#adam waldman

[justiceamberheard]

''Who Trolled Amber'' podcast

The highlights of each episode from the podcast. You can listen to it on Spotify, Youtube etc. EPISODE 1.

The outcome of the trial definitely damaged #METOO movement;

There were 80k of anti Amber Heard tweets, more than anti JD tweets even though AH was the one who accused him of abuse;

There's no way it was all organic, they either bought bots or those were real people pretending to be JD's supporters;

According to Jennifer Robinson, one of AH lawyers from the UK trial, Amber'd never wanted to relieve what had happened to her during the relationship;

Jennifer thought it'd be easier to win the US than in the UK;

The information about bots were thrown out way before the trial hence Ron Shnell couldn't talk about in the courtroom; EPISODE 2.

According to Ron Shnell there was a bot campaign against AH but he wasn't 100% sure because the judge struck out that research;

Kathryn Arnold shared that AH wasn't allowed to be a part of Aquaman 2 promotion tour and was banned from posting anything Aquaman related;

KA also said that AH couldn't audition, no one would hire her and that the agents were told not to touch her[AH]; EPISODE 3

The podcast creators asked experts(Kai-Cheng Yang) to check the date that was given by Ron Shnell;

According to the data: many accounts with no followers had tweets with more than 5k retweets/likes; hundreds of identical tweets were posted in one day; many accounts liked 400k tweets; 10k of identical comments were left under AH youtube videos; many accounts change their tune(from right wing Chile politics) and out of nowhere started to post pro JD tweets; half oh the data/accounts/tweets were generated by inauthentic accounts and then the real accounts started to engage with those tweets etc. it all started in November 2020 when JD lost the UK case and was fired from Fantastic Beasts; EPISODE 4

Cameron Herrin case was mentioned, more specifically the sudden interest and pro CH posts on TikTok asking to reduce his sentence and that he is innocent. Most of the accounts that were spreading those posts were from Middle East; EPISODE 5

Some Arabic twitter accounts suddenly started to tweet Pro JD tweets in English during and after the US trial;

The friendship betweet Johnny Depp and prince Mohammed was mentioned(him financing JD directorial movie Modi); EPISODE 6

Adam Waldman worked for Lavrov as a consultant for years(2010-2017);

During the deposition Adam Waldman refused to answer more than 70 questions;

Alexi Mostrous tried contacting ''the internet journalists'' aka TUG and ThatBrianFella but they didn't answer; he also pointed out that the audios that were posted by ThatBrianFella were clearly edited(we know);

Mostrous also tried to call Adam Waldman but he didn't pick up the phone and 25 minutes later posted a tweet:

“He[Adam Waldman] attacked witnesses, he attacked us (legal team)..unlike anything I have ever seen from a lawyer” said Jennifer Robinson. ''Amber Heard wrote an Op-ed for Washington Post which is a very respected publication and Johnny Depp's name isn't in it. It told to survivors if this can be done to a woman whose actually well-known and well-established person in the industry, it's gonna be even worse for you.'' All-in-All, it's clear as day that Waldman was behind the bot campaign against Amber. We've known that but it's good that a popular podcast researched about it and shed a light on it. Plus it's always great to see JD fans being nervous and panicky.

[originalleftist]

Johnny Depp is reportedly dating a new girlfriend- a 28 year old (Depp is 61) Russian beautician and model named Yulia Valasova (this is not the first time in recent years that Depp has dated a much younger Russian woman).

Now, I'm not saying that anyone from Russia is necessarily an agent of the Kremlin. But:

The Kremlin has been reported to use agents, posing as ordinary Russian citizens, to make friends with prominent Westerners and influence them.

It is also known to seek out powerful, influential Westerners with big egos and lots of baggage (ie, Kompromat) to groom as assets, the former President being the highest-profile example.

And Depp's chief fixer Adam Waldman* previously worked with/for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, Julian Assange, and Russian foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and was involved in efforts to cover up Russian interference in the 2016 US election.

Depp is a bit of a has-been now, but he has lots of powerful friends in Hollywood, and his cause is celebrated by the MRA/incel crowd on the right, while also having some crossover/fandom appeal to other demographics (a little-known fact is that polling around the trial showed Depp's support was strongest with women and youth).

And we already know Depp is friends with the ruler of Saudi Arabia, and that a lot of the online hate directed at Heard has been traced back to Saudi bots, so evidently a foreign government thought they could use the intense hype around the trial as part of an influence campaign.

So, from where I'm standing, it looks to me VERY much like Depp is being groomed as a Russian asset.

*Its a shame that Waldman is mostly known only for his involvement in Depp v Heard (and even there, he largely flew below the radar due to being kicked off the case early on by a judge for leaking information to the media, with Camille Vasquez getting most of the attention from Depp's legal team). Waldman is a DEEPLY shady and dangerous man who has been closely-involved in efforts by a foreign enemy to undermine the United States and install fascist government, and deserves far more rigorous scrutiny (and serious legal consequences, starting with disbarment, and ending in prison).

[motivatornetwork]

Movie: Missing Anthony Fox, Witnesses - Paul Barresi, Johnny Depp, Adam Waldman - Fixers Not Mafia Killers

Not Mafia - Missing Anthony Fox & Johnny Depp with Paul Barresi "Violin" Tapes & Fixer Adam Waldman - WITNESS Interference Spin. Interest of Depp in West Memphis 3 Damien Echols and allegedly John Wayne Gacy painting similarly to Brian Peck seen by actor for Quiet on Set. Johnny Depp named a farm in Kentucky after his mother Betty Sue.

Spin on Breakins/Vandalism by Waldman & Barresi in Recorded Telephone Call Against Witnesses.

In Movie "High Society" Grace Kelly jokes about culture shock about the British and asks where does Jack the Ripper teach?

- Stuff Movie with writings on the wall like 'kill pigs' like charles manson and damaged property all over produced by Depp & Scarmonga. - Investigators of Confidential Magazine cause terror onto Hollywood. Comparing to a foiled breakin by 'investigator fixers' surveilling Marilyn Monroe for jealous Joe DiMaggio. Fixer Fred Otash. Files on most blonde bombshells in Film Business.

3 Audio Clips of the Call between Viper Room Witnesses Big Ed Shaw and Richie Albertini of the Viper Room about assault of Stacy by Johnny, Naomi Campbell, Paul Schindler and Bob Pfeiffer -- who tried to hire Schindler as a hitman to kill his wife Maria. Schindler got Ed Shaw employed in the Viper Room. Ed Shaw is not surprised about wanting Schindler to do that.

- With Schindler's name spoken, Anthony Fox is brought up with his name. - Later talks on Olivia, Ricky Beck Mahler, many others in a friendly way.

Hollywood Fixer Paul Barresi in edited audio recordings implicates Financial Transactions and Other Locations harming Investigations (Viper Room), while mocking the Ventura police law enforcement. - As a "fixer" he focuses on letters/objects and bank accounts of Fox's mother and daughter instead of witness testimony on who did it.

Scenes from Love in the Afternoon Movie with Gary Cooper where Investigator Incites His Client to Attack

The Charley Project on Missing Anthony Fox: https://charleyproject.org/case/antho...

Sadly, a second image added in December 2021.

With Grace Kelly & Kim Novak

- Golden Hollywood scenes of "High Society" inspired by the French. She says the reporter's name sounds like a Martyr that perished in medieval times... Isn't dancing wonderful? Grace Kelly adores strangers.

Kim Novak has a Witness that "appears" during her trial in "Notorious Landlady" and an actor ex-boyfriend provides a story to Confidential while she's with a millionaire. "He does look like a rat" shows on screen from the Fixers after the Cary Grant & Grace Kelly car scenes.

Johnny writes to serial killer claiming unknown movie role: https://www.cinema.com/news/item/613/... William Hazlet has the Art of Deception - Adam Waldman and Paul Barresi Calls

Clip of Ed Shaw audio tape stating "We Not in the mafia" and denying the purchase of bulletproof jackets in the Viper Room with background scenes of Private Jet & to catch a thief edits.

No one removes Fixers Adam Waldman and Paul Barresi from this social circle or from causing this nightmare as the Viper Room's Paul Schindler was.

[havithreatendub4]

#johnny's birthday #2024 wishes from #Kyler Clark Photography #cerealkyler

#fan art

[walkthroughhellwithasmile]

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Source

[christinataft]

"It's my life!" Katy Perry is Serving a Lawsuit! Fingerprints Song! Adam Waldman and Paul Barresi, Federal Court Case. The Case Number is 5:24-cv-01930-TJH-DTB Front Page And Video of Process Serving is Shown!

🎸 The Doors, band (Victoria Taft) Full Filed Lawsuit with Witnesses:

The Lawsuit seeks damages, injunctions, and Legislation in California against Coercion to match New York’s Laws including against fear of physical injury, property damage, against withholding testimony or information, “with respect to another’s legal claim or defense,” and “if another actor will.” ... Maureen O'Hara Witnesses Against "Confidential"...

[originalleftist]

Funny thing is, Adam Waldman is actually really lucky (or really good at flying below the radar) that his shit with Depp is what he's best-known for. Also that he got his ass kicked off the case before it went to trial, so he largely escaped notice even for that.

Scrutiny is to be avoided when one's resume includes Oleg Deripaska, Julian Assange, Sergei fucking Lavrov, and Trump-Russia.

[brain-r0tten]

these came to be when I had a phase on Frankenstein but my style was going thru rough times back then so I never posted them lol

rambling below:

I plan to finally make some decent art for this crossover cuz I think it's funky

I watched a full 1,5 hr Wendigoon vid on it and it held me so hard in it's grasp that I had to listen to the whole Frankenstein audiobook lmao

I don't remember the full plot now but from my notes written earlier:

Twilight - Victor Frankenstein Rainbow - Henry Clerval (best friend of Victor, the homie that supports him even when he's being sketchy) Rarity - Elizabeth Lavenza (the adopted sister of Victor, beautiful and resourceful) Spike - William Frankenstein (Victor's younger brother, the one who dies in the story) Fluttershy - Justine Moritz (the beautiful girl who died by being wrongfully convicted) Luna - Krempe (the "worse" teacher) Celestia - Waldman (the "better" teacher) Discord - Adam (the creature) Big Macintosh - Felix (De Lacey's family's son) Applejack - Agatha (De Lacey's family's daughter) Granny - De Lacey (blind grandpa) Sugarbelle - Saphie (Felix's wife)

Twilight Frankensparkle is a top student and too excited to study new magic, of course Celestia is there to support her. Luna is against this as it can be too dangerous. Finally, Twilight gets a very ambitious idea of making a v magically powerful creature just to see if she can. The creature has new type of magic attached to it - chaos.

In the original story the Monster thought that Justine is beautiful and I could not help myself with Discord x Fluttershy shipping

as for the De Lacey's family I could not think of anyone else who would fit but I think it works

[originalleftist]

Reminder that Johnny Depp isn't just a court-proven domestic abuser and r*pist (#UKVerdict), he has been getting in legal trouble for violence assault for as long as I've been alive (I'm in my mid-30s), pretended to be Native America and acted in Brown Face, promised to buy Wounded Knee for indigenous people and never gave a cent, went shopping for Hitler memorabilia with Marilyn Manson, and is close pals with the ruler of Saudi Arabia Mohamed Bin Salman, aka Prince Bone-Saw.

Oh, and his fixer Adam Waldman is a (former?) lawyer for Russian oligarchs/government officials who was neck-deep in Trump/Russia.

[crazycoke-addict]

How Scream VI parallels the Depp Vs Heard Trial

It's been two years since the Virginia trial took place, while it's been three years involving the UK trial. In the UK trial, Johnny Depp was certified as a wife-beater that The Sun called him and was found to abuse and sexually assaulted Amber Heard 12 of 14 incidents. Johnny Depp is proven to be an abuser by the jury. The concept of this trial with Depp suing amber for mentioning him in her op-ed was told by the jury to never speak about the abuse despite never doing that in the first place.

2022 was the worst years for Amber , considering that she dealt with mockery and was humiliated by the public while forcing to talk about the abuse that she suffered by Depp. The Depp vs. Heard Case has been the most talked about trial in history. While some tv shows have tackled the topic on what happened to have their characters parallel the real life counterparts. A few only showed the perspective of the victim whose dealing with the consequences of defending themselves.

In Scream (2022), it revealed that Richie Kirsch is one of the ghostface killers along with a 17 year old amber freeman. I bring age into this because it is actually important to Johnny Depp as a person. Richie is killed by Sam, where she stabs him 22 times. After the events of Scream (2022), Gale Weathers would end up writing a book about what happened. She describes Sam as being "mentally unstable and a born killer." While I'm not a fan of what they did to Gale. She's represents the media, and now the media will twist things.

Throughout the Scream franchise, Gale Weathers has a tremendous redemption arc, and her relationship with Sidney improves as the movies go. Gale Weather is the media, and while she writes non-fictional books about the ghostface murders. She still writes it like it's fictional. While I'm not sure how she portrayed Sidney in her 3 books involving her. Her book "Requel: Terror Return to Woodsboro" appears to portray Sam as mentally ill and has violent tendencies to make her be the killer rather than the victim.

News articles like The Daily Mail have portrayed Amber as the abuser and taking things out of context to make her look like she's the crazy one. That the Misinformation and the incorrect portrayal of amber will also stem from misogyny.

It wouldn't be that far fetch if in the Scream universe, there are youtube videos of people releasing misinformation about Sam. When Sam and Tara were leaving the police station, one of the reporters asked Tara if she felt safe with her sister. In one scene, Sam gets cherry coke thrown at her where she reacts to it while the girls throw insults at Sam. Later on the news, they cut the part where the girl throws the coke at Sam. So it looks like Sam was trying to attack this girl for no reason.

This parallels Amber Heard when the audio was released back in 2020. They only released the edited version, so important parts were cut out to make Amber look like a liar and an abuser.

In Scream VI, it revealed that there are three ghostface killers. Detective Bailey and his kids Quinn Bailey and Ethan Landry. While I'm unsure who Ethan represents. Detective Bailey seems to represent lawyers like Adam Waldman. Detective Bailey turns out to the father of Richie Kirsch who enabled his son's behaviour involving his love for movies which is similar to Adam Waldman enabling Depp's behaviour towards Amber by volunteering to help.

While Quinn represents people like Lauren B and That Umbrella Guy by helping her father to smear and ruin Sam's name and reputation since everybody is going to believe the bad things in people. This is more so punishment towards Sam for fighting back, similar to Amber.

Johnny Depp and Richie Kirsch even have similarities to each other. Earlier, I mentioned Amber Freeman's age as she is 17 years old while Richie is in his mid-20s. Because Amber Freeman was Richie's accomplice and met her at a Stab reddit forum. Richie does represent redditers who groomed underage girls. The way he portrayed himself as this dorky, kind person similar to how Johnny Depp portrayed himself as this calm, nice guy who just wants to make music.

In reality, Richie Kirsch and Johnny Depp are both predators who prey on girls who are 20-30 years younger than them. They are also both abusers with Richie wanting to kill Sam while Depp wanting to humiliate Amber.

Both Amber Heard and Sam Carpertner suffered from the perfect victim. Where as Perfect Victim they must act a certain way. This mean not fighting back and talking bad about their own abuser. However, the perfect victim doesn't exist. In both situations, Amber and Sam have described as their abusers to be man babies who cry and complain like little babies when they do fight back.

What they're doing is standing up and throwing their feelings out due to the abuse that they both had to suffer. It is something a victim wanted to say for a long time, but they didn't think they had the courage to do so.

[originalleftist]

If this doesn't focus HEAVILY on not just Depp, but also on his lawyer/fixer/henchman/puppeteer Adam Waldman, it's worthless.

Bonus points if it draws attention to Waldman's past work with Kremlin-aligned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, Wikileaks' Julian Assange, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov; his involvement along with all of those figures in the Trump/Russia misinformation campaign; and the fact that he was introduced to Depp through the mutual ties to Saudi royalty (who now appear to be Depp's main financial backers and friends).

What comes to mind when you think of Amber Heard? Liar? Survivor? Narcissist? Millions of us watched the celebrity trial of the century, Depp v Heard, in 2022. Amber Heard lost and Johnny Depp was vindicated. But what if Amber was actually the victim of an organised trolling campaign? What if the online hate against her was manufactured? Alexi Mostrous, the reporter who brought you Sweet Bobby and Hoaxed, investigates what happened to Amber and who might have been responsible. It’s a story about how our own thoughts and opinions can be moulded without us even realising.

[havithreatendub4]

#British GQ #August 16, 2018 #November issue #bar #piano

[lovelyheart502]

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

Adam Waldman shared this beautiful picture of Johnny on IG

[thenightling]

Re: Conversations about Frankenstein

I acknowledge that Frankenstein (the novel) inspired themes and ideas used in science fiction today. That's what should matter with Frankenstein. And I admit that there can be a fine line between fantasy and science fiction. Ghostbusters is scifi and fantasy neatly blended.

So why am I reluctant to consider Frankenstein scifi? well, partly because people say it for the wrong reasons.

2. What frustrates me is that a lot of the reasoning for classifying it as scifi are false. Victor brought his creature to life by the light of a single half-burnt-out candle on a cold, November night at about one fifteen in the morning. There's no mention of lightning. No reanimated corpse.

Victor studied corpses and may have taken raw materials from charnal houses, graveyards, and slaughter houses (suggesting animal parts too) but nothing is confirmed. As Victor tells Captain Walton "The secret dies with me.

3. Victor Found the secret of life while reading the works of Agrippa and Paracelsus. An alchemist and self-proclaimed sorcerer. Yes, alchemy gave us chemistry but even by 1818 staandards these were not considered scientific sources. In fact Victor's teacher, Professor Waldman scolds and teases him for reading these antiquated books.

4. Victor was not a medical doctor. He was a student of metaphysics and he never graduated.

5. The only spot in Frankenstein where Galvanization is even mentioned.

"When I was about fifteen years old we had retired to our house near Belrive, when we witnessed a most violent and terrible thunderstorm. It advanced from behind the mountains of Jura, and the thunder burst at once with frightful loudness from various quarters of the heavens. I remained, while the storm lasted, watching its progress with curiosity and delight. As I stood at the door, on a sudden I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak which stood about twenty yards from our house; and so soon as the dazzling light vanished, the oak had disappeared, and nothing remained but a blasted stump. When we visited it the next morning, we found the tree shattered in a singular manner. It was not splintered by the shock, but entirely reduced to thin ribbons of wood. I never beheld anything so utterly destroyed.

Before this I was not unacquainted with the more obvious laws of electricity. On this occasion a man of great research in natural philosophy was with us, and excited by this catastrophe, he entered on the explanation of a theory which he had formed on the subject of electricity and galvanism, which was at once new and astonishing to me. All that he said threw greatly into the shade Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus, the lords of my imagination; but by some fatality the overthrow of these men disinclined me to pursue my accustomed studies. It seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever be known."

This is the only spot in Frankenstein (Chapter 3) where galvanization is mentioned.

6. When we call Mary Shelley the inventor of Scifi or science fiction literature I feel we are doing a disservice to Margaret Cavendish, author of the 1666 feminist novel, The Blazing World, which had an (for her) idealized utopian alternate universe. I've heard the argument "But that's more isekai." But lots of isekai is scifi. As I said, there's a blurred line between fantasy and scifi. Magick, ghosts, technology, and aliens all exist in DC and Marvel comics after all.

The Blazing World might have been more fantasy than scifi but Utopias and Distopias have been a fixture of science fiction for a long time.

7. We also ignore that Goethe's Faust Part 2 features time travel and the creation of a homunculus in a laboratory by Wagner, Faust's former assistant. Why does Frankenstein count but not the laboratory-created Homunculus in Faust Part 2?

Or while we're at it, what about the Golems of Hebreow lore? In Dungeons and Dragons Ravenloft, (their version of the Frankenstein monster) Adam is classified as a flesh golem with a soul, which seems to fit what Mary

Shelley's Frankenstein is.

8. Another frustrating argument is "But the scholars all say..." Yeah, really? You mean Google search results and everyone just repeating what they've been told.

Dr. Robert Curran's book "Man-made Monsters" describes The Creature as gaining a "rudimentary form of language" in the novel. The Creature, in the novel, was very articulate once he learned how to talk. Victor even warns Captain Walton "He'll speak to you will eloquence but hear not his deception." The creature even had an old fashioned way of talking because of his obsession with John Milton's Paradise Lost. "Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay, to mould me man? Did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?" Does that seem like "rudimentary" language to you?

And Doctor Robert Curran is a well-respected scholar. Scholars sometimes bluff because things seem to be "common knowledge" and taken for granted as fact that aren't.

Dacre Stoker's official Dracula sequel has Dracula burn in sunlight even though that's a movie invention. The first time that happened was with Count Orlock in the German expressionist film, Nosferatu in 1922. And that was meant to be metaphor. Universal studios didn't even have it as a weakness until the sequels. The first Dracula movie from them (The 1931 film with Bela Lugosi) never said that sunlight would burn him. He was just nocturnal.

Dracula never burned in the sun in the original novel and walks around by day many times. and yet Dacre Stoker, great nephew of Bram Stoker, and Dracula "Scholar" has him burn in the sun in the "official" sequel.

9. Another popular misconception is that the moral of Frankenstein is "I should never have played God."

Everyone remembers that Prometheus stole fire from Gods but everyone acts like he was a mortal who didn't know his place. Prometheus was not mortal. In fact he created humanity. He was trying to protect humanity from the cruelties of others. Fire was also the granting to them the ability to invent.

If we focus in the "I should not have played God" idea, this seems to overly exonerate those that wronged The Creature. And if merely bringing The Creature to life was Victor's sin, why did both Victor and The Creature tell the reader that The creature was good and benign until mistreated by humanity?

The main themes of the book are parental responsibility, the folly of judging by appearances, the futility of revenge, and the necessity to forgive. Mel Brooks was right when he saw the fatherhood and accountability metaphors and applied them to Young Frankenstein.

In the end, I acknowledge that there are themes in Frankenstein we now apply to many works of science fiction. I LOVE Frankenstein. I think of it as a Gothic classic. I just wish that the hints of arcane aspects to The Creature's conception were acknowledged.

And though I do feel a woman invented science fiction, I feel we are crediting the wrong one. I also feel that most people think of Frankenstein as scifi for the wrong reasons, reasons mostly derived from the movies.

[runningdownthatroad]

I can't even...

"Why did Depp, who had already lost a similar case in Britain, insist on going back to court? A public trial, during which allegations of physical, sexual, emotional and substance abuse against him were sure to be repeated, couldn’t be counted on to restore his reputation. Heard, his ex-wife, was counting on the opposite: that the world would hear, in detail, about the physical torments that led her to describe herself, in the Washington Post op-ed that led to the suit, as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.”

Even before the verdict came in, Depp had already won. What had looked to many like a clear-cut case of domestic violence had devolved into a “both sides” melodrama. The fact that Heard’s partial victory, which involved not Depp’s words but those spoken in 2020 by Adam Waldman, his lawyer at the time, can be spun in that direction shows how such ambiguity served Depp all along. As one commenter on The New York Times site put it, “Every relationship has its troubles.” Life is complicated. Maybe they were both abusive. Who really knows what happened? The convention of courtroom journalism is to make a scruple of indeterminacy. And so we found ourselves in the familiar land of he said/she said.

We should know by now that the symmetry implied by that phrase is an ideological fiction, that women who are victims of domestic violence and sexual assault have a much harder time being listened to than their assailants. I don’t mean that women always tell the truth, that men are always guilty as charged, or that due process isn’t the bedrock of justice. But Depp-Heard wasn’t a criminal trial; it was a civil action intended to measure the reputational harm each one claimed the other had done. Which means that it rested less on facts than on sympathies.

In that regard, Depp possessed distinct advantages. He isn’t a better actor than Heard, but her conduct on the stand was more harshly criticized in no small part because he’s a more familiar performer, a bigger star who has dwelled for much longer in the glow of public approbation. He brought with him into the courtroom the well-known characters he has played, a virtual entourage of lovable rogues, misunderstood artists and gonzo rebels. He’s Edward Scissorhands, Jack Sparrow, Hunter S. Thompson, Gilbert Grape.

We’ve seen him mischievous and mercurial, but never truly menacing. He’s someone we’ve watched grow up, from juvenile heartthrob on “21 Jump Street” to crusty old salt in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise. His offscreen peccadilloes (the drinking, the drugs, the “Winona Forever” tattoo) have been part of the pop-cultural background noise for much of that time, classified along with the scandals and shenanigans that have been a Hollywood sideshow since the silent era.

In his testimony, Depp copped to some bad stuff, but this too was a play for sympathy, of a piece with the charm and courtliness he was at pains to display. That he came off as a guy unable to control his temper or his appetites was seen, by many of the most vocal social media users, to enhance his credibility, while Heard’s every tear or gesture was taken to undermine hers. The audience was primed to accept him as flawed, vulnerable, human, and to view her as monstrous.

Because he’s a man. Celebrity and masculinity confer mutually reinforcing advantages. Famous men — athletes, actors, musicians, politicians — get to be that way partly because they represent what other men aspire to be. Defending their prerogatives is a way of protecting, and asserting, our own. We want them to be bad boys, to break the rules and get away with it. Their seigneurial right to sexual gratification is something the rest of us might resent, envy or disapprove of, but we rarely challenge it. These guys are cool. They do what they want, including to women. Anyone who objects is guilty of wokeness, or gender treason, or actual malice.

Of course there are exceptions. In the #MeToo era there are men who have gone to jail, lost their jobs or suffered disgrace because of the way they’ve treated women. The fall of certain prominent men — Harvey Weinstein, Leslie Moonves, Matt Lauer — was often welcomed as a sign that a status quo that sheltered, enabled and celebrated predators, rapists and harassers was at last changing.

A few years later, it seems more likely that they were sacrificed not to end that system of entitlement but rather to preserve it. Almost as soon as the supposed reckoning began there were complaints that it had gone too far, that nuances were being neglected and too-harsh punishments meted out.

This backlash has been folded into a larger discourse about “cancel culture,” which is often less about actions than words. “Cancellation” is now synonymous with any criticism that invokes racial insensitivity, sexual misbehavior or controversial opinions. Creeps are treated as martyrs, and every loudmouth is a free-speech warrior. Famous men with lucrative sinecures on cable news, streaming platforms and legacy print publications can proclaim themselves victims.

Which is just what Depp did. And while he accused Heard of doing terrible things to him in the course of their relationship and breakup, the lawsuit wasn’t about those things. It was about words published under her name, none of which were “Johnny Depp.” In a sentence the jury found false and malicious, after describing herself as “representing domestic abuse” Heard wrote that she “felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out.” This time she surely has.

Misogyny isn’t the subtext of American political rage and social dysfunction; all too often, it’s the plain text. The links between domestic violence and mass shootings are chilling and well documented, though rarely cited in arguments about policy and prevention. The mobs of social media mobilize against women with special frequency and ferocity, often using the language of righteous grievance. Gamergate, a campaign of harassment directed at women who wrote about video game culture, pretended to be about “ethics in journalism.” The alt-right in the months before the 2016 election and its post-Trump progeny specialize in targeted misogyny. The TikTok hordes that went after Amber Heard over the past few months took a page from that book.

Depp’s victory is also theirs. The rage of men whose grievances are inchoate and inexhaustible found expression in a 58-year-old movie star’s humiliation of his 36-year-old former wife. I have to wonder: Are men OK? That’s a sincere question. Does the blend of self-pity, vanity, petulance and bombast that Depp displayed on the stand represent how we want to see ourselves or our sons? That’s a rhetorical question. The answer is yes.

Not all men, though. Right? Now that the trial is over, we’ll find new things to be ambiguous about, new venues where indeterminacy can serve as an alibi for the same old cruelty, and for its newer iterations. Johnny Depp is being embraced as a hero in some quarters, but his victory extends even to those who will allow themselves to feel troubled by the outcome of the trial and then move on. Some of us may wince a little when we watch “Pirates of the Caribbean” or “Donnie Brasco,” but we’ll probably still watch. They’re pretty good movies, and it’s not as if they can be expunged from the collective memory. That hasn’t happened to Louis C.K., or Woody Allen, or Michael Jackson, or Mel Gibson, or even Bill Cosby. Some of them have gone to court, some have faced public censure and disgrace, but they all remain woven into the fabric of the culture, and their behavior is too. We may not entirely forget, but we mostly forgive.

Let’s at least be clear about what that means. It means that we value the comfort and self-regard of men, especially famous ones, more than we value the safety and dignity of women, even famous ones."

(x)

This was written by a man. Which honestly kills me because all it does is prove that misandry is alive and well when it comes to the subject of domestic abuse. Just like that age old view of the patriarchy unable to see women as equals, women as anything other than damsels in distress, fragile little creatures that must be protected at all costs, here we have proof that society is still unable to accept the fact that a woman can abuse a man. And because said abuser is a woman, then society demands that we absolutely believe everything they've claimed despite evidence that was entered into a court of law that was reviewed by legal experts and jurors alike proving the contrary. It demands that not only are we to circle her wagons and defend her due to her anatomy but also turn a blind eye to her abuses of not only a man but other human beings that it has been documented by law enforcement and in a court of law that she actually did.

I am just...astonished. This is the NY Times. They approved this piece. And rather than talk to actual abuse experts and psychological experts, even law enforcement, they choose to continue to be part of the problem.

Let me say this, had I heard JD making the statements on the audio recordings that AH did instead, I absolutely would be just as passionate in supporting her. Because I support ALL survivors, regardless of their gender.

And because of my experience in this arena, because I am a survivor, I can tell you that within seconds of hearing AH speaking that I knew right then, other evidence sight unseen, who was really abusing who. It's a special club that not one of us ever wants to be a part of.

[starlight-edith]

Yes deceptive editing is illegal. That's why Adam Waldman was kicked off of the case. He also refused to testify about any of his illegal behavior citing attorney client privilege.

People care because of the larger social implications, right. Some people like you view it as so obviously that she's a lying abusive gold digger you would have to be deranged about thinking men can't be abused. Some people think it's one of the most well documented public cases of abuse and are highly disturbed about the way Depp was able to spin the case, use abusive litigation to keep pushing her into court, even after being legally declared a wife beater in his UK case, all because he did illegally leak edited information before the trial to prejudice public opinion and then the judge made the horrific decision to live broadcast rape testimony.

Obviously the reason we all care not because it's someone's favorite rich celebrity (especially Amber Heard was a B list celebrity AT BEST - no one who takes her side is really doing it as a stan). For me, because I have read hundreds of pages of court documents, it's also about how we (and he) treat bisexual women. He admitted to defacing paintings from her ex wife and was jealous of how much they interacted. There's witness testimony of the way he acted when she was around other women. Constant slut shaming and even calling her slurs in text (he justified this in court by saying homophobia wasn't bad in 2014).

You seem like you don't have an in-depth grasp of the facts of the case, which is fine, and you don't have to, but if that's the case you shouldn't judge other people for thinking she's the real abuse victim. You can't assume someone is an unsafe person if you don't know much about what happened. Again I'm fine with coming off anon and sending you links or answering questions if you do care, but it's completely fine if you'd rather not waste your time on rich celebrity drama - just don't lose good mutuals over it if you've decided not to look further into it

Hi again nonny! I have two related things to talk about so I’m splitting this into sections. Thanks for being so civil and I apologize if anything I say comes off as attacking or anything like that in the personal section, I just have a lot of feelings if that makes sense.

Explaining my position:

I’ll just show you the screenshot

The reason this makes me wary is because of how demeaning it is.

It turns “I believe this man is a victim of abuse by a woman and I want to show my support because I know how fucking hard it is for abused men to be believed or get any type of support whatsoever” into “uwu captain Jack sparrow is blameless :)”

I’m taking this the way I am because it perfectly mirrors my experience. For reference, I am a trans man. I was taken SO much more seriously when I was viewed as a battered woman. As soon as I transitioned it turned into “you wanted it” and “women can’t hurt men because men always have the power” I was thirteen and entirely oblivious to sex, she was 16 and I trusted her even when she made me commit literal crimes because SHE had the power in that scenario.

With AH/JD it’s different obviously because he’s older and has more connections.

My problem is not with either of them, nor either side’s supporters, it’s the fact that the people on heard’s side 9 times out of 10 are echoing the sentiment that pushed me into fucking hiding, forced me to pretend I wasn’t hurt, and convinced me it was all my fault because I wanted it.

It’s not the cause they’re supporting, as a survivor I support my peers to the best of my ability, loudly and proudly when appropriate, it’s the WAY they’re doing it.

You cannot claim to support victims whilst also making fun of them — this applies to both sides!!! I HATED all the memes about “my dog stepped on a bee” and the way people laughed at AHs description of violent rape by Depp. I also hate it when AH supporters say things like the post above or claim that AH is incapable of being at fault because Depp has more power.

Depp’s struggle with addiction was also cited as if that automatically makes him abusive. My entire family are addicts and I PROMISE YOU that had nothing to do with the horrible shit they did to me. Most addicts are struggling with underlying conditions, but being a drug addict or being mentally ill does NOT make someone an abuser. Can drugs make abuse worse? Absolutely! But the way many of Heard’s supporters just stopped at “he’s a drug addict so he’s an abuser” just doesn’t sit right with me.

As for my knowledge of the case, I watched Observe’s series on it — he’s the pseudo science behavior guy that was later proven to be abusive as FUCK which is why as soon as I learned that I re-examined the opinions I took on from him — but not much else.

To reiterate again, I’m not on either side, my problem isn’t that the person is supporting amber heard, it’s the way in which they’re doing it. Sort of like how it’s perfectly normal to like pepperoni pizza but it’s weird to say that pepperoni is better because big pineapple is a liar.

TL;DR, my problem isn’t with neither heard nor depp, it’s with the way the people that still talk about it (cannot stress this enough: on both sides!!!) approach abuse.

I would be saying exactly the same thing if they wrote that post but supporting Depp instead

——————————

Additional commentary:

On Depp’s side, I find it suspicious that he was regularly referred to as “Johnny” by his witnesses and supporting counsel. This is a common way to infantilise them. Kids are innocent, so by making depp sound like a kid you’re more likely to sympathize with him. Heard never had any of that.

As an autistic person looking back on the things that Observe put out about the case I can tell I was originally swayed by his rhetoric. He says that for autistic people he would establish a baseline and then the regular body language analysis would work on them. As an autistic person who has been accused of lying on numerous occasions simply for not making eye contact, or flinching at unrelated negative stimuli, that’s total bullshit.

You cannot tell whether someone is lying by the way they act alone.

We’ve seen time and time again that there are no consequences for the rich, those with money and connections, and it’s very possible that that’s what happened here.

I doubt that this case will ever truly come to justice regardless of who was the “actual” victim because that’s just how our society treats abuse. We turn it into tribalism. Team Johnny, team Amber. We will likely never sway the opinions of those who decided early on who was in the right.

I’m not trying to say I’m the pinochle of objectivity or anything here though please don’t take it like that 😭

The more I hear about this the more I reconsider my opinion. At the moment I don’t know who was “right.” But again, for the millionth time just to make sure I’m really driving this home:

It’s the wording, I would be having the same exact reaction if they made this post in favor of depp