Depp Verdict Marks Turning Point in Weaponization of ‘Me Too’ Movement

Actor Johnny Depp looks on at the end of the second day of his testimony in the courtroom at the Fairfax County Circuit Court in Fairfax, Va., on April 20, 2022. Evelyn Hockstein/Pool via AP

News analysis

Ask any lawyer who specializes in defamation law: It’s nearly impossible for a public figure to win a case. Here’s what the lawyer will tell you: You have a much higher bar than someone who isn’t considered a public figure.

Because you’re a public figure, you not only have to prove the statement was a lie, you have to also prove that the one who made the statement did so with malice or reckless disregard for the truth. Meeting that second bar is tricky. The U.S. Constitution rightly affords a great deal of latitude for Americans to freely speak their mind.

The lawyer will also tell you that the search for justice in court will likely take years and cost millions. And even if you win, the jury might not award you enough damages to make a dent in the attorney’s fees.

And, finally, the lawyer will tell you that no matter how good of a case you present, you still might end up losing, owing millions of dollars in legal fees, and possibly even be liable for the other side’s attorneys’ fees—which will also be in the millions of dollars.

You’re better off walking away.

Not many people have the time and money to do what they think is right.

The fact that mega-celebrity Johnny Depp won his case against his ex-wife actress, Amber Heard, is remarkable in many senses. First, Depp managed to meet the extremely high bar for proof. Second, Depp was fighting one of the most powerful narratives of our time and a media establishment that largely sided against him—early and often. Third, Depp unwittingly turned the table on the #MeToo narrative: he’s a man—and not just any man, but a powerful, famous man—who claimed abuse by a woman.

Depp was not only victorious; he also won on all three specific statements that he challenged. This is only possible if the jury is convinced that the woman in the dispute is not “to be believed.”

‘Me Too’ Backlash

The Depp verdict marks a seminal moment in the weaponization of the “Me Too” movement. Some tweeted out news of Depp’s win using the modified hashtag: #MenToo.

Most people already knew that the suggestion that all “women are to be believed” at their first utterance of a “Me Too” accusation is as ludicrous as claiming that women never lie and men never tell the truth. Yet today’s propagandized internet and media environment have made it where even commonsense responses to ludicrous claims make people targets for bullying, attacks, cancellation, and harassment.

An eventual backlash was inevitable.

First came the obvious inconsistencies. It turned out some women were not believed by the very advocates who claimed “women were to be believed.” In practice, it depends on which side the woman is on. Likewise, facts ultimately proved that some women who were believed turned out to be blatantly lying.

Second, the “Me Too” cause—in and of itself a worthy one—became weaponized. It has been exploited by dishonest players who know that the mere taint of an accusation is enough to destroy a political or personal enemy.

And yet even now, the many in the media miss the point punctuated by the Depp verdict. They remain blinded by their zeal to twist the case to fit their narrative rather than admit that women are not always to be believed, some of them don’t tell the truth, and they—the media—got behind the wrong horse.

For example, a headline in the propaganda blog Slate actually dubs the Depp trial as being “rigged.” The article, like many in the media, wrongly assumed that all the support for Depp’s side of the story had nothing to do with evidence. (It was written by a woman named Nicole Lewis, who apparently feels a great deal of self-shame for having idolized Depp in her youth.)

“We have been told again and again to disbelieve women and revere men,” whined Lewis.

Quite the opposite. (Where have these people been for the past decade?)

Ironically, post-verdict, the Slate article still contains a defamatory statement. It accepts as if true, an assertion the jury rejected as false and defamatory: “While a jury deliberates on whether Heard slandered the actor when she wrote about her experience of domestic violence in an op-ed for The Washington Post ...”

The jury found that Heard did not experience domestic violence at the hands of Depp.

Even more egregious, The Washington Post published a note on the defamatory op-ed noting the jury verdict, but (at last check) left the defamatory headline unchanged: front and center.

Popular media analyses simply refuse to accept the possibility that Depp was the one telling the truth, after all—at least the way the jury saw it; that he had more evidence, better evidence, and a better case; that things were not as Heard and the media had portrayed them.

It’s important to note that Depp didn’t sue for the purpose of becoming the world’s most famous male victim of domestic abuse. He was defending himself against Heard’s defamatory claims of abuse, in an attempt to recover some of his reputation and marketability in a Hollywood stung by sex scandals and “Me Too” accusations.

If Heard had not written the original op-ed in The Washington Post—one that we learned at trial was drafted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), its release apparently timed to promote Heard’s upcoming movie—we likely wouldn’t know about the allegations made in court that Heard threw objects at Depp hitting him and cutting his face; gave Depp a “shiner” on their honeymoon; put out a cigarette on his face; threw a bottle and cut off the end of his finger, and—by her own admission—kicked a door at his head when he knelt to check her foot, and repeatedly hit him.

Pendulum Swing?

It’s worth taking one step further back in this analysis. The Depp case is not only a turning point in a narrative that was weaponized and taken too far; it’s also a backlash against a steady diet of narratives, one-sided news reporting, and propaganda being forced down our throats on a minute-by-minute basis.

A majority of the American public should not dictate over the minority. But neither should a fringe minority dictate over the majority. We have been under the tyranny of a vocal minority that’s too often guilty of the very behavior they claim to abhor: bullying and disinformation.

The Depp jury weighed the evidence and rejected what they—what we all—were told we had to believe. The Depp victory is not only a landmark case in the legal realm of defamation, but more importantly, it can also be seen as a turning point in well-funded and controlled efforts to manipulate public opinion and silence those who are off the narrative.

In that sense, we should all pay attention to the Depp verdict.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.