I will readily acknowledge that I did not follow the entire Amber Heard/Johnny Depp defamation case outside of summaries, so it is entirely possible that one side made nuanced arguments that I never heard.
Secondly, I am also going to acknowledge a potential bias before we begin; that I come from an abusive relationship with both parents, who were abusive in different ways, but abusive nonetheless, and a lot of the summarized arugments that went back and forth struck very familiar chords during their divorce case.
So, with that said, here we go.
In hindsight, I find little to celebrate or bemoan when you have two shitty people behaving like shitty people in something that didn’t deserve coverage outside of tabloids. I am distressed that this case became a lightning rod for MeToo and domestic violence because of it will inevitably be used to muddy waters and discourage people who were abused from coming forward.
If it had been my decision, I would have flipped the judgment; both absolutely defamed each other, but Heard’s career and life were far more heavily affected. But at the end of day, I am not going to shed any tears for either of them, because neither of them deserve my sympathy or my sorrow.
One aspect of this trial that really grated on me was how much the argument seemed to be centered on who started the abuse. “He/She started it!” wasn’t a valid argument when I was six years old; it’s not a valid argument now either. Who started the cycle of abuse in this case matters far less than who participated in it.
For example, when you have an abusive father, do we dismiss the man’s actions because that’s how his father raised him? Of course we don’t, nor should we, because we as a society accept that agency still exists. As some point, you make a willful decision to step up to the level of those that abused you, a point where you adopt their patterns of behavior, and once you do that, you are no longer a victim of abuse; you are an abuser yourself.
So, no, I really don’t care who started it; because my answer would be the same. Either Johnny Depp or Amber Heard decided it was okay to jump to the same weight class as the other, and they have thus lost my sympathy now that it’s all come to a head in front of a society eagerly devouring the drama as children are getting shot up in schools.
But that’s another rant for another time I guess. In summary, all I can say is good riddance, and may both of those clowns get out of the big top.
TKO Creations 