The pillorying of Amber Heard
Pass the popcorn.
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There was the moment, during cross-examination, when a court representative held a knife in front of Amber Heard’s face — asking her to acknowledge it was the knife she had gifted to her former husband Johnny Depp, which had the words “until death” engraved on it in Spanish. (The implication: Why would she gift a knife to a man she accused of beating her?)
There were the blown up images of her bruises, placed side by side against photographs of her at red carpet events taken around the same time, where the alleged injuries were not visible. Had she covered them up with makeup, or were the bruises themselves a makeup job?
And then there were the conspiracy theories, so widespread and so well-crafted as to almost be believable: That she was snorting cocaine on the stand. Using Vicks VapoRub to help her cry. Quoting from the Talented Mister Ripley. Borrowing from the plot of Gone Girl, Maid, even Fatal Attraction. When was she going to boil the bunny?
This is the spectacle of a trial that has been playing out over the last five weeks in a Virginia courtroom between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, one that is being broadcast live for anyone with an internet connection and which I, like hundreds of thousands of others, have been absolutely glued to.
Are there other more important things happening in the world? Absolutely. Does this case also tell us something about the state of the world? Yes.
Now look, I don’t watch a lot of domestic abuse trials. Most domestic abuse trials are not live-streamed on the internet — and, uh, I'm fairly confident if you were to ask any expert on the subject, they'd say rightly so.
But this is not technically a trial about domestic abuse, it's about defamation. It's a case about whether, by writing a Washington Post op-ed in which she called herself a survivor of domestic abuse, Heard defamed her ex-husband without naming him — causing him to lose jobs, including his role on the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise. He's suing her for $50 million, and she is countersuing him for twice that amount, contending that she, too, lost jobs when his lawyers called her claims a "hoax."
It is a messy, complicated, salacious, drug-fueled tale of two people who were quite clearly engaged in a violent, toxic relationship — one that resulted in, depending on who you believe, bruises to Heard’s face, clumps of her hair pulled out, blood on their shared bed and a severed finger for Depp, who then used that finger to write bloody messages all over the walls. There are claims of Depp holding a Yorkshire Terrier out the window of a moving car, Heard defecating in a bed, and Depp violently sexual assaulting her with a liquor bottle. Both parties have denied these allegations.
And yet whomever you believe, and whatever the outcome of the legal proceedings, the internet seems to have made up its mind.
#JusticeforJohnnyDepp has tens of millions of social media posts, and good luck to you if you find yourself in its crosshairs. TikTok is full of people mockingly re-enacting portions of Heard's testimony describing her alleged abuse. Depp fans, who flank the courthouse daily, shouting "gold digger!" as Heard emerges, are spreading misinformation so fast it's almost impossible to fact-check in real time.
Some fans have brought llamas to the courthouse. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images)
As one person on Instagram put it: Which thing is more believable, that the earth is flat or Amber Heard? Ninety eight percent said earth.
What exactly is it that has made this trial such a circus?
Celebrity, of course. The internet. An army of fans. The shipping (mom, here's the definition of "shipping") of Depp and his attractive female lawyer. Apparently, a coordinated anti-Heard propaganda campaign. But also this very particular cultural moment we are living through, against a backdrop of Roe v. Wade and nearly five years into #MeToo.
In a strange way, there is something for every side of the culture wars to latch onto here.
If you believe that women should be being treated with dignity — even messy, imperfect women who accuse men of abuse — Heard's portrayal as an attention-hungry liar who was the real abuser, seemingly convicted before she ever took the stand, was further evidence that the culture hadn’t changed as much as we might have liked, that #MeToo still has a long way to go.
For those who thought the pendulum has swung too far, the trial was a welcome opportunity to see a man who claims he as wrongfully accused fight back — and not just in the press, through testimony, and testimony that was broadcast to the public.
If you were a man who’d felt left out of the #MeToo movement — or a troll pretending to be one — the case was validation that men, too, can be abused, which of course they can. At one point in the trial, after Depp's team played audio of an argument between the couple about the nature of a physical altercation, in which Heard taunts Depp to convince a jury that he was the real victim, the hashtag #mentoo began trending on Twitter.
There is an undercurrent of gender dynamics to it all, no matter who you believe, down to the way their courtroom performances have been interpreted.
Depp, in sunglasses, nibbling on gummy candy and doodling in a notebook, snickering during testimony and cracking jokes on the stand, seems to be successfully playing the part of the misunderstood but charming hero. Heard, dressed conservatively, with her hair pulled back, seems to be trying painstakingly to modulate her emotional displays correctly — knowing they will be scrutinized — and comes off as scripted in the process.
In my column in The New York Times this week, I write about the Medieval-seeming undertones of how this case has played out. You can read it here.
Tell me what you think in the comments, or email me at supwaitreally@gmail.com.
Until next week.
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What else is on my mind, "Wait, huh?" edition:
For those who, like me, spent the entirety of their college years subsisting on Cup Noodles, there is now a makeup line inspired by the product that literally no one asked for.
Apparently, calling a male colleague "bald" is now considered sexual harassment in the U.K. Ah, to be a man.
I spent half of my 30s "power posing" after research found that striking such a stance would boost the hormones that make you feel more confident. Then that science was debunked. But! New research looking at the contested research shows that in fact maybe you can Wonder Woman-pose your way to confidence.
"Skants" — as in, the hideous but charming Y2K combo of wearing a skirt over pants — are apparently having a comeback. Fun fact: I helped stage a walkout at my middle school called "Skirtfest" after my then-8th-grade boyfriend was suspended for sporting just this style, though we definitely didn't use the word "skants." If you'd like more war stories from my angsty days as teenager in 90s Seattle, check out my Spotify playlist, "Middle School, Locked in My Bedroom," or see the photo below. 😱
* Yes, that's a CITIZEN DICK T-shirt, which was the fictional grunge band of Matt Dillon and Eddie Vedder from the movie Singles. IYKYK.
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TBT: I’m Not 'Mrs. Putnam.' I’m 'Amelia Earhart.'
If you don't know already, you'll soon notice that there's nothing I love more than digging into old newspaper archives to help us understand the present. (And sometimes just to mock old headlines.)
Today's throwback: Amelia Earhart, who — 90 years ago this week — became the first woman to fly nonstop and alone across the Atlantic, in 1932.
Earhart made headlines around the world for that feat — or rather, her husband's name did. Despite asking journalists to use her name, Earhart, she was repeatedly called "Mrs. Putnam."
Eventually, this became so irksome that Earhart wrote a letter to the publisher of The New York Times, asking that she be called, simply, "Amelia Earhart."
Eventually, they obliged.
Letter to the New York Times, 1932. (Source: The New York Times)
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