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Now that Angelina Jolie has filed court documents alleging that a drunken, raging Brad Pitt assaulted her and two of their children on a private plane in 2016, the open question is whether or not misogynistic haters will be able to turn her in the public mind into “another Amber Heard” — that is, another famous woman viciously dragged through the mud after coming forward with eminently plausible domestic violence accusations.
Already some of the tabloids have begun to circle the case like sharks. The Daily Mail declares, in a headline, that a “‘Vengeful’ Angelina Jolie is mounting a ‘disinformation’ campaign against ex Brad Pitt,” citing complaints from “Brad Pitt’s allies.” The Mirror, meanwhile, reports that “Brad Pitt pals accuse Angelina Jolie of ‘smear campaign’ amid abuse allegations.” TMZ, meanwhile, sniffs that
Angelina Jolie is on a smear campaign against Brad Pitt, rehashing the same allegations she’s made for years — allegations that have fallen flat with authorities — this according to sources close to Brad.
(For what it’s worth, documents filed by Jolie say that the FBI found probable cause to charge Pitt for abuse, but that Jolie, at the time, was “conflicted” about moving forward with the case.)
So that’s the tabloids. What do those who turned Amber Heard’s name into an expletive think of the new candidate for calumny?
They’re divided. Some are already convinced that Jolie is “Amber Heard 2.0.”
Others in this camp are a little more creative in their comments.
I said “a little.”
A few commenters actually gave reasons as to why Angelina = Amber. Garbage reasons but reasons nonetheless.
Others don’t think it’s fair to treat Jolie as another Amber Heard — but this is largely because they hate Heard so much they don’t want anyone compared to her.
Still others feel the need to mention that they hate Megan Markle as well.
Well, ok. Thanks for your input, I guess.
Honestly, I’m surprised to see so many Heard-haters defending Jolie. But I think that may change. The Heard case made clear how easy it is to weaponize gossip and half-truths against women that the public has at least mixed feelings about. Jolie is not as hated as Heard became, but she is prickly and not universally loved, and if Pitt plays his cards right he could come out another Johnny Depp.
Jolie defended herself during the alleged attack; how long before this becomes “mutual abuse” or “she’s the real abuser” in the comments on Twitter and YouTube? How long before she’s being constantly accused of “stealing” the children and “alienating” them from Pitt? I’m not optimistic.
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I think like half of her kids are over 18 now, so presumably they can decide for themselves.
His career won’t be hurt at all, and I hope she is tough enough now to not GAF what the tabloids and online idiots say. She hasn’t done anything really wacky in years, and has done a lot of humanitarian work plus breast/ovarian cancer awareness.
So you go, girl.
Would it be out of place to note that Ms Heard, herself on tape, admitted to physical violence against her Mr. Depp? Or is this a hugbox and not a serious blog?
@The Dork Avenger
Aww, your logical fallacy is so adorable! But shh, is grown-up speaky time now.
I’m prepared to denounce domestic violence by anyone, including Mr. Depp or Ms. Heard. Is that a logical fallacy?
hrm. I think it’s doubtful that she’ll be cast in exactly the same light as Heard if there’s no history of her doing “wacky”, manipulative or abusive things to Brad or anyone else. Amber was quite a piece of work and there was definitely mutual abuse going on there, though I think Depp probably did the larger share.
@ The Dork Avenger didn’t you weirdos spend $3k to get the full trial transcripts only to find out that getting all of your information from TikTok true crime brain rot celebs does not make you domestic violence experts?
@GSS ex-noob I’m not optimistic that her humanitarian work or cancer awareness work will help her. When trash people see people being an inch as trashy as they are, they feel vindicated to act like absolute monsters. And when trash people see people being better than them? It only makes them resentful and motivates them to pull any possible reason to hate them anyways out of their asses.
But she does strike me as the kind of person who won’t GAF.
That troll Dork Avenger is gross and creepy. I think he’s probably not strong enough to avenge anything or anyone and is really just a complete dork. He’s probably a loser NiceGuy or an incel considering his bullshit.
Because I judge all men by appearance first and I’m obviously not seeing anyone in person here I don’t know what my first reaction would be but my millisecond second reaction would be what it is here of “Go away creep!”
In person obviously would get a crack of whatever bullwhip I had with me given enough space.
Maybe I need some written convention agreed upon among the interested women regulars here to convey an overhand flick whip crack.
GSS my love? Ideas?
@ TyrantBitchGoddessStacey
Not a regular nor GSS, but /) maybe? Although it looks more like the whip has been cracked and come to rest . . .
@TyrantBitchGoddessStacey
Hm. Maybe /* – the asterisk symbolizes the crack sound, of course.
@Jazzlet and VP
Thank you! Good ideas!
@ VP
Oooh I like /*
I think one advantage Jolie has is that she was famous before she was attached to Brad Pitt. Amber Heard’s most famous roles all came after she was attached to Johnny Depp. So he could draw on the fact that he was well-known and liked decades before his marriage to make people think about how he was such a kind and gentle soul, and all the recent bad things we heard about Depp are only his poor response to Amber’s terrible abuse. Obviously, this wasn’t true. Depp had substance abuse problems and poor impulse control before Amber Heard was even born, but it could be spun that way.
In other legal news…case in Utah. A couple of people rescued a pair of injured piglets from a meat processing place. Full FBI investigation and they were charged with theft. The judge ruled that the jury couldn’t be told the motive for rescuing the pigs, shown any of the footage from inside the plant (“too graphic for the jury”), and the pictures of the pigs had to be photoshopped so the jury weren’t prejudiced by the state of their injuries.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/08/science/animals-rights-piglets-smithfield.html
Still acquitted though.
In re the proposed whip-crack emoticon /*: I do a lot of programming, so seeing /* without a matching */ worries me a bit. 🙂 Perhaps /~*, although that might be cumbersome to type on a phone, we see the flying length of the whip in the tilde and the crack at the end.
When there is a set back, you have to look back and wonder if you could have done something different. Hopefully the notion that Amber Heard v Johnny Depp is the end of #metoo is just an anti-feminist fantasy, but it still makes me think there might be some flaws in feminist rhetoric.
Both sides had credible claims of abuse, meaning that both sides were both perpetrator and victim simultaneously. Rather then acknowledge reality, or even claim they were equally bad, apparently what happened is that victim status went to the most popular and perpetrator status went to the least popular. If you tried to talk about the bad things Johnny Depp did then you were victim blaming and Johnny was just being an imperfect victim. The notion that Heard was lying in the sense of a false accuser, and that she was lying in the sense of an abuser worked together perfectly.
These feminist concepts were recaptured. I have to wonder how many more times we are going to see feminist concepts used against the women they were meant to help; and if that does become a common occurrence, will feminists be able to adapt?
<i>I’m prepared to denounce domestic violence by anyone…</i>
…any day now, just as soon as you’re done cherry-picking snippets of fact to smear the woman, right?