The most talked-about celebrity trial since O. J. Simpson’s came to a close yesterday with the jury ruling in favor of Johnny Depp in his defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife, Amber Heard.
Depp left the courtroom with $15 million in damages, while Heard took home a paltry sum of $2 million for a statement made by Depp’s lawyer. The judge lessened both bounties to the Virginia law’s maximum of $350,000 for punitive damages (leaving this plus $10 million in compensatory damages for Depp, and $350,000 for Heard).
The statement for which Depp sued Heard was her 2018 Washington Post op-ed that insinuated Depp was guilty of domestic abuse against her. Many have heralded this outcome as a victory for critics of the #MeToo movement and its “believe all women” trope.
This delight is not unwarranted, as the presumption of innocence and the burden of proof on an accuser are pillars of American law. For this reason, we can celebrate the decision as something that needed to happen, but we should be careful not to ascribe too much positivity to the circumstances surrounding it. When one cleans his gutter, he does not rejoice that the gunk was there in the first place.
Some, including a few elected officials, are coming dangerously close to turning Depp into a culture-war figure. The House Judiciary GOP tweeted a celebratory GIF of Depp from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) June 1, 2022
Depp has been no friend to Republicans in recent years. Upon President Donald Trump’s inauguration, he made a joke about killing him. Addressing a crowd of people at the 2017 Glastonbury Festival, he asked, “When was the last time an actor assassinated a president?”
Aside from the fact that the answer to that question is John Wilkes Booth, it is, of course, inappropriate to joke about killing a duly elected leader. While his comment was not illegal like Heard’s, he is not someone to emulate with regard to using one’s right to free speech responsibly.
The greater reason that this trial is lamentable overall is its cultural implications. The dispute tells the story of a broken marriage, and it could influence large swaths of the young people watching it.
Millennials and Zoomers already have a negative view of marriage due to such controversies as Britney Spears’s 55-hour marriage and the disaster that was the pairing of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.
Marriage rates are already frighteningly low, and the Depp–Heard trial will not help the state of the institution. When young people see our cultural influencers entering marriages and turning out worse for it, the trend continues.
All-in-all, Depp’s suit against Heard was necessary, but it was not good.