Support Of Amber Heard Alongside French Feminists & Cinema Figures (Melanie Goodfellow, Deadline, June 05 2023)
"Nobel Prize-winning writer Annie Ernaux has signed an open letter in support of Amber Heard, decrying “the vilification” and “ongoing online harassment” of the actress.
Ernaux won the Nobel Prize in Literature in October 2022 for her work charting the lives of women in France from the 1960s onwards, including abortion drama Happening, which formed the basis for Audrey Diwan’s 2021 Venice Golden Lion winner of the same name.
She is among a group of 68 French feminists and cultural figures to have signed the online letter in an initiative coinciding with the first anniversary of the actress’s defeat last June in a highly-mediatized defamation trial brought by ex-husband Johnny Depp. (…)
The letter does not question the verdict but rather voices concern over the “vilification” and “ongoing online harassment’ of the actress; the way in which the trial became a media circus and the implications of how she was treated for other women and vulnerable parts of society.
“Much of this harassment was fueled by disinformation, misogyny, biphobia, and a monetized social media environment where a woman’s allegations of domestic violence and sexual assault were mocked for entertainment,” reads the letter.
“The same disinformation and victim-blaming tropes are now being used against others who have alleged abuse,” it continues."
