There is a new horror film that most reviewers seem to like called Barbarian, because it incorporates “current social concerns.” But as the few negative reviews point out, the people in it are mostly your typical brain-dead types that Roger Ebert hated so much who are just begging to be killed. Anyways, there is a character named AJ who was the star of a television show, but was fired after a co-star accused of him sexual assault. He spent all of his money to defend himself, but somehow he still owns this property in the worst section of Detroit (what—white people in Detroit?), which he intends to sell so he can keep paying his attorney fees. Of course he is killed at end, so he dies with the “presumption” of guilt, like most men regardless what their social or economic status is.
That is the fate of most men without the money to spend for competent representation against accusations, true or false, by women. Whether guilty or innocent, in a he said/she said culture, what she says always carries more weight, at least publically (of course to the “believe all women” types, anything less is apocalyptic). Behind the scenes, there might be disagreement based on whose side you are on, but from the public perspective, the source of the accusations doesn’t expect to be questioned—and if they are, great offense is to be taken even for someone suspected of being a narcissistic liar.
In cases involving celebrities, professional athletes and public figures, the mainstream media usually seems to find pleasure in seeing them taken down, “cancelled,” or even imprisoned. Men accused by women is just more proof that women in general are victims of men who take advantage of their elevated positions in society (rather than about women taking advantage of them to advance their careers). In this culture, women actually have great power to destroy someone’s life by accusing them of domestic and sexual abuse, even with “evidence” that might simply be a matter of “perception.” Somehow the mere accusation of such is the worst crime a man can commit; even an accusation of murder is approached with at least the presumption of innocence.
Accusations of gender crimes are so common that it is perhaps understandable that the public can become so numb to them that this can become matter a concern for radicalized gender activists who fear danger to their narratives if not every accusation is believed. If people suspect that not every accusation is true, or is exaggerated, this perception must be countered with the gaslighting “believe all women” trope, and that requires men to “prove” they are not guilty—which for the radicalized element is made a deliberately difficult hurdle to overcome.
Thus when men, who believe themselves the victim of vindictive women who use the prevailing cultural and media environment for their own ends, try to defend themselves against accusations, they find themselves up against a labyrinth of victim advocacy, media, law enforcement and judicial hurdles that are overwhelming, and for most it is an impossible maze to traverse, one that costs money to an uncertain end that only the most determined in their belief in their innocence are willing to endure and see to the end. The alternative is to simply cave in to the pressure from forces that want to destroy them.
Thus it is with extreme frustration that one reads a piece in the UK media outlet The Independent, which quotes female “celebrity attorney” Lisa Bloom, who as a talking head in the Discovery+ documentary on the Depp trial, explains “There’s no question that in America we have two systems of justice. One for the very wealthy and powerful, and one for everybody else,” and asserts that money can buy you an “all-star legal team,” while someone without so much money like Amber Heard had to “scramble to defend herself.” Well, actually Heard had plenty of money—at least $5 million paid by Travelers.
Bloom’s claim that there are two systems of justice should be seen as an indictment not against those who have the resources to defend themselves against accusations in which it is automatically assumed that they are “guilty,” but an indictment of a cultural environment in which men who don’t have money have great difficulty in defending themselves against false accusations, and must live their lives under a cloud of reputational harm and their livelihoods and relationships upended.
Furthermore, the truth was that the narcissistic Heard in her house of lies never believed that she had to “scramble” to defend herself; the “MeToo” movement and societal prejudice against men accused of gender crimes—and the fact she had been given a false sense of invulnerability by the UK trial—had allowed her to believe that her word would prevail against the evidence of the audio, and new, more damaging witnesses (such as the Hicksville manager, Morgan Tremaine, Kate Moss and the Sea-Tac Airport employee who witnessed the 2009 DV incident) to further undermine her credibility. Nor did she count on all of this being played out in a televised setting for the world to realize that the narrative that they had been fed by the mainstream media was largely a lie.
The Independent’s “culture writer,” Amanda Whiting, in the same article seems to be “disappointed” in the “tepid” upcoming Discovery+ documentary, which by Whiting’s opinion about it may not be the completely unfair hit job that most of us suspect it will be; in fact we are told that Heard’s legal team did not participate in the documentary, probably because her attorneys didn’t want to share information about the chaos behind the scenes.
Whiting complains, as we have come to expect mainstream media types to do, about how the first part of the documentary gives an “inside look” at the Depp “war room,” and how the team referred to Depp not as a “client” but as “Johnny,” which apparently annoys the hell out of her. Whiting also complains that “Johnny vs Amber: Part 2 isn’t so much biased as toothless. It’s also light on factual information, like, for example, the definition of ‘defamation’ or even a quick rundown of what happened in the UK. I suppose you could say the documentary’s not ‘obsessively’ detail-oriented.”
Obviously this view would frustrate Depp supporters; what exactly does she call “factual information”? Heard’s evidence-free claims, her faked “tears,” and the “enhanced” imagery? Those audios are far more damaging pieces of evidence than those out-of-context text messages from Depp. Any “rundown” of the UK trial should point out the greater difficulty in winning that case for Depp not just because evidentiary procedures are against the plaintiff, but how plainly biased the judge was in favor of Heard, especially in casting aside evidence that Heard and her witnesses made false statements, and almost entirely ignoring testimony by Depp witnesses as “biased.”
That Depp had the resources to prove his innocence against all the odds, and exposed Heard as a liar and an abuser, should not be seen as an indictment against him just because he had the resources—but against not just a justice system, but a “culture,” that presumes guilt if a woman says it, from which most falsely accused men are helpless to defend themselves against because they don’t have the resources that is needed to overcome the mountains they must climb to prove their innocence.
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