Amber Heard&Johnny Depp verdict

[Miscfeminista]

Continuation of previous thread

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4552076-amber-heardjohnny-depp-trial?page=36&reply=117586863

Speculations on verdict, news related to it, insights into specifics of legal matters, opinions and impressions…let’s keep it going and see how verdict finds us >>>>>>>>>>

What do the Depp fans think about this? I'm guessing it's somehow Amber's fault

www.google.com/amp/s/www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/07/johnny-depp-lawsuit-gregg-brooks-punching/amp

Hmm
deadline.com/2018/05/johnny-depp-bodyguards-lawsuit-unpaid-wages-working-conditions-1202380549/

I mean poor Johnny. Everyone is out to get him for no reason at all

I personally like AH a lot. She's pretty, hard working, ambitious, left home at 17 and being a Miss nobody from a very disfunctional family background in the mid west with no money or contacts managed to work herself up the Hollywood ladder. She has publicly come out as bisexual and is quite a strong person. She doesn't fit the model of what victim is supposed to look and people hate her for that. But strong successful women are not perfect and from abuse too (Rihana or Maria Callas come to mind).

On the other hand I never liked JD, I started not liking him in the 90's long before this trial. I saw him as a troubled narc, alcoholic, man child, hotel trashing, misogynist and drug addicted pri-ck with a huge ego. Great actor though.

Does that make me biased? Probably, but then I don't know these people personally and I'm basing my opinions on media articles just like everyone on this forum.

Article from Dr Spiegel, a psychiatrist (psychologist?) who testified as an expert witness:

www.newsweek.com/i-testified-heard-vs-depp-backlash-horrific-1711386?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1654254385

I liked AH. I thought she was INCREDIBLY beautiful and ideal for L'oreal, modelling type stuff. She has a sharp wit and posts great one liners on her Instagram with her pics. Her acting was average. She's always come across as a strong woman to me.

I don't not like her now. I think what she's done is abhorrent but she's obviously seriously ill and needs to surround herself with strong people, not enablers.

Such a bloody shame really.

Not that it's relevant really, but she's grown on me. She turned up for the verdict and was utterly dignified. I think she knew from the start that the deck was stacked against her and she's been incredibly strong.

When I hear the audios, I hear someone enmeshed in a hideous relationship and when put into context it's clear she isn't saying nobody will believe Depp is a victim because he's a man (that's been misquoted anyway), she's saying she's sorry for calling the police because she thought her life was in danger and he could kill her by accident and she's incredulous that he's trying to DARVO her, and pointing out the physical advantage he has when he calls it a 'fair fight'.

It's been years since she was with Depp and I believe she's been in therapy since that time as she was when they were together. She's in her thirties now and sadly most of her adult life has been defined by him, but I think she's probably matured a lot and simply wants to move on. How she does that I don't know, but I think in a few years at least a lot of people will look back and think she was treated very badly and I'd like to think she will have carved out a life and career for herself. I think she has the intelligence and determination to do so.

So yes, I 'like' her. I'm not really a fan of any celebrity but I'm inclined to make an effort to support her future projects because I think she deserves to be able to move on and not be destroyed by a man she met in her early twenties.

Adam* * what this case has done has turned me right off MSM and newspaper articles with obvious bias. From both sides.

I have clicked on the new Depp trial and read one of the witness statements and did a bit of research. Innocent until proven guilty until otherwise.

Having said that, the article written by Dr Speigal (who I personally loved, especially his quirkiness) its obviously his story and from the source. That poor man doesn't deserve that.

Having said that, the article written by Dr Speigal (who I personally loved, especially his quirkiness) its obviously his story and from the source. That poor man doesn't deserve that.

I loved his quirkiness too. He reminded me of my fiercely intelligent autistic son and I believe he had the measure of Depp. Couldn't stand the cruelty towards him on social media.

@Aspiringmatriarch

Agree. To me my immediate thought was he's not NT.

I'm seeing a shift with our Doc online, to seeing comments like "I loved him" "he's a legend!"

I hope it continues and this initial ridiculous backlash turns into something exceptional for him. He bloody deserves it!

Oh I seen this. People are so disgusting-shows what kind of people support Depp. It must have been horrible reading all those insults knowing it was aimed at you just because the way you are. He didn’t say anything wrong IMO, I cringed a bit on”beaten wife syndrome”(as if abuse causes some sort of condition in us but not in abusive men that they are abusers 🤨 similarly to using histrionic but at least he didn’t mention that, that was dr Curry)but other than that much needed lecture on DV

I hope so too. It's a lovely change to see someone so unfettered by social convention, and some of his remarks were pure comedy. 😄

I agree re 'battered wife syndrome' but I think he was making a point about complex trauma and the behaviour it can bring out in people. It's often the victim who will appear to be 'out of control'. Look at the videos of Gabby Petito and Brian Landry (sp?) - it was obvious to me she was the victim but before we knew what had happened there were videos from people like the Behaviour Panel getting it so wrong and picking her apart. She also admitted to hitting him and being 'difficult'. Same with Shannan and Chris Watts, people still think he was a nice guy with a controlling wife who just snapped.

He wasn't great on the stand and I was surprised they chose him. Obviously he's super clever and knows his stuff but it's not just about that, it's how he was going to be perceived.

Also although he sounded confident I thought he was terrified and the more pressure he got put under the worse his tics got.

I felt like he was a lamb to the slaughter so AHs team should of prepared him much better. He said in the article he'd never done this before. Her team really were quite shit in a lot of ways.

" i hope so too. It's a lovely change to see someone so unfettered by social convention, and some of his remarks were pure comedy. 😄"

They were!! Trouble is, a lot of people didn't see what we did. I'm going to retweet his article, not that I have much reach!

No he didn’t say he’d never done it before, he’s been an expert witness previously, just not at such a high profile trial. He also wasn’t aware it would be televised initially.

No I do not think AH is a nice person. I do not like her. The fact that some people appear to think this should have any bearing on this case is the reason why, despite the optics, I still have misgivings about the verdict.

Iris ah ok, apologies.

I would imagine being televised, and on the witness stand is terrifying. I wouldn't do it no matter what they paid me.

As to battered person syndrome - it’s outdated term, but the ICD-10 disease classification tool lists ‘Adult physical and sexual abuse’ and ‘Husband, perpetrator of maltreatment and neglect‘ but not the US DSM-5.

It can be seen as subgroup of PTSD and as a principle (rather than as a legal or medical definition) was used in the defence of women abusive relationships, eg Sara Thornton who killed her partner.

There are patterns of trauma and behaviours particular to intimate partner violence and I think it’s sensible and necessary to map those.

Yes I was speaking strictly on words used, syndrome makes it sound like there's something"wrong"with the women abused if you get me but well I figure not many paid attention to that anyway I recently read on that somewhere so it popped out

In fact, this case shows just how necessary that is.

MN is good at identifying when posters are in an abusive relationship - key indicating factors - coercive control, emotional, financial, sexual abuse are well recognised as well as physical abuse.

However, what this trial indicates is that beyond that - patterns within abusive relationships and their impact are poorly understood, even by women, even by women who’ve been in abusive relationships.

Xpost.

I see what you mean. I think it’s more to flag certain symptoms such as flashbacks of trauma, hyper vigilance, low self esteem, self blame for abuse, avoidant behaviour, disrupted relationships etc. There’s so much more…

Agree and what I'm thinking to myself, along with some claiming that women"always take themselves and other women as victims"is that we don't really allow that to ourselves. Not only do women blame themselves for the abuse("oh I'm not perfect either"/"I did this 10 years ago"/"sometimes I get angry")but other women blame us too most of the time. Pretty soon after my ex betrayal came to light, I remember I was sitting down with him and trying to make him feel better saying that oh, it must have been because"I just gave birth and haven't taken care of myself"(I was around 3 weeks postpartum. I still could not even sit down). It is absolutley horrible what not acknowledging ourselves and other women as victims does to us. We don't allow accepting behaviours you named @IrisVersicolor as a valid reaction to something wrong being done to us, always always always something we could have done better or mistakes we done come to front. My relatives were in no way helpful when I tried to tell them about my ex behaviour-they always excused it as just a reaction to a lack of something, to something I haven't provided or ex just being"young and confused". And then when you do come to a point where you lash out, you think well that's it I cannot possibly tell others about what I been through because if I said what I did they'll just tell me I am as bad as him or if I don't say that, I will feel like I am dishonest. Denial that anything ever happened to you can feel worse than incidents or even years of abuse, it just freezes you in that time where you fear no one will believe you and you have to put all your energy and life in proving otherwise while questioning your own sanity and who you are

There's nothing in this that benefits women's rights, obviously. Not sure that it's a massive setback - there's something a bit rarefied and disconnected about millionaires suing each other over things said in quite high-level platforms.

If there's any marginal win, I suppose it might be that male DV/DA survivors see it as a bit liberating. But Depp is as poor a model there as Heard, so it's not great.

I agree house.

I've had a lot of positive interactions with both men and women survivors and I haven't seen much of a setback other than those in MSM trying to convince us there's a setback! This time it's not working though as people have seen it for themselves.

I've seen many women supporting male survivors who have posted about themselves and vice versa. The media is incredibly dangerous and basically need to STFU. We don't need their reporting as we all saw it! What annoys me is they are doubling down telling me what I saw isn't how it was? There's a name for that.

I've had really good interactions but that's only my experience, of course.

Yes, I feel that the many post-verdict articles have been largely polemical, trying to reestablish the Heard as sole victim thing. I understand that, in wider political terms, and the misogyny on social media is appalling. But the article and opinion pieces largely misrepresent or ignore the range of detail in the trial itself, and have been a but mendacious as a result.