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‘Both [experts] think Heard will win the case…’

Yeah. Well. FWIW, so do I. Not only has a prior court found it likely Depp abused; Heard’s testimony came across as reasonably believable.

Depp’s got some other stuff going against him too. I guess no one can call off his Charlie-Manson’s-girls fan club in and outside the courtroom, but the spectacle is pretty fucking twisted. As is the spectacle of a 53-year-old man stewing in a sort of hopeless, squalid, immaturity — in a real cluelessness about how more or less normal adults behave.

UD admires Depp’s admiration of Hunter Thompson and Marlon Brando – he has a right to choose his heroes – but when he trumpets the admiration, it opens the door – wide – to Heard’s description of the drugged and drunken chaos with which she dealt. Her being much younger than Depp doesn’t help either, since it makes more plausible her claim of some naivete in entering into a relationship with an established addict.

Lastly, lemme just say: It’s probably not the best preparation for life as a wealthy, influential, powerful, cultural figure with complex pressures and responsibilities to drop out of high school at the age of sixteen and almost immediately find yourself in the outrageous fantasy world of the movies. Heard dropped out too, but she went on later to earn a high school degree. Depp missed the disciplined setting and systematic thinking of high school, much less college (college, said Bartlett Giamatti, is a free AND ordered space), and instead learned that exceptionally keen emotional intuition, plus heedless impulsivity, will get you where you want to go.

Yet that mix seems ultimately to have landed him in financial and reputational peril. Don’t wanna seem preachy, but you really need more than that.

Margaret Soltan, May 7, 2022 4:51PM
Posted in: defenses of liberal education

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