I found this juxtaposition entrancing:
We see the idealized domesticated males, together, with idealized dog, on a park bench, looking simply and virtuously for a modest home. And we see the ominous male, heterosexual, standing in the dark next to an empty space where there once was a woman. Somehow his very looks have brought on madness! He — standing alone — is proof of the causal connection between male beauty and madness.
Writes Maureen Dowd, in "Johnny and Amber: Trouble in Paradise" (NYT).
Dowd is distancing herself from the sordid detail of Depp's proving he'd been defamed. Let's back way the hell off and see only the vague outlines of the timeless myth of Man and Woman.
But who knew they had Eve's tomb somewhere?
There's this column, from Erik Wemple — "Depp-Heard case hinged on the world’s worst #MeToo op-ed." Wemple's column, like the "world's worst #MeToo op-ed," was published in the Washington Post:
The first draft came off the keyboards of the ACLU, via consultation with Heard. Four lawyers at the ACLU reviewed it to ensure that it aligned with the organization’s policy positions. Heard’s lawyers separately scrubbed it for compliance with a nondisclosure provision of her divorce settlement, according to an ACLU spokesperson.
"The most effective of the influencers turned commentators, like @houseinhabit’s Jessica Reed Kraus, know this. Kraus is a San Clemente, California, mother who got her start in the content mines as a lifestyle blogger (picture lots of wavy-haired sons, surfboards, pools, and exposed ceiling beams). Over the past year or so, she morphed into a trial-obsessed Instagrammer.
Writes Michelle Goldberg in "The Amber Heard Verdict Was a Travesty. Others Will Follow" (NYT).
The top-rated comment (by far) is from Mari (in London): "I am really starting to get sick of these partial articles, of the cherry picked facts, of the caveats and concessions for Amber’s side when presenting this trial in the media. I am a progressive, a feminist, work in human rights. I am not a conservative or a wild Johnny Depp ‘tik tok’ fan. I watched the whole trial. I was on Heard’s side, for years. But it was clear as the trial went on, that it is very likely that Heard has fabricated the allegations - something absolutely heinous to do, to destroy someone else’s life. Please Michelle, don’t be dishonest here. Everyone watching the trial could see the facts as they were presented; most people are smart enough to infer their own conclusions that Heard acted with malice."
I haven't read all the comments, but I haven't found one that isn't critical of the position Goldberg takes.
Quoted in "'Men Always Win’: Survivors ‘Sickened’ by the Amber Heard Verdict/It didn’t matter what the verdict was — as one domestic violence survivor puts it, 'this case is my worst fear playing out on a public stage'" (Rolling Stone).
This morning, I'm brushing off the many knee-jerk reactions to the Depp/Heard verdict — low-quality ravings about how women in general will suffer because this one woman wasn't believed. (It seems to me, the greater cause is the truth, and we can very coherently side with real victims and oppose phony victims. This was a case of catching a liar in action.)
But this quote struck me as different and bloggable because it speaks of destroying the buildings that house the governmental entities that are functioning in a way that you believe falls below proper standards: I want tear down every courthouse brick by brick because there is no justice to be had in our system of laws.
It made me think of the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol building. Put to the side whether you agree that the 2020 election was rigged or that Amber Heard didn't get justice. The question is, if you do think something like that, should your reaction be to attack the building?
"... but that’s not what’s happening here. The online commentary about the trial quickly advanced from a he-said she-said drama script to an internet-wide smear campaign against Heard.... Seemingly harmless YouTube channels and TikTok accounts dedicated to legal commentary or body-language analysis have pivoted to pro-Depp content en masse.... The pool camera system, which is operated by Court TV, films the proceedings from multiple angles... The sheer amount of material recorded each day enables viewers to examine every inch of the courtroom with a conspiratorial zeal, as empty gestures and meaningless asides are whipped into dubious case clues, spliced into humiliating Heard reaction GIFs or leveraged to build a charmingly unbothered bad-boy court presence for Depp.... [M]any TikToks are soundtracked with the circuslike theme from 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' trapping Heard in the role of sad clown... [L]ike Gamergate, which took an obscure gaming-community controversy and inflated it into an internet-wide anti-feminist harassment campaign and a broader right-wing movement, this nihilistic circus is a potentially radicalizing event. When the trial ends this week, the elaborate grassroots campaign to smear a woman will remain, now with a plugged-in support base and a field-tested harassment playbook...."
Writes Amanda Hess in "TikTok’s Amber Heard Hate Machine/Television turned the celebrity trial into a 24-hour tabloid spectacle. Social media made it into a sport" (NYT).
"[T]his trial could function as a case study in contrived stereotypes used to discredit women, even if you believe there is some truth behind Mr. Depp’s claims.
Ms. Heard has been portrayed as mentally unstable, hysterical, a gold digger, a temptress who brought home other paramours at all hours of the night, a freeloader who moved her friends into Mr. Depp’s many houses, an attention-seeker with an unquenchable need for drama and of course an untrustworthy liar — textbook undermining strategies, each with its own sexist implications....
Whether you believe Ms. Heard or not, watching a woman excoriated in public has been popular entertainment since the Middle Ages. Somehow, Ms. Heard seems to have become a stand-in for every evil, lying woman getting her comeuppance — alpha queen bees in high school, the girl who slept with your boyfriend or girlfriend, every manipulative ex. She is Eve, she is Medusa, she is Lady Macbeth. She evokes vamps and vampires, wicked stepmothers, witches.... This trial seems to have exposed some of the rhetorical weaknesses of #MeToo. 'Believe women'... had somehow morphed into 'believe all women'... The intent of that early slogan was, in part, to encourage the public to treat women who speak up with basic dignity and respect, however messy and imperfect they or their stories may be...."
Writes Jessica Bennett, in "The Humiliation of Amber Heard Is Both Modern and Medieval" (NYT).
From "Amber Heard and the Death of #MeToo" by Michelle Goldberg (NYT).
"... they had to don the camouflage of trust. The clothes we subliminally associate with adulthood, responsibility and reliability. In a word: suits.... In the end, this is partly a trial of image, and of how things appear on the outside versus what happens behind closed doors. Of natural prejudices — about celebrity and what it represents, of privilege, of gender roles — and the way such preconceptions can be altered via appearance and affect. Was Ms. Heard playing a role, as Mr. Depp’s lawyers suggested? Of course. So was Mr. Depp. (So were their lawyers.) Not just because they are professional actors, but because that is what testimony demands: a convincing portrayal of honesty, of believability, using all the tools available to create character. In every meaning of that word."
From "In Court, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard Dress to Suggest/Honesty, respectability, sincerity — the clothes make the argument" by Vanessa Friedman (NYT).
Here's a featured snippet of the long-running Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard trial. This is Heard on cross-examination, as she's made to listen to extensive audio of a fight the married couple had at some point in the past:
I can't take the time to watch the whole trial, but I am noticing things, especially the way social media is siding, apparently massively, with Depp. There's so much contempt for Heard that I'm inclined to construe things in her favor just to be fair. In the clip above, we're hearing 2 actors, doing who knows what to each other. Why does this ultra-private interaction exist in recorded form?
I looked up the answer. I found this Mirror article from 2 years ago (when Depp was losing a defamation lawsuit against The Sun): "Johnny Depp... told the court he frequently recorded conversations with Heard to remind her what had been said." That doesn't say whether she knew or whether the recordings were ever used in a constructive way.
I see that at The Spectator, Eleanor Harmsworth is speculating that the entire trial is Depp and Heard engaged in sexual role play:
1. "Where are the fruit trees?"
2. Grandparents have had the same bathroom wallpaper since the 1970s.
3. A strange cleaning tip.
4. When you give your wife marriage advice from the 1950s. Does she laugh or get mad?
5. When you perform an extended imitation of the way your wife acts when she gets home from work. Does she laugh or get mad?
6. More analysis of Amber Heard's witness-stand acting from that actor-scholar actor.
7. Take off those ugly socks.
8. Sitting at home, eating snacks.
9. "Maybe the only reason you think you're not good enough is..."
1. In the 90s, you had to wear a thong.
2. Asking Irish people to do an American accent.
3. Present day celebrities who look uncannily like somebody in a photo from the distant past.
4. Things he's apologized to his wife for.
5. An actor and scholar of acting explains what's so wrong about Amber Heard's testimony.
6. A clear aerial view of Rich Strike's impossible Derby win.
7. The alien welcomes you to space.
8. A man in his 20s with "the social life of a pensioner."
10. The insufferable vocal fry of indie films.
1. If you combined Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Johnny Cash, and The Doors into one voice, how would it sound?
2. Never seen an adult male cry? It's "weird"?
3. Imitating rock stars by their walk.
4. The inside of one of those twee cabins.
5. Nominees for the Dad Award for Food-Related Fails.
7. The "My dog stepped on a bee" meme. (Don't worry: No dogs stepping on bees — or even any dogs or bees — in this video.)
1. A teacher rates the insults he received from students today.
2. An impersonation of Amber Heard.
3. How America pictures a workday in Finland.
4. How Finland pictures a workday in America.
5. Follow the simple instructions and you, kids, can make a nice image of a horse.
6. The first half of the show was fashion for adults, the second half the toy version of those things.
7. Office jobs are kind of fake jobs, aren't they?
"A separate source claimed to People at the time, 'She doesn’t get easily intimidated. She is very focused and loves to learn.'"
From "Amber Heard and Elon Musk: A complete timeline of their relationship" (NY Post).
"loves to learn" — Loves to learn what? Loves to learn a man's weaknesses so she can torment him... in precisely the way that he finds "edgy" and fearless? So hot.
Here's the NY Post article, "Milani sets record straight on Amber Heard’s Johnny Depp bruises claims":@milanicosmetics You asked us… let the record show that our Correcting Kit launched in 2017!👀 #milanicosmetics ♬ International Super Spy - dylan
During opening statements this week, Heard’s attorney claimed that the “Aquaman” actress carried Milani Conceal + Perfect All-in-One Correcting Kit with her throughout her “entire relationship with Johnny Depp” — and suggested she’d used the makeup to cover injuries from Depp’s alleged physical abuse during their relationship.We may never know if Depp hit Heard in those years, 2014 to 2016, but we do know that the Conceal + Perfect All-in-One Correcting Kit did not hit the market until December 2017.
Said Johnny Depp, quoted in "Photos of Johnny Depp ‘passed out,’ cocaine shown in Amber Heard trial" (NY Post).
Depp was testifying about photograph that showed him "'passed out' on a couch in Boston with his lap covered in ice cream. "He claimed Heard gave him the pint of ice cream because she 'knew' he would fall asleep with it.... 'That was a wonderful picture for her to take.'"
पोस्ट्स
