Maybe this is too personally reactionary, and I don't know if I should even post something this extensive in here but I'm bizarrely (?) emotional about this, and I have been so frustrated at the response elsewhere. For lack of better words I guess I feel "safer" expressing this on this board into the void than to anyone close or on other socials, but I do feel a need to express it. A lot of my sentiments have already been shared, but:
Someone in one of the earlier threads mentioned they feel like they're being essentially "gaslit" by otherwise progressive outlets and pundits spinning the verdict negatively and I feel much the same way.
The Vice tweet earlier was straight up manipulative and misleading. It was flatly and explicitly meant to negatively reframe reality and control narratives. Watching them and other otherwise respectable outlets just... ignore what I was seeing in these clips, ignore what Heard was saying about male victims and juries believing them, ignoring all the context to Depp's messages, etcetera. That article just above this post with the "the facts of the case don't support it" blathering. I don't even think I've followed this as religiously as others, albeit closely, and it's plain to me... so why not them?
A few hours ago, I saw a GOP account tweet a Jack Sparrow GIF in "celebration" with no text. I felt disgusted with myself, looking inwards asking myself "Am I wrong here? Am I on the wrong side? IS she the real victim? I can't be on their side, right??" despite knowing deep down that in reality the GOP account and I were *not* on the same side, at all. Allowing myself to buckle because of everyone I felt I could usually trust to be on the right side of these issues telling me I am wrong when I believe I am not.
And it feels like it all comes down to the fact these people are co-opting this verdict for their own hand spun narratives, both "progressive" (although as we've covered, it's arguably not really progressivism here...) and whatever you want to call the hellspawn misogyny angle, which is unfortunately all too genuine in its attempts comparatively.
It is an indefensible angle that some seem to take, that victims like this should take the bullet so that chuds and misogynists don't get extra ammo to use. It shouldn't be a victim's responsibility to bear the cross for these things; but it IS objectively going to energize and bolster these assholes, and there's seemingly just nothing we can really do, and all I can say is... I get it. I get why some feel the need to fight that.
It's TOTALLY valid to worry that this will happen and cause a resurgence of doubt towards women and victims, and it's valid to be scared of what that means... but it still feels gross that some people — people who are purporting to believe victims, who are purporting to support victims — are telling me that it should have been Depp's onus to carry, that he should have grinned and bore it, that he should have lost not to upset the balance, or WORSE, that Heard is somehow... not responsible for all the things she objectively, evidentially did, because that would be better for "the movement".
Please do not get me wrong. The errant verbal violence and attacks against Heard online and in these memes and streams and social media are completely unjustified, including some in the Era thread itself particularly just after the verdict was read — but it can not absolve her of responsibility for her own actions. They are separate, disparate and disproportionate evils.
Hell, this is to say NOTHING of the further stigmatization of people with mental illnesses that Heard happens to share. The belief of some that these disorders are what make her an abuser, and that all those who suffer them will turn out like her, which is something that matters deeply to me as someone with many BPD suffering friends.
I digress.
In my opinion, what's bad for the movement, and what's bad for victims, is someone who so clearly and brazenly abused someone trying to use said movement to further that narcissistic and manipulative abuse and control. But that's idealistic. It's not realistic to center on. Plainly.
The problem is that we CAN'T just take that face value, because there are so many people who are malcontent to be honest about domestic violence and abuse. People who are ready to use this against #MeToo and other similar concepts... It's incredibly, deeply frustrating that there can't just be reveling in the light of a victim getting their due because people are co-opting it and weaponizing it against other victims, using it to perpetuate gender discriminatory victim blaming manipulation.
Beyond frustration, It's terrifying, even.
It feels oppressive. It's making me uncomfortably introspective... I was certainly never abused in the ways Depp was, but perhaps ready to admit to myself that I was in others, years back, for all of the nothing that that's worth for perspective here; Still, even then I cannot come close to imagining this.
I can't help but think what it would be like to be emotionally and physically victimized, and be told you're the villain for half a decade, and then prove your case... and still be vilified by people who claim to mean well for a cause. I can't help but think about all the other victims out there who are going to be held down by the pro-Heard narrative, or the ones who will suffer from the manipulative reframing of Depp's victory by right wingers and abusers. It's both a massive win for victims and a massive hit for others, and that feels so unfair to so many.
It's an excruciating reminder of how our society functions under institutional patriarchy and misogyny, and how that hurts everyone across the gender spectrum. I'm just so exhausted by this world right now, but at the same time this can't be cast aside, it has to be fought. Some of the people who have been rightfully carrying this torch for so long are now siding with an abuser out of well meaning ignorance, out of gender bias, out of so many factors small and large. Setting themselves and the individual causes back in the process of ironically trying desperately not to do so.
There is so much work to do still. I hope it can happen. I hope this sets as positive a precedent as it can, and that it is not abused for horrifying narratives. Sorry for rambling on.