During closing arguments in the defamation trial between Johnny Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard, one of Heard’s attorneys, Benjamin Rottenborn, described a series of Catch-22s that often ensnare women who, like Heard, accuse their partners of domestic violence. “If you didn’t take pictures, it didn’t happen; if you did take pictures, they’re fake,” he said. “If you didn’t tell your friends, you’re lying; and if you did tell your friends, they’re part of the hoax. If you didn’t seek medical treatment, you weren’t injured; if you did seek medical treatment, you’re crazy.”
I mean it strikes me that people’s issues with Heard aren’t so much that, put in a no-win situation, she didn’t win, but that she was even trying to win, that as she continued in the relationship she acted in ways that weren’t even attempts to get what she wanted in the relationship, but set herself up in a better position to portray the relationship to others afterwards – including but not limited to in court – in a way that won their sympathy and advanced her overall position in life to which the relationship was just one aspect (presumably, in expectation of it ending – it’s unclear what she could do with documentation of abuse in a world where the semipublic relationship continued)
It strikes me that this – conducting your life for the sake of winning public sympathy battles after the fact – might be the real of-the-moment thing the culture is publicly condemning here.
During closing arguments in the defamation trial between Johnny Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard, one of Heard’s attorneys, Benjamin Rottenborn, described a series of Catch-22s that often ensnare women who, like Heard, accuse their partners of domestic violence. “If you didn’t take pictures, it didn’t happen; if you did take pictures, they’re fake,” he said. “If you didn’t tell your friends, you’re lying; and if you did tell your friends, they’re part of the hoax. If you didn’t seek medical treatment, you weren’t injured; if you did seek medical treatment, you’re crazy.”
I mean it strikes me that people’s issues with Heard aren’t so much that, put in a no-win situation, she didn’t win, but that she was even trying to win, that as she continued in the relationship she acted in ways that weren’t even attempts to get what she wanted in the relationship, but set herself up in a better position to portray the relationship to others afterwards – including but not limited to in court – in a way that won their sympathy and advanced her overall position in life to which the relationship was just one aspect (presumably, in expectation of it ending – it’s unclear what she could do with documentation of abuse in a world where the semipublic relationship continued)
It strikes me that this – conducting your life for the sake of winning public sympathy battles after the fact – might be the real of-the-moment thing the culture is publicly condemning here.
Also like, if Tim Burton’s muse and Marilyn Manson turn out to be critical to the courtroom theatre of the culture war I’m gonna have to re-evaluate mallgoths some
