Depp, Heard, And "Narcissism"

Let's start with that strange word. I don't believe it was commnon in the language before the 1980s. and certainly by the time I reached aduldhood in the late 1960s, more Freudian terms like "neurotic" were in use. I don't recall the word appearing in Jules Feiffer cartoons of that time, for instance, and his characters were typically riddled with uncertainty and self-doubt (or should have been), anything but the conventional image of a "narcissist". On the other hand, narcissists are at least identifiable in modern literature, maybe most recognizably as Wickham in Pride and Prejudice. though Austen doesn't use the term, which didn't exist.

On the other hand, if you search YouTube for "narcissists" now, it's certainly possible to conclude "narcissists" are the dominant problem of our time. Typical subjects are "Understanding the Narcissist: Wny Do They Treat You This Way?"; "10 Signs You're Dating A Narcissist"; "How do you Get Beyond the Hurt a Narcissist Inflicts?"; and "8 Questions a Narcissist Simply Cannot Answer". But there's also "Everything you Need to Know About the 7 Types of Narcissists", because there are indeed grandiose ones, vulnerable ones, covert ones, antagonistic ones, communal ones, oblivious ones, and more -- lists of seven actually differ widely.

Our Roman Catholic pastor occasionally refers to an "epidemic of narcissism", but that implies a certain medical quality to the term, which isn't all that precise. The demotic term "narcissist" covers a range of intensely self-absorbed behavior that includes dishonesty, manipulation, hidden agendas, and betrayal, often accompanied by grandiose projection. But a problem arises when using the term connotes a medical or scientific sense of precision. Let's face it, if you call someone a "narcissist", you haven't actually accomplished anything, but you think you have.

But this brings me to the puzzle of the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial. Vox sums up the conundrum:

This is a murky, perplexing trial. While it’s technically a defamation trial over a newspaper article — with Depp suing Heard — at its center is one big conflict. Amber Heard says Johnny Depp abused her. Depp says Heard abused him. So what’s the truth?

Strikingly for our post-Me Too world, it looks as though the loudest voices on the internet have overwhelmingly sided with Depp. While there’s compelling evidence that there was violence on both sides of this marriage, it’s not quite so clear that the evidence supports Depp’s story, or that he has much of a shot at winning this case.

So it's a trial in a court of law, which is prohibitively expensive, even for faded Hollywood celebrities. Depp is the plaintiff, and he's suing Heard for $50 million, which Heard doesn't have and never will. He's spending multimillions of his own on a case that he could well lose. Why is he doing this? For that matter, Heard could likely have headed this off years ago at minimal cost, at least in dollars, though retractions and apologies don't seem to be in her nature.

And neither Depp nor Heard is an attractive public person. What puzzles trial observers is that the whole narrative is a he said-she said covering useless lives wasted in a sink of depravity -- but somehow, one of the protagonists, Depp, has overwhelmingly achieved public support. This may well be what Depp intended with his investment in the trial, but in some ways it's as big an upset as Ukraine's victories against the Russians, or maybe Trump's defeat of Clinton in 2016, or maybe even Rich Strike's 80-1 win at the Kentucky Derby.

Here's what I think is going on. Both Depp and Heard are actors, acutely conscious of their public personas. Their presentations of themselves in the trial, not just to the judge and jury but to a national TV audience, are carefully managed -- Heard, for instance, maintains a minimalist, understated, WASPY, upscale, ice princess image, utterly controlled and tightly held together, buttoned up to the chin -- except when it suits her to get weepy and hysterical, which it always does. The public knows a narcissist when it sees one.

Depp is a stranger case. His long hair is pulled tightly back in a severe pony tail. Not only is he in a suit, but it's a three-piece suit with a display handkerchief matched to his tie, which isn't normal courtroom attire -- attorneys don't wear vests, and their suits are often loose and rumpled so they can wave their arms and ruffle through papers. But the sleeves of Depp's suit can't conceal the tattoos on his hands and fingers. Like the pony tail, they're always peeping out. But Depp's facial expressions are masterful. He normally conveys a furrowed gravity, but now and then, in reponse to one or another gaffe by Heard or one of her witnesses, he glances at his counsel with a genteel chuckle.

The odd combination of Depp's image, controlled and respectful of the forum even if the tattoos and pony tail peek out, against his prior reputation as an out-of-control hellion, reinforces the narrative he and his attorneys are telling, a changed man who doesn't deny the sins of his youth and earlier adulthood, but who now insists that Heard's allegations are over the top and false.

This is a problem for Heard, because even the teary testimony she gives is a tacit acknowledgement that she was in some way a willing participant in those years of depravity, despite the buttoned-up image she now tries to convey. The overwhelming impression is that she's a phony and a liar, everyone's nightmare of an ex they've all had at some point in their lives.

In contrast, the impression Depp puts out is that he isn't pretending to be other than what he is. In fact, his courtroom demeanor is something like an example of Samuel Johnson's dictum that a man's duty is to bear and to forbear -- and indeed, that applies even in the midst of testimony about him, addled with drugs, writing on the walls with blood from his own severed fingertip.

On one hand, it's an indication, with figures like Zelensky, that a certain type of manliness is in style this year, and maybe it's not a coincidence that this is in the wake of the 2020 COVID-and-BLM moral panic. And just maybe it'sd also not coincidental that narcissists and phonies, at least this year, are overwhelmingly out of style.

It doesn't hurt Depp that win or lose in the courtroom, the current public mood could support a resuscitation of his career, which I think is the basis for what could be a shrewd investment.