31 May 2022 - Depp v. Heard Diffamation Trial
The Johnny Depp–Amber Heard Trial Is Not as Complicated as You May Think
Jessica Winter (The New Yorker, 23/05/2022)
In recent weeks, as the defamation trial brought by Johnny Depp against his ex-wife Amber Heard has continued to overshadow nearly all other news stories and dominate the main social-media platforms, I’ve noticed that the normal people in my life—the ones who have not had the Law&Crime Network live stream of the proceedings running on their laptops since it began, in April—are often under the impression that the case is impenetrably complex. They aren’t entirely wrong: Depp-Heard 2022, playing at least through the end of this week in Fairfax, Virginia, is the sludge pit of an outlandishly toxic relationship. But so much of the online chatter about the trial is noise rather than signal; it has obscured how simple the core matter is, and how that simplicity makes the case all the more bizarre and tragic.
Why the Internet Hates Amber Heard
Kaitlyn Tiffany (The Atlantic, 17/05/2022)
A shadow box above Rebecca’s dining-room table, hanging there since 2006, displays an autographed copy of the Pirates of the Caribbean script—signed by Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom, and Johnny Depp. Though Rebecca, at age 36, is emphatically no longer a Depp fan, she says she keeps the script on her wall as a conversation starter. If someone asks about it, maybe she’ll go into the full story, rather than pretending she never liked Depp. “Also it’s not like it’s his smug little face,” she told me.
Why the Depp-Heard trial is so much worse than you realize
Aja Romano (Vox, 17/05/2022)
Around the third or fourth time I logged into Twitter to find “#AmberHeardIsAPsychopath” at the top of the trending list, I realized that there was no longer any pretending that the Depp-Heard defamation trial was not a terrible, foreboding reflection of our culture’s worst impulses.
Why Are So Many Survivors Supporting Johnny Depp?
Nicole Bedera (Harper's Bazaar, 26/05/2022)
Johnny Depp’s defamation lawsuit against Amber Heard has captured an unparalleled amount of attention, with millions of people taking to social media to share their opinions about the case. But they aren’t always taking the side you might expect. Over the past few weeks, many survivors who championed believing women during the #MeToo movement are now some of Johnny Depp’s most outspoken supporters.