Victory for Johnny Depp does not spell the end of #MeToo

That Depp even felt the need to take Heard to court is a sign of #MeToo's success.

Johnny Depp may be celebrating last week’s courtroom victory in his defamation case against Amber Heard. But as commentators rush to decry the apparent rampant misogyny, Hollywood hypocrisy and ferocious backlash against the #MeToo movement revealed by the verdict, it’s not just Amber Heard who has lost. Women have no more to gain from the insistence that they are victims of a resurgent patriarchy than men have from busting another taboo surrounding male victims of domestic violence.

Rarely has so much been read into one jury’s verdict. Depp sued Heard for defamation following a 2018 Washington Post article in which Heard described herself as ‘a public figure representing domestic abuse.’ Yet the commentary that has ensued has not been about libel. We long got over discussing the gory details of Depp and Heard’s relationship. Even the realities of domestic violence have been pushed out in the days following the verdict. Instead, we have been treated to a dramatisation of the gender wars. Feminist commentators have found in Depp’s victory ‘an orgy of misogyny’ and ‘a culture that oppresses women’. 

Johnny Depp and Amber Heard have been transformed into pantomime characters for us to cheer or boo on demand. In the eyes of most mainstream papers, Heard has become the archetypal domestic abuse survivor, her flaws only enhancing her suitability for the role. 

Forget the Virginian jury - and forget public opinion, much of which, if social media is any guide, seems to side with Depp. Feminist commentators have ruled that Heard is more sinned against than sinning. And with this view set in stone, the only conceivable explanation for the jury finding otherwise is deeply ingrained misogyny. In turn, they see the result as further shoring up the patriarchy by, ‘sanctioning Depp’s alleged abuse of Heard, and of punishing Heard for speaking about it.’ 

Heard has taken to her new role as representative of all women. She said the verdict against her, ‘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.’ Tarana Burke who co-founded the #MeToo movement, described the judgement in favour of Depp as ‘a toxic catastrophe and one of the biggest defamations of the [#MeToo] movement we have ever seen.’ This argument has rapidly gained ground, ‘We are in a moment of virulent antifeminist backlash, and the modest gains that were made in that era are being retracted with a gleeful display of victim-blaming at a massive scale,’ continues Moira Donegan in The Guardian.

The end of #MeToo?

We need a reality check. One courtroom decision that calls into question the assumption that we should unquestioningly accept every word a woman utters at face value does not mean that ‘the underbelly of misogyny that dominates Hollywood never really went away,’ or ‘that despite all women’s advances we still live in a patriarchal society that pulls rank around one of its legends.’ 

#MeToo took off on social media in 2017 after sexual assault allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein prompted women around the world to come forward with their own stories of abuse. The #MeToo movement shone a light on sexism in Hollywood and beyond. But the fact that so many women felt able to speak out and name the person they allege assaulted them also showed the extent to which society was changing. Bad behaviour that would have once been hushed up could now be discussed freely. High profile women no longer feared damage to their career prospects by speaking out - in fact, #MeToo afforded some women a new platform. 

Women felt able to speak out because the culture in Hollywood, just as in the rest of the western world, had shifted in their favour. Wealthy, professional women in particular benefitted not just from the legal equality their mothers had pushed for but also from a broader shift in attitudes and values that had led to feminism becoming mainstream.

#MeToo successfully popularised the mantra 'Believe All Women'. Indeed, this claim has been so widely accepted that we now expect to see female victims triumphing over male abusers. For this reason, the Depp vs Heard verdict seems so surprising. It appears to call into question the gains of the #MeToo movement. Some men’s rights activists have been keen to run with this argument. They have welcomed Heard’s defeat as proof that women are capable not just of lying and cheating, but also of being violent and abusive. This is certainly true and pretending otherwise never did women any favours.

The flip side of this argument is recognition that men can be victims of domestic abuse too. Depp has been praised for showing that men suffer just as much as women. This response,  far from challenging #MeToo, shows the extent to which the values movement stands for have come to be widely accepted. Unlike earlier incarnations of feminism, #MeToo was premised upon claims of victimhood. If women were strong, it was only in speaking of their suffering. Their demand was for recognition. It is a sign of #MeToo’s success, not its failure, that men and women both now compete over claims to victimhood. 

We have moved a long way from a time when men and traditional male values dominate society. Depp’s victory does not change this. His courtroom triumph shows us that men are now as free as women to display their vulnerabilities - a key goal of modern feminism.

If #MeToo had truly failed, Depp would have been unlikely ever to have brought his defamation case against Heard. He would have walked away from slanderous allegations safe in the knowledge his career was secure no matter what any woman said against him. That he couldn’t do this is a sign of feminism’s cultural victory, not the #MeToo movement’s comeuppance.  

Perhaps more than anything else the Depp vs Heard verdict shows us that the lives of Hollywood celebrities complete with drugs, money, alcohol, hotels, jets, and more drugs, are a world apart from the lives of people who have to get up for work on a Monday morning. And that when the craziest, most sordid aspects of their relationships are played out for public consumption, no one wins. 

Heard is now, apparently, planning an appeal. Her lawyer has criticised the ‘irrational nature’ of the verdict - a reference to the fact that jurors granted Heard’s claim that Depp defamed her when his lawyer described her claim of domestic abuse as ‘a hoax’. But perhaps the jury was not irrational at all but simply recognised the reality of an incredibly messy and complicated relationship that has no straightforward victim or perpetrator. 

Image: Harald Krichel, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons