Thread by @Chocolate_Notre

The sexual objectification & dehumanisation of Amber Heard - a thread 🧵🪡

- Examining the ways in which Johnny Depp’s misogyny & biphobia fuelled his abuse & sexual violence
- How his stans co-opted & monetised his rhetoric to further smear & dehumanise Amber.

#AmberIsFree

🪡 Throughout their relationship, Johnny used degrading language which sexually objectified & dehumanised Amber.

Studies show this type of behaviour is linked to the perpetration of sexual aggression, rape proclivity, violence against women & the dehumanisation of victims.

🪡 Dehumanisation can be achieved by treating a person as an object (objectification) or an animal, or by denying them human attributes such as those related to human uniqueness or human nature like emotionality, curiosity, rationality, logic etc & is often used to justify abuse.

🪡 Sexual objectification occurs when a person is reduced to a sexual function or an object of sexual gratification, usually coupled with a denial of other human attributes. This leads to dehumanisation of the objectified person.

🪡 Studies show men who objectify & dehumanise women not only express greater willingness to rape, aggress & sexually harass, but also report more negative attitudes towards female victims.

Dehumanisation has been shown to lead to aggression at both the group & individual level

🪡 Depp, his enablers & fans sexually objectified & dehumanised Amber in several ways, leading to mass hysteria, harassment & denial of her personhood on a global scale.

This, coupled with the perpetuation of victim blaming myths has caused massive harm to ALL victims.

🪡 Depp’s violent sexual aggression & objectification of Amber was apparent from very early in the relationship, before they even married. In texts to Paul Bettany in June 2013, Depp said, ‘Let’s burn Amber!!!,’ ‘I will fuck her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she is dead.’

🪡 When questioned, Depp admitted sending these texts because he was resentful of Amber’s attempts to get him off drugs and alcohol.

‘Ms Heard was very aggressive and quite insulting about my use of alcohol, or, if cocaine came into the picture, she did not like Mr Bettany’.

🪡 Wishing her dead and fantasising about raping her lifeless dead body is not only dehumanising, it is also a clear example of homicidal ideation, which along with threats to kill is *the* biggest risk factor for intimate partner homicide (IPH). womenslaw.org/about-abuse/am…

🪡 This was not the first or last time Depp discussed killing Amber or threatened to murder her, like I’m this audio clip, which explains why her therapists were so worried about her safety. More on this later.

🪡 The same month Depp sent the ‘I’ll fuck her burnt corpse’ texts, Amber reported he sexually assaulted her in a jealous rage because a woman was affectionate towards her.

He violently shoved his fingers up her vagina and performed a ‘cavity search’.

🪡 Depp’s biphobia stoked the flames of his rage, jealousy & sexual aggression towards Amber, a bisexual woman.

Studies show bi women are twice as likely to be the victims of IPV & five times as likely to be victims of sexual violence by an intimate partner.

🪡 Depp’s queerphobia is well documented. In a text, he disparaged Amber as a ‘lesbian camp councillor’ and called Io Tillet Wright a ‘dyke bitch’ during another incident. He also repeatedly misgendered Io, a trans man, while on the stand in VA.

🪡 Amber contemporaneously reported a number of incidents of sexual violence to her therapists, which were documented in their notes from as early as 2012 - as described during the trial by DV & IPV expert Dr Dawn Hughes.

🪡 For example, in September 2012 she reported Depp violently ‘ripped her nightgown, threw her on bed. Tried to have sex but couldn’t get erection. Became more angry.’

On November 15, 2012, she reported Johnny ‘becomes verbally & sexually abusive after spending time w/father’.

🪡 The former account is supported by evidence of Depp’s erectile dysfunction, which is a proven risk factor for sexual aggression in IPV situations - including rape with penetration by a foreign object.

🪡 In a pattern of escalating SA & violence, Amber reported in March 2015 that over the course of 3 days in Australia Depp terrorised, beat & raped her with the neck of a bottle of Maker’s Mark whiskey. Here she describes part of the attack (TW).

🪡 The way her rape & SA testimony was mocked & sexualised on SM has been well documented, and demonstrates the extreme level to which Depp and society dehumanised Amber in order to abuse her, separating her from her humanity to a disquieting degree.

🪡 In a study where a fictitious woman reported being the victim of rape, test subjects were more likely to dehumanise, objectify and blame victims who had been sexualised, and were more likely to have a decreased perception of their suffering.

🪡 An sex toy company, ‘Twisted Fantasies’ went a step further in their humiliation & degradation of Amber, deciding it would be a wonderful idea to make a sex toy in the shape of the object she was raped with.

There are no words to adequately describe how grim this is.

🪡 In early 2013, Depp again used sexually objectifying & dehumanising language about an unknown woman in a text exchange with Vanessa Paradis:

‘Fucking ugly fat whore!’ ‘idiot cow!’‘ I'll smack the ugly cunt around before I let her in’ ‘Did that worthless hooker arrive?’

🪡 It’s worth noting that although Vanessa appears to participate in this showcase of gratuitous misogyny, Depp had choice dehumanising words for her too - referring to her in an email to Elton John as his ‘extortionist ex-Cunt’.

She is the mother of his two children.

🪡 In 2016 after their final meeting, Depp sent his former agent a text wishing death on Amber & sexually objectifying her in vile ways, reducing her to her genitalia, degrading it as a ‘dangling overused flappy fish market’ & referring to her as a ‘waste of a cum guzzler’.

🪡 Depp’s propensity to dehumanise women by comparing them to fish is shown in texts sent to Stephen Deuters in 2017:

‘Molly’s pussy is rightfully mine!’ ‘I want to change her understanding of what it is like to be thrashed about like a pleading Mackrel. I NEED. I WANT. I TAKE.’

🪡 Depp’s supporters not only endorsed & perpetuated the dehumanisation of Amber by trending #flappyfishmarket on Twitter, they also monetised it by making various pieces of merchandise emblazoned with words degrading her genitalia.

And they claim it’s not about misogyny 🙄

🪡 Depp had a penchant for body shaming Amber - a humiliation tactic which was gleefully adopted by his stans.

In this audio clip, when Amber tells Depp to put his ‘fucking cigarettes out on someone else’, he responds ‘shut up fat ass!’

🪡 Body shaming is both a cause and a consequence of the dehumanisation of women, as it is an act of humiliation & degradation which reduces a person to their body parts, which are usually characterised as inadequate (eg. ‘fat’) or disgusting (eg. ‘overused flappy fish market’).

🪡 Depp sent Kate James - who would later claim Amber ‘stole’ her rape story even though they bear zero similarity - a text asking her to help him ‘fix her flabby arse nice and good’ in August 2016.

🪡 Depp’s stans of course adopted his body shaming tactics with the usual enthusiasm and aplomb. They always have an skeezy sexualised undercurrent - like the person who zoomed into her crotch. You do not have to look hard to find hundreds, even thousands of examples like this.

https://twitter.com/madsmilkelsen/status/1600037635904311296

🪡 It’s worth noting that Amber weighed just over 100lbs towards the end of her relationship with Depp, and was looking incredibly frail. This is the woman he was bullying with constant negative remarks about her weight and appearance.

🪡 In October 2016, Depp sent these texts to Isaac Baruch, sexually objectifying Amber & wishing death on her:

‘Is the slippery whore that I donated my jizz to for awhile staying there?’ ‘Hopefully that cunt’s rotting corpse is decomposing in the fucking trunk of a Honda Civic!’

🪡 Here he is lovingly reading them in court. What fond memories of homicidal ideation and aggressive sexual objectification of his ex wife! 💕

🪡 How did Depp’s cultish fans respond to these disgusting, murderous & misogynistic text messages? They made T-shirts of course!

🪡 As previously mentioned, Amber’s therapists - Dr Jacobs & Dr Cowan - were extremely worried for Amber’s physical safety. As professionals in the field, they would’ve been well aware of the growing risk of IPH as Depp had threatened to kill Amber on multiple occasions.

🪡 In this audio, Depp aggressively tells Amber, ‘Don’t fucking pretend to be authoritative with me - you don’t exist!’

As previously mentioned, denying someone human attributes or personhood is a form of dehumanisation.

🪡 He repeats the same sentiment in this audio:

🪡 … and this one!

🪡 In an evil masterstroke of Machiavellian proportions - Depp & Waldman were not only able to get thousands of gullible fools to believe Amber shit in his bed, but to so thoroughly dehumanise her that her name became synonymous with a literal piece of excrement - #AmberTurd

🪡 This ludicrous accusation has been debunked a million times before - including by Justice Nichols in the UK case who said it was ‘implausible’.

Suffice it to say, it was the dog who was incontinent & had literally shit in the bed before.

https://twitter.com/innominace/status/1562646278852718592

🪡 After Depp raped Amber in Australia, he wrote violent, sexually objectifying messages on the walls, furniture and mirrors in his own blood and paint. One read, ‘She loves naked photos of herself, so modern, so hot’, while another said ‘Starring Billy Bob and Easy Amber’.

🪡 Studies show bystanders are less likely to help a sexually objectified female victim of IPV. Accusations of cheating lead to more victim blame.

People are also less likely to help & more likely to victim blame targets of online harassment if they have been sexualised.

🪡 Depp accused Amber of cheating on him with multiple people, including Cara Delevingne & Elon Musk. Here Amber describes Depp’s sexualised rage during the Boston plane incident where Depp kicked her in the back over James Franco.

🪡 Depp had a negative, sexualised view of actresses - ironic considering his dating history. Here Amber describes how he thought actresses were ‘worthless whores’ & made her feel dirty for wanting to work, plus other examples of his coercive control.

🪡 Amber’s testimony here is supported by several of Depp’s text messages in both 2013 and 2015, in which he complains about her ‘actress bullshit and her fucking ambition’ and reiterates ‘Her obsession with herself? She is SO FUCKING AMBITIOUS!!’

🪡 Depp’s insistence Amber not wear revealing clothing & his control over her wardrobe could be linked to his objectification of her body, need to possess her & inability to see her as a full human being with agency instead of his own personal sex object.

🪡 Depp’s control over her wardrobe extended to Amber’s professional life. He sent the following email to his agent demanding that Amber’s nude scenes be removed from her movie London Fields, saying, ‘THEY SHOULD BE MADE TO UNDERSTAND THAT WE WILL RUIN THEM INSTANTLY!’

🪡 In this audio, Depp himself admits to becoming irrational, fucking crazy and jealous when Amber is filming movies.

🪡 Here, Depp further sexualises Amber by angrily reducing her career to ‘taking her tits out’.

🪡 During a meeting in 2016, Depp degrades and sexually objectifies Amber calling her a ‘leftover, fucking over the hill stripper’.

She was only 30 years old at the time.

🪡 Depp’s cult spread disinformation that Amber was so destitute & reputationally destroyed that she was forced to do porn.

His stans optimistically gnashing their teeth in anticipation of her OnlyFans debut shows the disturbing proximity of the dehumanisation of women & porn.

🪡 Depp wanted to be able to admit revenge porn of Amber as evidence at trial - which was televised and included rape allegations against him.

There could be no reason for this other than his desire to further degrade, humiliate and dehumanise her.

🪡 Dr Cowan appears to have been a positive influence in Amber’s life not in Depp’s pocket. Johnny loathed him for it, saying all he does is ‘stare at her tits and agree with everything she spews’.

In another message he says he didn’t ‘keep her under control’ & ‘made her worse’

🪡 Johnny’s friends have often joined in on the sexual objectification and dehumanisation of Amber, including Paul Bettany, who unprompted sent a weird ass text about ‘shaving Amber’s beaver’.

🪡 Stephen Deuters, Depp’s assistant, also did this, describing Amber thusly, ‘Sociopathic show pony. Machiavellian overlord. Talentless cunt.’

These words were later repeated by his wife Gina Deuters in an interview with Page Six.

🪡 Amber’s sister Whitney testified that at Amber’s birthday party they went around the table telling nice stories about Amber, but when it came to Johnny he talked about her ‘perfect ass’, again sexually objectifying her & embarrassing everyone.

🪡 During a Christmas break in the Bahamas with Depp’s kids, Amber describes how Depp repeatedly spilled wine on her and then violently sexually assaulted her after telling her, "If you ever embarrass me again in front of my kids, I'll fucking kill you".

🪡 Liz Marz testified that Depp charged towards her swinging a magnum sized bottle of wine screaming ‘Get your bitch out of here!’

Although not directed at Amber, it speaks to his disposition towards women that he would speak to a bystander like this.

🪡 Depp also used dehumanising language towards a lawyer negotiating Amber’s side of a postnuptial agreement, calling her a ‘bitch’ over the phone.

He was slurring his speech and sounded drunk.

🪡 In the same text message to Christian Carino where Depp promised Amber ‘total global humiliation’ and that she would ‘hit the wall hard’, he described meeting a ‘sublime little Russian’.

This is believed to be Polina Glen, who was 20 years old at the time, Depp’s was 54.

🪡 The dichotomy of how these women are objectified - evil & disgusting Vs religious reverence - suggests Depp suffers from Madonna-Whore complex.

In his eyes, women are either good or bad, pure or whorish - leaving no room for nuance, or humanity. 34st.com/article/2021/0…