What if the world was wrong about Amber Heard?

“La Fabrique dulie,” a France 5 program dedicated to deconstructing fake news, aired an episode on February 12 about the highly mediated trial pitting Johnny Depp against his ex-wife Amber Heard. The documentary, directed by Cécile Delarue, goes back to the media frame of the case and the violent origins of the hatred against the actress.

In the video, the trailer “Factory of Lies. The Johnny Depp/Amber Heard Affair”

Recall that in April 2021, the actor Pirates of the Caribbean sued his former campaign for defamation. To the question: Editorial published by Amber Heard in 2018 washington post:titledI spoke out against sexual violence“(I stood up against sexual abuse) where she confided that she was a victim of domestic violence without quoting Johnny Depp (but the hint).

At the time, the actor was already suing the British daily sun who called him “wife beater” (women batting) in 2020. In this regard, British justice found him guilty of 14 out of 12 episodes of violence, thus exonerating the newspaper. In this context, a few months later, the trial against Amber Heard in the USA had a positive effect for the actress. However, in the course of the case, the young woman became the most hated woman on the Internet, becoming a storyteller with ambiguous and manipulative behavior. And what happened?

masculine rage

The documentary puts the timeline of the case in the context of the #MeToo movement. Launched by activist Tarana Burke in October 2017, the hashtag has crossed borders and is an unprecedented liberation of speech. But as philosopher Genevieve Freiss reminds us in The Lie Factory, “every advance in gender equality always leads to resistance to contain or stop the movement.” Eric Fassin even talks about the “masculinity of outrage” in the show. Thus, the sociologist points to the areas of revenge that, in a very organized way, seized the Amber-Depp trial as a perfect opportunity to discredit the voice of women.

The documentary gives the example of Johnny Depp’s lawyer, Adam Waldman, who could have contacted YouTubers of this network to provide them with information. Records are shortened, support hashtags, powered by BOTs (a software application programmed to perform certain tasks tweets here editor’s note)… The actor’s first line of defense would be born like this.

On April 12, 2022, what will become the spring series begins. American justice accepts that the trial be broadcast on television. “Factory of Lies” shows that masculinity quickly captures the audience’s images; reacts live, these live videos of them commenting on the incident are multiplying on YouTube. This content is quickly taking precedence over general press content. The latter, at least at the beginning, addresses the case, considering it “too human”, according to journalist Constance Vilanova. And YouTube’s algorithm complements asserting the dominance of these content creators by highlighting their videos (more and more profitably) rather than retweets without comments. The France 5 documentary shows that without realizing it, public opinion has allowed itself to be informed mainly by these channels, which reek of revenge and misogyny.

The unbearable lightness of laughter

For two months, justice returns to the motley details of the relationship between the two actors. Every episode becomes a laughing stock on social networks. The term “megapint of red wine(a mega liter of red wine) would thus be immediately accepted as a joke or even dismissed as a consumer product. This phrase was uttered by the lawyer after the broadcast of the video, where we see how the actor serves a huge glass of wine in the morning and aims to prove Johnny Depp’s alcoholism and violent character. At the wheel, the latter sarcastically accepts the expression.a mega pint?”.

The documentary talks at length about how this trial is accepted as another element of culture.fun Where the laughs come to obliterate any moral stance on actress-initiated violence. On TikTok, the preferred platform for this dramatization, users mock Amber Heard’s every word. When the actress talks about her spousal rape, in which she accuses Johnny Depp of penetrating her with a vodka bottle, the humorous interpretations of her testimony multiply.

Even the brands get involved in this wonderful mix of genres. When the actress’ lawyer shows off a Milani makeup palette that appears to be used by a woman to cover up bumps, the brand takes the opportunity to communicate via TikTok, where they state that the palette was not commercially available at the time, boosting Amber Heard’s reputation. as a liar.

Not the right victim

Since appearing online, the France 5 program has in turn become the subject of controversy on social media, reigniting the debate over Amber Heard’s guilt and, by extension, the legality of a “media lynching.” At the end of the documentary segment, host Karim Risuli and his on-set guests, journalists Constance Vilanova and Helen Devink and historian Kristel Taro, point out Amber Heard’s imperfection as a victim. Responding to the violence, the young woman, who now lives in Spain under a false name, has become a “woman” who deviates from the myth of the “invincible victim”. For Christel Taro, the flawed theory of the proportionality of violence is what has allowed the most vicious defamation and harassment.

Posted by Helen Devink Impunity in September of last year, where he returns to the PPDA case, insisting on the strength of his experience that in any case “the victim is never acceptable in the eyes of the public as soon as he speaks”. “Society is against violence, but also against women testifying.” That seems to confirm the hashtag #JusticeForJohnnyDepp, which has been viewed 21.8 billion times on TikTok and a petition signed by 4 million people to have Amber Heard fired.Aquaman.

The Factory of Lies, Johnny Depp/Amber Heard Affair – Justice Put to the Test by Social Networks, available on france.tv.

In the video: Amber Heard and Johnny Depp