As many of you have likely seen in the past couple of weeks, Johnny Depp has been in the media quite a lot. And not because of some new movie or project. No, Johnny Depp has been in the news as the result of Amber Heard’s allegations of domestic violence.
Just 15 months after the two were married, she filed for divorce and a restraining order along with her accusations of abuse. While this in and of itself is unsettling, just as troubling has been the media – and more so the social media – response to this news.
In the weeks that have passed since Heard has filed for divorce, many people have come out in support of her, but also in support of Depp, including their fans. While it is not far out of the ordinary for fans to speak out on social media, or acknowledge favorite stars in troubling times, there is a bigger issue at hand in this situation.
This is not simply a hard time for these two people, it's a court case and a question of who is telling the truth. This is a serious issue of domestic violence between these two people, not a debate over who’s a better actor.
At the end of the day it’s a private matter in two very public lives.
When fans come out with claims that Depp couldn’t have possibly done that and that Heard is lying, they are projecting their own public ideas of these people onto their private, individual lives. Trending hashtags such as #JohnnyDeppIsInnocent make assumptions about Heard and about Depp, and these assumptions have much greater implications.
I will absolutely admit, I’ve always admired Johnny Depp, he has portrayed and created some of my favorite roles, and seems like the sort of person I would very much like to meet. When I first saw the headlines regarding Heard’s accusations, I didn’t want it to be true, still don’t. But that’s not how the world works and that doesn’t mean that they aren’t true.
I know next to nothing about their lives and am in no position to say what is and what isn’t real.
Trial by media is a fairly recent phenomenon in which the role of news and media outlets ends up ultimately affecting the outcome of a court case. This can be seen in major cases such as the Amanda Knox case, in which the media portrayals of Knox greatly affected American views and ideas of whether or not Knox was guilty of murder or was merely a victim of a failed foreign judicial system.
In the past decade, this phenomenon has taken a new spin, as social media has played a greater role in all of our lives. Trial by social media is the new trial by media and is a term heard more and more, especially in regards to the issues with Heard and Depp. This worries me even more than trial by media, because although the media is hardly regulated or controlled, social media provides even less of a filter for seeing and understanding the reality of a situation. It is even more sensationalized and less edited. It is essentially that gut reaction to something being treated as fact.
We, as fans, as distant observers of these lives, do not have the authority to decide who is right. Whatever our opinions may be on the situation. It is not wrong, by default, to express our opinions, but we need to be more careful and considerate, especially on social media, about the impact of our words.
In a society where victim-blaming is easier than responding to accusations, we need to consider what it means when we call Heard a liar. Yes, it is difficult to see a certain darkness in people we admire, much easier to have clear heroes and villains, but the truth is we know so much less than we think. Our personal views of someone as one of the heroes, one of the “good guys” is never an okay excuse to jump to the conclusion that someone else’s pain isn’t real.
This one’s not on us.
Depp and Heard have legal teams and friends and family to support them at this time. While it may be naïve to wish the media away from this issue entirely, I at least hope that people will resist allowing their own projections of these individuals to cloud their vision of the bigger issues at hand.
