So Netflix recently released Heard v Depp on their platform. As a survivor of domestic abuse that was enabled by the police trying harder to protect him than save me and someone falsely accused of domestic violence by the police who tried harder to prove needing to be there than assessing the situation properly, I was intrigued.

After watching the first episode, it was overtly disheartening that Heard’s evidence was mocked and questioned for validity while Depp’s evidence was readily taken as fact and it was a battle of discrediting submitting the evidence in the first place. I at this point don’t actually care to discuss who was or wasn’t right. Fact is, they were both in the wrong and the court had no business allowing such a bogus case to prevail.

But then I contextualized it all.

When the police decided I was wrong was after they heard me say I have PTSD and have tendencies to dissociate. They launched into psychologically tormenting me and verbally berating me into saying whatever I thought they wanted to hear because I was so damn terrified they were just trying to harm me for being sick. That’s what those cues have always told me. My panic stricken words during an active trauma response were counted as accurate and true. The responsibility was placed on me because their goal is to use words against you out of any context as though context doesn’t matter. Yet, when the police came and I was with my former boyfriend, he openly admitted to harming me in front of the police, who asked why, to which he said he was scared and has trauma. The police immediately walked over to my nearly dead body and brutalized me with nonsensical questions about what I had done to provoke him…

Of course anything Heard says is going to be questioned.

Police hold men accountable for nothing while deciding that feminism means continuing that trend but now holding women to higher standards than men would ever be. If you notice closely enough, no one seems to be called in to question Depp’s character or honestly, while Heard immediately has several people called for that.

Catch-22 or 1984? You Decide.

Firstly, the evidence that was asked for from Heard was objectively funny at times. Who in their right mind would say a sleeping picture of a drunk dude is evidence?

But we need to rationalize that if that counts as evidence, there was a reason things got down to the point of Heard producing abnormal types of evidence. I could almost presume that the reason the pictures emerged in evidence were because Heard was berated for insinuating someone chasing sobriety isn’t sober. I almost guarantee that Depp’s lawyers berated her into saying that she needed visual evidence of Depp ever drinking to back her claims that he ever was drunk. Which is honestly A LOT.

Secondly, Depp produces audio tape of Heard and Depp having a dispute as evidence of Heard being the one in the wrong. It is accepted as fact and not questioned. Rather, Heard is immediately characterized as abusive from reactions in an escalated fight.

We need to assess the context that Depp was able to assert Heard was not scared after video evidence demonstrated Depp throwing and slamming objects. There was undue burden put on Heard to determine a human expression of fear for safety by Depp and the American court system, as a whole.

Thirdly, media presentation of the case made it out to be a domestic violence case and not a civil court level of libel or slander. While libel and slander can harm a person, I would not go so far as to say the appropriate way to solve defamation against yourself is to slander the other person and their overall credibility.

In fact, the context is American systems of oppression.

If the case in fact was truly treated as a defamation (akin to libel or slander) suit, no judge in their right mind would be allowing the person accused of slander to be slandered as a defense mechanism. But it was seen as a way to bolster court statements of holding women more accountable (“then men ever will be by the law” is slyly silent).

Fourth, it needs to be overtly noted how the Virginia trial came after a UK based trial during which Heard was found not to be guilty of slandering Depp.

If anything, the VA suit was a retailiation effort to show that no one would really have believed her if he had a say in what evidence was allowed in courts. If you really think about it, public perception was that she was being ridiculous in her efforts to prove she was in the right. But then again, that’s a really weird contextualization.

Contextually, all the efforts factually show us is the statements she was arguing weren’t her attempts at defamation and that evidence is expected to be more robust from women than ever from men. This is part of the issue of what legal systems have done.

Fifth, courts and police have created the term “reactive abuse,” which is a really mean way to place blame on people for defending themselves if female. “Reactive abuse” is used by men to DARVO (deny the attack and reverse responsibilites of fault) women into taking blame for defending themselves. It can be used also by females, but is seen in much more alarming and deceitful ways (in my experiences and observations) by men, who will promote things that follow “You deserved to be harmed; see, you harmed me.”

For the longest time there have been countless stories of women being harshly sentenced for “attacking” their abuser. That’s how courts see things.

If you’re not their ideal victim, complicit in being harmed, they want to place blame on you for getting into the situation. I would assert that people generally don’t want bad things to happen and are not anticipating the worst. But the courts disagree.

Police commonly assume that females who aren’t ideal victims are easily going to give into taking blame for being abused. But when police use domestic violence tactics to obtain answers, there isn’t really much else we can expect from victims.

So are we controlling or deceptive as a society?

That was the heart of my question.

Are we overly controlling about how violence looks and what a victim is or are we more concerned with decieving narratives and victims into flasehoods?

I leave that to you, dear reader.

XOXO,

Dorothy B.