In marriage as in life, drama is a poor substitute for purpose.
In marriage as in life, drama is a poor substitute for purpose.
F or those who have not been following the trial of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard — congratulations, you have avoided a journey into the depths of depravity.
There is nothing particularly glamorous about the spectacle unfolding at Fairfax County Courthouse. And yet Forbes says it’s “arguably the civil trial of the century.” Likewise, on social media, scenes from the strange and excruciating trial have become a sensation.
To summarize: In November 2020, Depp lost his lawsuit against the British tabloid The Sun for their headline calling him a “wife beater.” The High Court in London decided the accusation was “proved to the civil standard.” Now, Depp is pursuing a $50 million defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife Amber Heard for a 2018 Washington Post op-ed she wrote two years after their divorce. It was headlined, “I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change.” In the piece, Heard wrote, “Two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse.” She is counter-suing Depp for $100 million.
So far, the jury has been presented with (among many other things) photo evidence of apparent bruises on Heard’s face, as well as Depp’s comment in a text message to a friend that he would “f***” Heard’s “burnt dead corpse.” Heard testified that Depp sexually assaulted her by penetrating her vagina with a bottle that was, she said, possibly broken or possibly a square Maker’s Mark bottle. Depp has denied all allegations of physical and sexual abuse. His legal team presented photo and eyewitness evidence of Depp’s bruised face and apparent black eye on his honeymoon and also, later, of his missing fingertip — sliced off, he said, after Heard threw a vodka bottle at him. The jury also heard an eyewitness account of Heard’s striking Depp in the face with her closed fist, an action she said was meant to keep Depp from pushing her sister down the stairs.
Other questions arose. Who, for instance, defecated on Depp’s side of the marital bed? Did Heard have affairs with fellow celebrities? What, if anything, can we tell from the many videos and audiotapes and photos the pair took of each other? Certainly, the fact that Heard sometimes taped Depp secretly or photographed him in unflattering poses while he was asleep does not suggest that the two had a trusting, healthy marriage. During the trial, a former marriage counselor for the couple described their relationship as one of “mutual abuse.”
For both Heard and Depp, it seems the real motivation is not money but winning a PR war. Depp’s lawyers said Heard is “giving the performance of her life.” Heard’s lawyers said Depp’s counsel has turned from “prosecutor to persecutor.” But in crafting their grand narratives, they are not acting alone. As Lara Bazelon noted in The Atlantic, it was not Heard who pitched the idea for her article to the Post, but rather the ACLU:
Terence Dougherty, the organization’s general counsel, testified via video deposition that after Heard promised to donate $3.5 million to the organization, the ACLU named her an “ambassador on women’s rights with a focus on gender-based violence.” The ACLU had also spearheaded the effort to place the op-ed, and served as Heard’s ghostwriter. When Heard failed to pay up, Dougherty said, the ACLU collected $100,000 from Depp himself, and another $500,000 from a fund connected to Elon Musk, whom Heard dated after the divorce.
So far, Depp has managed to complicate Heard’s straightforward victim role, and, as a result, he is winning in the court of public opinion. Nevertheless, the dirty laundry that’s now been aired for all the world to see is hardly flattering to Depp.
Perhaps Depp has made the calculation that, as Oscar Wilde put it: “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about it.” However, in marriage as in life — drama is a poor substitute for purpose.
Certainly, there’s endless appetite for dysfunctional relationships as a form of entertainment. Junk TV talk shows such as The Jeremy Kyle Show parade self-inflicted misery and vice. Audience members enjoy watching this, perhaps because it affirms their sense of moral superiority. Traditional religions encourage you to compare your behavior to the ideal standard, realize how far off the mark you are, and practice humility. But comparing yourself to the worst of human behavior has the opposite effect: You feel positively righteous.
Unhappy marriages have long been a source of cultural fascination. Take Tolstoy’s observation in the opening of Anna Karenina that “all happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Perhaps people are drawn to such tales not to look down on their moral inferiors but because they recognize a capacity for selfishness and self-absorption in themselves.
In recent years, though, our culture has sought to normalize — and even glamorize — marital dysfunction. The 2019 movie Marriage Story, starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, explored the breakdown of a marriage as if it was a sad but unavoidable fact of life. Adele, in the launch of her latest album, coined the catchphrase “divorce babe, divorce” and admitted to choosing to “dismantle” her child’s life in “pursuit of her own happiness.” Sad, but sometimes a brave and necessary choice.
In Depp v. Heard, we may not see any easy redemption, moral lessons, or psychological insight. But there are no convincing models of normality or empowerment or happiness, either — only pettiness, self-pity, narcissism, and the futile pursuit of drama.