Why Amber Should be Heard
The Johnny Depp-Amber Heard Trial has gotten out of control
I love coffee shops that have a fun pun or question on their tip jar. But the last time I got a coffee, I saw two. One said Johnny Depp and the other said Amber Heard. There was zero money in Heard’s jar.
The vitriol against Heard is hard to watch, so even though I’ve been avoiding coverage, it’s easy to tell that she’s perhaps one of America’s most hated women right now. While this isn’t surprising, it’s still upsetting.
I came of age during the so-called Monica Lewinsky scandal, which unfairly put the experience on her, leaving the most powerful man in the country out of it. She was a young intern yet skewered in such unflattering light that she will forever be associated with this incident. It wasn’t about Bill Clinton, the president of the United States, and his abuse of power.
It was also common to hear of other women like Lorena Bobbitt described in unkind words, words that don’t need to be repeated here. It was only recently that a documentary shed light on what drove Bobbitt to castrate her husband: years of abuse.
Those same unkind words are being used to describe Heard, often by people who call themselves feminists.
Yes, Depp made successful films and people are upset he’s no longer in the Pirates franchise. Yes, he was married before and allegedly has zero instances of abuse. It’s understandable to get character witnesses, but I think it’s irrelevant. Both Depp and Heard seemed to have become different people when they were together, like some alchemy formed to cause a toxic, abusive relationship. If she did take a shit on his bed, what’s the big deal? Did this impact Depp in any way, other than making him laugh? Any amount of abuse drives a person to do things out of their character, pushes them to their breaking point. Yet we seemed to have learned nothing. The majority of the public is on Depp’s side… why? Because Kate Moss ‘redeemed’ him by testifying that he did not, after all, push her down the stairs?
The women I heard praised in my youth were ones who looked beautiful — flawless really — ate like a bird, laughed at all the misogynistic jokes lodged to them. To their friends they might whisper they thought it was in bad taste, or shake their heads, but none of them wanted to be one of *those* women. The Cindy Crawfords of the world weren’t advocates for women’s rights or equal pay. Perhaps they knew exactly what was waiting on the other side if they ever spoke up.
Depp will likely win the case. He’s got more money, power, and a stronger fanbase. Heard will likely continue to become obscure, and as a woman in the entertainment industry, likely won’t be able to work any time soon, or ever again. Not like the men we see —talentless and decidedly unfunny men like Louis CK or David Letterman who do a mea culpa, duck down for a year or two until our collective attention span dies out, and they get a Netflix deal interviewing people like Billie Eilish to buoy their comeback. But I digress.
One thing we know about trauma is how it can obscure the brain. Memory is faulty and subjective anyway, but put under a microscope of the public eye, and while under great duress of physical and mental and emotional abuse, it’s not hard to see why some details might be fuzzy. We grasp for straws because we know abuse is hard to prove. We’ve heard things like ‘hard to tell what goes on behind closed doors’ or ‘he said/she said’ or the plethora of victim-blaming go-tos that people love to regurgitate.
We’ll likely never know the truth of this relationship. But wouldn’t it be a beautiful world if the abuser confessed, apologized, and made strides in actively learning to be better humans? If Depp wins, will he just add more money to his never-satisfied bank account, or perhaps donate all of it to a domestic violence shelter?
If Heard wins, it might be enough to help victims feel vindicated after seeing Kavanaugh appointed or Brock Turner serve a pitifully short sentence. It might empower people to seek the justice they deserve, rather than resorting to self harm from the mental health issues caused when gaslighted after the abuse.
What does Heard have to gain from writing about her experience? Of speaking her truth? Freedom, validation, therapeutic release. But she’s losing so much more.
Any time a woman goes on the stand, more recently Christine Blasey Ford, I think all survivors of abuse and assault hold their breath. We think — this is what it would have been like. We think — oh my GOD, this is hard to watch. We think — no wonder there are so few cases if this is what we’d have to be put through.
This culture of silence perpetuates abuse. Abusers see cases like this and know it’s a long shot of anything but victory. They see men like themselves moving along, doing deals, and the women going back to their corners, silent, humiliated, their pasts excavated for any tiny detail that might make them look like they ‘deserved’ it.
