Introduction to Believability: (Post-)Truth, Belief, Media, and Sexual Violence
The Case of Amber Heard vs. Johnny Depp: Analysis of Believability
The Verdict and Liability: On May 22, 2022, a jury in Virginia found Amber Heard liable for defaming her ex-husband, Johnny Depp.
Evidence vs. Outcome: Despite Heard’s lawyers presenting copious evidence—including photos of injuries, text messages, witness statements, and audio/video recordings—the jury concluded Heard was the one who inflicted harm.
The Defamatory Statements: The harm was legally identified in four short sentences written by Heard (originally in an op-ed), which ironically described her experience during and after the trial: * “I spoke up against sexual violence – and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change.” * “Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out.” * “I had the rare vantage point of seeing, in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse.”
The Media Onslaught: The trial triggered an "astonishing" level of misogynistic abuse on social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Twitch. * Content creators dissected Heard’s evidence for signs of fabrication. * Right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro spent $50,000 in advertisements on his show to proclaim that Heard was deceptive and dishonest.
The Problem of Performance: A juror observed that the issue was not a lack of evidence, but Heard’s failure to perform a convincing version of victimhood. The juror noted: “She would answer one question and be crying and then two seconds later she would turn ice cold… It didn’t seem natural.”
Central Theme: The connective tissue of all memes, tweets, and videos attacking her character, appearance, and promiscuity was that Heard simply was not "believable."
The Evolution and Visibility of #MeToo
Origins: The MeToo movement was founded in 2006 by activist Tarana Burke to help Black women and girls share stories of sexual abuse and trauma.
Viral Iteration (#MeToo): In 2017, the movement gained global visibility following a tweet by Alyssa Milano asking survivors to reply with "me too." This iteration primarily spotlighted sexual abuses in Hollywood against white, cisgender women actors.
Paradigm Shift: The 2017 moment implied a possible redistribution of the "benefit of the doubt" toward those over whom power is wielded, symbolized by the downfall of figures like Harvey Weinstein.
Marginalization in Visibility: While it brought sexual harassment to global attention, it problematically further marginalized vulnerable groups: racialized women, incarcerated women, women in poverty, queer/trans people, and sex workers.
Linguistic Convergence: In 2017, Merriam-Webster named "feminism" Word of the Year, while just one year earlier in 2016, Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year was "post-truth."
Defining the Economy of Believability
The Concept: Believability is defined as a gendered and racialized logic. It is a terrain of political struggle where the capacity to "speak truthfully" is negotiated through subjective resources and performative labor.
Dual Definition of Believability: 1. Subjectivity: The capability of being believed based on who one is. It involves what Donna Haraway calls "situated knowledges" or Judith Butler calls the "contingent"—culturally mediated dynamics positioning the subject. 2. Performance: The quality of being convincing. Performance is not about artifice/deception, but the constructive element that situates subjects in relation to others (e.g., how well a woman performs victimhood in media).
Economic Structure: Like any economy, this involves representations, ideologies, labor, products, resources, and intersecting power hierarchies.
Role of Media: Media culture—especially digital media—is the primary site for negotiating evidence and performing believable subjecthood. It is a space for both possibility and backlash/retrenchment.
The "Crisis" of Post-Truth and Historical Continuity
Historical Novelty vs. Continuity: The "post-truth" crisis is often framed as a new threat to democracy (associated with Donald Trump's 2016 election and "alternative facts"). However, for marginalized groups (women, queer people, people of color), being "outside" the possibility of truthful speech is not new; they have historically been positioned as "doubtful subjects."
Epistemological Pillars: Western concepts of "truth" are built on Enlightenment pillars of "objectivity" and "rationality," which have disproportionately authorized white Western men to circulate their views as fact.
Post-Truth for Whom?: The crisis is a "new-ish" phenomenon only for those in power whose capacity to construct public truths was previously a given.
Rape Culture as Post-Truth: Rape culture acts as an infrastructure where consent is not only lied about but devalued. It creates a sense of permanent "irresolvability" and "endemic doubtfulness" regarding the facticity of sexual violence.
Legal vs. Cultural Contexts of Believability
Legal Discourse Limitations: * The law claims "neutrality" and "formal equality," which often masks power relations based on race, gender, and class. * Feminist legal scholars (e.g., Leigh Gilmore, Deborah Tuerkheimer) critique "credibility" as indexed to power rather than facts. * The Credibility Complex: Vulnerable women face extreme credibility discounting, while high-status men receive massive credibility boosts.
Statistical Reality: * In the US, 1 in 6 women have been victims of attempted or completed rape. * In the UK, 1 in 5 women have been raped or assaulted. * Only 1% of accused rapists in reported cases are arrested.
Decentering the State: The book shifts focus from "credibility" (legal/honesty/facticity) to "believability" (cultural/construction/care) to address the majority of sexual violence instances that never enter the legal system.
The Multiple Registers of Truth and Doubt
Sexual Violence as Multiply Factual: When a person testifies, they engage three registers of belief: 1. Personal Experience/Facticity: E.g., Christine Blasey Ford’s claim that Brett Kavanaugh pushed her into a bedroom. 2. Incident of Harm: The fact of whether the action is morally unacceptable and constitutes violence. 3. Sociopolitical Fact: Whether the incident aligns with "shared facts" of social reality (e.g., Is it believable that a high-achieving man like Kavanaugh would do this?).
The Weight of Doubt: In law, doubt is a standard for defense attorneys to instill. In a mediated economy, it is a "benefit for the powerful and a burden for the oppressed."
Core Framework: The Conjuncture
Thinking Conjuncturally: Following Stuart Hall, the authors view the current moment as a contingent social crisis where economic, cultural, and political forces intersect.
Three Critical Elements: 1. The "crisis" of post-truth. 2. The historical construction of "doubtful subjects." 3. A mediated economy of believability reconfigured by popular feminism.
Popular Feminism vs. Popular Misogyny: Popular feminism often begins and ends with visibility. Popular misogyny acts as a "funhouse mirror," distorting feminist practices for misogynistic ends.
Summary of Book Chapters and Themes
Chapter 1: #MeToo Media: Analyzes television, film, and social media campaigns as representations of "believability labor"—the work marginalized subjects must do to be recognized as truthful.
Chapter 2: The Market for Believability: Investigates anti-sexual violence products (apps, wearable tech) that commodify women's fear. These tools position the lack of belief as a technological problem rather than a political one, reinforcing the idea that a woman’s word alone is insufficient.
Chapter 3: Digitization of Doubt: Explores high-profile cases (Larry Nassar, Christian Porter, Heard/Depp) to see how digital media allows doubt to flow differently and how "mob justice" is used as a rhetorical backlash against survivors.
Chapter 4: Conditional Believability: Examines how believability is affected by wealth, fame, and race. Discusses the weaponization of victimhood by white men (e.g., Brock Turner, Brett Kavanaugh) and white women (e.g., "Central Park Karen" Amy Cooper) against people of color (e.g., R. Kelly).