Amber Heard&Johnny Depp trial

[Miscfeminista]

I wanted to hear more thoughts from women who actually don't accuse Amber for being"a faker". I don't want to tip toe around it or argue with people over same thing over and over while they pretend they are unbiased when in fact they just support Depp.

A lot has already been said and I know you need to have diverse opinions for better conversation etc but on the other thread I am, I'm so tired of people victim blaming and chewing over stuff with little substance so I wanted to make a separate one where we can follow the rest of the trial and outcome with our comments and observations(without constantly arguing about feminist basics).

My last thought was that AH witnesses have been consistent so far and have been wondering if they pulled away from her because they didn't want the drama surrounding it(instead of actually finding her guilty, like Depp fans are suggesting).

I'm following it over Sky over ones with commentary(every day around 1-2 afternoon UK time, 9 in the morning US time I believe..trial ends next week, think someone said 27th)

All observations welcome. What stood out to you so far?

I find this acceptable in the face of being hit by your partner (which Amber has admitted via recording played in court).

Then her screaming at him not to walk away. What the fuck else is he supposed to do?

This trial is showing her for being a liar. I stand by women, but women who lie about being abused discredit those women who are genuinely abused. I will not blindly support a woman just because she's a woman. What she published completed ruined Depp's career.

She also testified that she donated the divorce money to charity. Turns out to be a lie on the stand, so she can add perjury to her list.

And to add - there is no evidence to support Depp hitting her. There is plenty to support her hitting him.

That makes sense, although does not seem fair.

But this is the heart of the case.
She is claiming that the op-ed was not about the domestic abuse she suffered, but it was about the abuse she suffered from after making the claim.
He is saying that she had publicly accused him of domestic violence and Heard agreed that she had. He then argues by writing about the abuse she had received after making the accusation against him, she is inevitably talking about him and referencing his violence. It's a bit like saying, "since going on a diet I have received lots of compliments", and then going on to discuss the compliments. The whole piece is inextricably linked to the diet which is the initial cause of the compliments.
It's not about him making the article about him. It's the inevitability that by saying in 2018, "Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse," and two years previous being the time when she accused Depp of DA, that people will assume she is talking about Depp. She also said in her testimony that when talking about men while been accused being protected, she was including Depp. "Not just about him, but he is included, yes." So if she's admitting that he is included in the article, it's hard to escape the inevitable link.
His side have to include the allegations are false and malicious, which I believe he will fail at, but the first stage is to prove the article was about him which I believe most people would think is the case, regardless of whether you believe her claims or not.

I was actually talking about the testimony yesterday from Josh Drew, Racquel Pennington and Whitney Henriquez, not what Heard said.

Those witnesses described him shouting and smashing stuff up, Drew said Depp was shouting in his face, Pennington said she was so scared she was looking for something to defend herself with if he attacked her after she intervened between him and Heard. Whitney said he hit her in the back and screamed at her. (On a different occasion)

I don't think its credible to say all these people are lying so I wonder how you think this behaviour is justified?

She talked about getting death threats and needing protection, being scared about the public reaction to her reporting the abuse.

Those things happened to her whether or not she actually was abused. So Johnny Depp is irrelevant really apart from he has a fan base that includes people who make death threats.

Do you think its ok for people to behave in that way when someone alleges abuse? Why shouldn't she talk about that experience?

Here you go:
www.google.com/amp/s/www.thenews.com.pk/amp/957495-read-amber-heards-controversial-op-ed-accusing-johnny-depp-of-domestic-violence

Which bit do you actually think she shouldn't have said??

@AdamRyan turning that question around, do you think that it's ok for women to be violent towards men? Nobody knows if her violence was the reaction of an abused woman or of the person who started the abuse in the relationship - therefore, it's speculation to say that her behaviour is consistent with a victim. Equally, his behaviour could be the reaction of an abused person, or of an abuser. My point is, nobody knows because the evidence hasn't clearly shown who was the abuser and who was the abused. I get the feeling that many on MN believe her purely because she's a woman, which does an injustice to all male victims of female perpetrated domestic violence.

I honestly think it was a toxic relationship and both were abusive. However, a pp made a good point in that, as far as I'm aware, all AH's witnesses couldn't give direct testimony to JD being violent towards her. Her sister's testimony of being drunk virtually every day she lived with them doesn't help make AH's case as anything she says could be considered unreliable due to her inebriation. On the other hand, JD has 1st hand testimony of her violence towards him, both from witnesses who observed it and from recordings where she admitted it.

As a pp said, AH's testimony has been unreliable. She lied under oath in the English trial and tried to play word games in this case to get out of having to admit that she hadn't donated the money she'd pledged. The photos taken the day after some of the beatings don't show the swelling that would be expected of the severe injuries she said she suffered from. A make up artist testified that she didn't see any injuries the day after one attack.

I think both were equally at fault of abusive behaviour. From a defamation point of view, I don't think JD has done enough to prove he didn't abuse her and that she defamed him. However, the jury may not believe all of her testimony due to the inconsistencies. She certainly hasn't helped herself while on the witness stand by not appearing truthful at all times.

By the way, I'm not on either side. I think there should be a balanced assessment of both of them, and not just believing AH because she's a woman.

I’m keeping an open mind about it. Oh don’t think Heard helped her case by lying on the stand about donating the divorce settlement to the ACLU and a hospital when she hadn’t done it. Depp’s team are trying to portray her as a manipulative gold digger and this is proving their point.

I'm not one to blindly believe anyone but my instinct would be to favour the woman.
Except I just don't know here.
Power imbalance- She was a 22yr old unknown he was an older much more successful star.
Everyone says he's a nice guy- yeah I've known that type and seen behind the mask. They are often the worst.
We know it takes a lot for victims to leave abusers and although there are patterns of behaviour it isn't a concrete model every abusive relationship. The 'why did you do this' hindsight type questions are just reductive.
Would a victim risk trying to record video/audio evidence? Not from the survivor stories I've read on here. So that leaves me with more questions again. Of all the stuff she documented there is not one picture of him actually doing drugs?
The injuries don't seem consistent with her testimony
I've first hand experience of personality disorders and have seen how they manipulate their victims, how they find trigger points to exploit and can make the most reasonable of people react shockingly with what seems like no provocative.
It's messy and ugly.
My view is through the prism of Weinstein, saville, Ronaldo & all the other vile footballers etc who can do no wrong. Micheal Jackson fans being the most obvious. Hollywood is a dirty vile place and abuse gets swept up and ignored.

I want to believe her but for some reason I'm struggling to.

turning that question around, do you think that it's ok for women to be violent towards men?
No, not at all.
This case is about whether she defamed him by implying he's abusive. So whether or not she is, is irrelevant to the question, unless you think violent women deserve retaliatory abuse.

If she sued him for saying she was abusive, I would also think she deserved to lose.

This isn't a he vs she case. It's, is it a lie to call him abusive?

Anyway, I'm probably going to bow out as I'm bored of arguing this. It's pointless and disheartening how many people think there are circumstances that justify abuse.

Sigh exactly. Even tho I wrote it would be preferable to avoid victim blaming as there’s plenty of it on general chat thread that’s easy to find still same things being chewed on over and over.

How can I post this on feminism sub and people victim blame almost same as any random person? There is no such thing as mutual abuse in my book, it certainly isn’t what feminism proposes either in power analysis.

Abuse is not shocking anymore, rape is not shocking anymore-just look at the number of assaults happening on weekends(as a teenager I thought it’s normal to be dragged drunk to someone’s house or wake up from black out not knowing what happened to you or just lay there go through it like it or not)and look how many women do not consent aka get raped in marriage(as in women enduring all the gross sexual acts they do not like to please the man or do not dare to refuse their partners in order to not upset them in any way)-is any of what Amber says REALLY unbelievable? I say it sounds”normal”and while women mostly and some men say she’s lying, another portion is just saying”So what, it’s what couples do”(the style in which Marilyn Manson says it was just love games to torture Evans and she apparently”consented”-please, I’m waiting for all the BDSM folk to come now to say how it can be pro feminist. It cannot, ever. You can’t consent to your torture and humiliation, you are just not resisting it. You are still tortured and humiliated).

To me it was 100% proven he was physically abusive and people still denying he is the abuser is sad and I’d frankly prefer if we could at least agree on that from feminist standpoint. If we don’t have clear idea of what consists abuse and why men in majority of cases can’t be the abused ones in het couple then that kind of feminism is useless as it erases almost all women of DV.

👏
Great post

I absolutely believe Depp shouted in peoples faces and smashed things up - that fits entirely with all evidence and he couldn't possibly deny it. However the point surely is that he didn't attack Pennington and the only person saying he hit them apart from Amber (conveniently) is her sister Whitney.

I don't think JD's behaviour is acceptable at all, he is obviously a complete prick particularly under the influence. I'm not a fan and can't think of a film of his that I have ever liked. However there are recordings of Amber saying she hit him and of him saying he walked away when it was getting physical. Amber has also been proven a liar on a couple of occasions so I do believe it's possible he never actually hit her and equally possible that he did hit her. It was clearly abusive on both sides whatever the case.

I think those that think JD is a saint are as the nuts as those who think Amber Heard is much maligned and that every word she says should be believed. Neither side seem interested in the facts, both want to minimise or overlook what the person they believe did, and both are happy to come up with random theories to support their side based on opinion and zero fact (you can see it right here in the OP suggesting that Ambers witnesses probably pulled away from her because they didn't want the drama, and another saying that AH's lawyers had a whole other case planned that had been made impossible by JD's lawyers).

I don't stand by either of these muppets and anyone who does is insane. No one can possibly know the truth apart from the two of them - and then JD might have been too drugged up to even know that.

Oh for crying out loud. It does not matter if she hit him if he’s proven an abuser. If she was fearing he would kill her at one point I don’t think you could say same for him. He was just angry she even dared hit him back while denying he hit her. You don’t need to believe everything she says, just listen to what he is saying and what both sides say about him and that should be enough. It’s about who had the reins in this whole thing-it was his houses, his staff, his bodyguards, him knowing to be violent and heavy drug user etc

I think one issue is, everyone seems to want to make what is a very very complex case, black and white. Which it can not be.

There are no winners here, both of their careers are over. JD is however in his 50's and has already enjoyed a long lucrative career. AH was just begining and now it's tanked.

Neither will recover from this. I do think AH needs MH support, she's a villified woman now and I do fear on the impact this will have on her long term.

How can I post this on feminism sub and people victim blame almost same as any random person?

everyone on mumsnet has access to this board, you don’t have to be a feminist to post and people sometimes just come through active

and also, as has been said many times before, FWR isn’t a hive mind

@AdamRyan
But you're missing the point. The lawsuit is not about the treatment she received from the public or industry insiders. I totally believe her. It's disgusting and must have been very frightening for her. It's about her linking domestic violence to Johnny Depp. She's free to talk about anything she wants. I believe she's making legitimate points about the dangers of SM.

If she had talked about her experiences through life, then Depp would have been irrelevant. But she didn't. She accused Depp of DA and then wrote an op ed that referred to that time period where the implication she was talking about Depp was the obvious conclusion. Therefore she made Depp relevant.

There's no such thing as free speech. There are always restrictions. And if you write something that someone else thinks is defamatory, they have a right to sue. So you have to bear your need to say something against the possible consequences. Further the judge could have listened to what Depp had to say and just dismissed the whole case. The fact she didn't indicates that Heard does have a case to answer.

Is this Depp's friend testifying?(I guess) Depp looks very serious, almost hurt maybe. Very interested to see what he says

Since you have made it clear in several posts that you believe men are almost never the abused and there is no such thing as mutual abuse in “feminist power analysis” (which since men are almost never abused implies that any “mutual abuse” is in fact only male on female abuse), I do agree with you.
The victim blaming is shocking. But not toward Amber Heard, toward Depp and from the philosophy you’ve espoused about only male on female abuse being possible (except in very rare cases), toward men in general.

If your looking at this from an ideological viewpoint that because of “feminist power analysis” Depp (as man) must be the abuser in the mutually violent and destructive relationship as Heard is a woman, then you may find some agreement here, but nowhere else, because that is an extremely biased and prejudiced viewpoint to hold, regardless of whether it’s feminist or not. Frankly that is real far down the rabbit hole stuff that most people want nothing to do with.

@Tamzo85 that"extremely biased and prejudiced viewpoint"is what got you women's shelters and being able to defend yourself in court on that basis one day(hopefully not as unsuccesfully as the trial we are watching)so yeah 💁

@Miscfeminista

Nobody should be able to defend themselves on the basis that if men and women are in a violent situation that only the man has been violent. If that is so then it’s morally wrong. As it is if men are being considered as incapable of being abused in court - which seems to be what you support.

That is completely despicable in my opinion and those supporting those views just prove all the man hater stereotypes correct.

Ouch the testimony today is also pretty damning for Depp

@AdamRyan the agent saying he came and just asked for 20mil because he made them so much money in past..wow, I didn't expect that even from Depp.