yet by referring to Heard as a "victim," Goldberg implicitly assumes that Heard is telling the truth and Depp is lying. We're in the middle of a complex trial — how is it helpful for columnists to leap to conclusions about what the verdict should be? Why not wait and let the jury decide?
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