“A public orgy of misogyny”: gender, power, media, and legal spectacle in Depp v Heard

Abstract

Possibly no other media event has given rise to the widespread ridiculing of domestic violence as the livestreaming of Johnny Depp’s defamation action against his former wife Amber Heard. This article analyses the social media commentary surrounding a Tik Tok released by the Milani cosmetic company, which used the attacks on Heard as an advertising opportunity. The paper contextualises Milani’s intervention in the case within the wider social media commentary targeting Heard’s makeup and appearance and maps its aftermath in the emergence of a cross-platform hashtag #BruiseKit that generated a series of viral posts and videos featuring young women painting fake bruises on their faces. It concludes that the largescale diffusion of reactionary gender ideologies evidenced in the media data was partly shaped by commercial interests and platform incentives, but not—for the most part—driven by formal political actors. Rather, misogyny was commodified. It was produced and consumed as a form of entertainment.