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THE VIEW OPENER
But social media strips away nu-
ance. We’re left instead with myths.
One such myth is that of the “perfect
victim.” The perfect victim is an inno-
cent. She doesn’t drink or do drugs. She
has a clear memory of her assault. She
has corroborating evidence—but not
too much, because that would indicate
she’s vindictive. She cuts off contact
with her abuser as soon as the abuse
takes place. She does no wrong—at
the office, in relationships, as a mother
or daughter. She’s never lied about
anything, ever, in her entire life. She
dresses “appropriately.” She’s virginal.
She’s simplistic. She does not exist.
Johnny Depp accused his ex-wife
Amber Heard of defaming him by
publishing a 2018 Washington Post
op-ed in which she called herself a
“public figure representing domes-
tic abuse,” without ever naming her
abuser. Since the trial began in April,
users on TikTok have compared Heard
to this mythical perfect victim and
found that she did not live up to that
impossible standard.
For weeks, the public (and, pos-
sibly, the jury, which was not seques-
tered) was bombarded with videos
of Heard testifying about her alleged
abuse, paired with disinformation to
paint her as a harlot, a drunk, a liar.
They accused her of faking evidence
of bruises and of persuading witnesses
to lie. (There’s no evidence to support
these claims.) They called her Amber
Turd and mocked the #MePoo move-
ment. “They discredited Heard based
on conduct that had nothing to do
with whether she was abused or not,”
says Alexandra Brodsky, a civil rights
attorney. “I had really naively thought
that we were past that after #MeToo.”
Depp had already lost a suit against
the Sun in the U.K., where a judge
found that the tabloid’s claim that
Depp was a “wife beater” was “sub-
stantially true” and that Depp had
physically abused Heard at least 12
times. In both cases, her legal team
presented extensive documentation of
the alleged abuse. And yet after weeks
of social media picking apart Heard,
a verdict in favor of Depp seemed
inevitable. According to Deborah
Tuerkheimer, author of Credible: Why
We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers ,
Amber Heard waits for the jury to announce the verdict in the Depp v. Heard
civil defamation trial at the courthouse in Fairfax, Va., on June 1the conclusion was “a case study in
how women who fall short of our ex-
pectations are disadvantaged.”Heard was attacked on many
fronts. She was blamed on social
media for not leaving Depp after the
first instance of alleged abuse. Heard
admitted to fighting back, emotion-
ally and physically, defying expecta-
tions of the meek woman under the
sway of a powerful man. Depp fan ac-
counts were particularly vicious when
dissecting how Heard behaved on the
stand. “Victims are expected to rep-
resent the right amount of emotion-
ality,” says Tuerkheimer, who calls it
the “perverse Goldilocks” scenario.
“If they’re too emotional, they’re
perceived as hysterical and untrust-
worthy. If she’s too calm and her affect
is flat, that too is held against her.”
These tactics for undermining ac-
cusers aren’t new. “The defense strat-
egy in cases involving intimate- partner
violence or sexual assault is to always
depict the other side as liars, opportun-
ists, money-hungry, jilted, delusional
witch hunters, and to claim the other
person is perverting #MeToo or is the
real abuser,” says Carrie Goldberg,
a lawyer specializing in sex crimes.Depp also has ardent fans: his
Pirates of the Caribbean movies rank
among the most successful ever made.
“It’s easy to believe survivors in the ab-
stract,” says Brodsky. “It’s a lot harder
when [people] like the accused, when
they like the movies he was in.” In text
messages about Heard, Depp fantasized
about murdering his then wife: “I will
f-ck her burnt corpse afterward to make
sure she’s dead.” Yet the main sentiment
on TikTok seemed to be that Depp was
justified in speaking about her this way.
One post with more than 222,000 likes
wrote over Heard’s bruised face, “He
could have killed you... He had every
right.” “A lot of people just didn’t like
her,” says Brodsky. “They thought she
seemed irresponsible or too wild, and
that meant that in their eyes she was lit-
erally incapable of being abused—either
Depp never laid a hand on her, or if he
did, she deserved it.”
Legal experts say suing for defama-
tion has become a viable strategy for
alleged abusers. “I’ve already started
hearing, ‘If you speak out, I’m going
to Johnny Depp you,’ ” says Brodsky.
“A defamation suit doesn’t have to be
meritorious to work.” Just the threat of
exposing their human imperfections may
be enough to ensure a victim’s silence. □EVELYN HOCKSTEIN—POOL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES