Remember five minutes ago when it seemed like Hollywood was forever changed? When it felt like excuses would no longer be made for badly behaved men in a post-Weinstein world? Well, prepare to groan loudly and throw your face into the nearest pillow, because it turns out that, unless a star has an entire legion of accusers, women can still be denied the apparent luxury of being believed.
Hot on the heels of Lena Dunham defending a Girls writer accused of sexual assault, David Yates, director of the Harry Potter franchise, Fantastic Beasts, just defended the casting of accused abuser Johnny Depp in a major role. He told Entertainment Weekly: "Honestly, there’s an issue at the moment where there’s a lot of people being accused of things, they’re being accused by multiple victims, and it’s compelling and frightening. With Johnny, it seems to me there was one person who took a pop at him and claimed something."
Yes, you did just read that right. David Yates just said that Amber Heard "took a pop" at Johnny Depp —probably the most ill-advised language to use about a domestic violence case ever. In case you've forgotten, Heard's case against Johnny Depp detailed having a cell phone thrown at her face by him, having her face violently grabbed by him, and being hit and screamed at repeatedly by him.
"It’s very different [than cases] where there are multiple accusers over many years that need to be examined," Yates continued, "and we need to reflect on our industry that allows that to roll on year in and year out. Johnny isn’t in that category in any shape or form. So to me, it doesn’t bear any more analysis. It’s a dead issue.”
What Yates is saying, in a roundabout way, is that, unless your abuser has committed violence against multiple people over the course of many years (to people willing to publicly speak out), your right to be believed gets voided. That apparently applies even when there are photos of the physical damage done, as well as witnesses to the violence. Raquel Pennington went on record stating she had seen Depp "swinging a magnum-sized bottle of wine like a baseball bat” the same night as the phone incident is said to have taken place.