The Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation trial has finally come to an end. However, unlike the Britney Spears conservatorship case, this suit is all murky and grey. Although Depp won the case against Amber and was granted $ 15 million in damages, Amber was also granted $ 2 million which is actually a very small amount. The case was also testimony to how the netizens took Depp’s side and helped sway the jury’s verdict against Amber as well as how the actress’ ordeal was made out to be a joke by the former’s lawyers.
Even though, Amber recalled years of abuse and spelled out in horrific details about her volatile and turbulent marital life with Depp, many chose to not believe her. The verdict is almost on the same lines where a rape victim has to prove herself to be virginal and chaste but the rapist is innocent until proven guilty. Here an extremely powerful man has once again managed to come on tops and subdue the voice of a woman who claimed rampant sexual and physical abuse with even graphic messages and photographs presented in court as evidence. At the trial, Amber recalled and said, “He said, ‘I’ll fucking kill you,’” and even presented text messages in which he hoped Amber’s, “rotting corpse was decomposing in the fucking trunk of a Honda Civic.”
Although the court admitted the toxic nature of their relationship, the verdict spells as a regression nearly five years after the Harvey Weinstein’s expose which laid bare the ways powerful men prey on young women and abuse them. Amber recounted in agonizing detail how a richer and more powerful man abused her and made her fear for her life but we as public once again failed to come to her rescue. Instead, we sat back and mocked her and relied on evidence that just because the man has not abused anyone previously he is unable to do that to his wife when we know that he was under constant substance abuse and had no control over his actions and mood swings. Netizens also forgot to take into account the fact that most people are at their ugliest and nastiest when they are with their family members and once again the entire trail has proved a setback to women to come forward and relate their ordeal because, who will believe them as we all are busy in doing witch-hunt.
Amber herself realized this when she said, “The disappointment I feel today is beyond words. I'm heartbroken that the mountain of evidence still was not enough to stand up to the disproportionate power, influence and sway of my ex-husband.” Calling the verdict “a setback” for women, Amber said, “It sets back the clock to a time when a woman who spoke up and spoke out could be publicly shamed and humiliated. It sets back the idea that violence against women is to be taken seriously. I'm sad I lost this case. But I am sadder still that I seem to have lost a right I thought I had as an American - to speak freely and openly."
