Amber Heard: Beauty AND Beast?
Amber Heard is clearly a great beauty — or, at least, she used to be, before all that Botox.
I’m not the only one saying this — she, officially, has the most beautiful face in the world, according to science. (And we can definitely trust this article, because, as we know, the Daily Mail is the gold standard of science journalism.)
No one can seriously deny that she used to look absolutely stunning. Even today, she still looks good for her age, and this beauty gives her a unique kind of power.
The Power of Female Weakness and Vulnerability
All women are more likely to receive empathy and support from society than men, simply because they are perceived as weaker, more vulnerable and more child-like than men.
Beauty further amplifies a woman’s intrinsic power stemming from her fragility. Her beauty makes her seem more innocent and even more worthy of being protected from harm in the eyes of society. She is like a delicate porcelain doll — we just want to keep her safe and admire her.
A handsome young man evokes no such reaction in anyone. When a war breaks out, a man who looks like Adonis is considered just as disposable as one who looks like Quasimodo. On the other hand, women are considered to be in the same category as children aboard a sinking ship and under martial law.
Women are able to easily evoke sympathy and compassion in people, just by acting distressed and saying the right things. This is a massive privilege and advantage women have in life, which our culture fails to recognise. The #MeToo movement has blown this uniquely female power way out of proportion, depicting all men as potential predators and all women as perpetual victims.
Proponents of the #MeToo ideology are also ready to sacrifice innocent men. When a man’s life is ruined by false allegations, they see that merely as a small price to pay for keeping all women safe.
Amber Heard may not be a great actress, but her timing is impeccable. Her allegations against Johnny Depp blew up at a time when the media and its brain-dead worshippers were especially receptive and even thirsty for stories like hers. Victimhood became synonymous with virtue, and Amber Heard was the ultimate victim.
Beauty and Virtue
There is a strong link between beauty and virtue in our collective unconscious. The ancient Greeks believed that physical beauty was the sign of a beautiful, pure soul. In the Renaissance, artists equated feminine beauty with modesty and innocence. This trend was also very obvious in the Victorian era, and it is still very much with us today.
This is the reason self-proclaimed #MeToo victims have their own, special dress code. By wearing clothes than signal innocence, these women are attempting to manipulate us into viewing them as reincarnations of the Virgin Mary — the archetype of immaculate feminine virtue.
Feminists who resent beautiful women often claim that our idea of beauty is merely a social construct devised by the patriarchy with the sole aim of oppressing women… But I agree with Camille Paglia, who writes in Sexual Personae:
“Woman’s beauty is a compromise with her dangerous archetypal allure (a-loor). It gives the eye the comforting illusion of intellectual control over nature”, and
“Every time we say nature is beautiful, we are saying a prayer, fingering our worry beads.”
A beautiful woman is like a beautiful garden: she gives us the illusion that we have triumphed over Nature’s terrifying hold over us as a species. By calling something beautiful, we delude ourselves into thinking it is not a threat to us. A beautiful woman, like a beautiful garden, is supposed to be a little piece of Nature that is tamed.
Therefore, man has created beauty in an attempt to comfort himself in the face of Mother Nature’s wrath. She can be a Terrible Mother no one wants to encounter.
I believe this is the reason most people wanted to believe Amber Heard when her allegations against Johnny Depp first came out. Her beauty shone so bright, it blinded most of us. It concealed the dark, destructive forces working beneath it — like a painting of a landscape that omits the predator killing its prey.
The kind of beauty she possesses signals a form of grace and innocence that few can resist. It doesn’t even matter whether her beauty has been surgically enhanced — the impact is the same. Our brains are not difficult to deceive.
Warren Farrell refers to exceptionally attractive women as genetic celebrities who are treated like VIP’s wherever they go, even if no one knows they are. Their beauty alone is enough to elicit preferential treatment.
However, when combined with victimhood, beauty has the potential to turn a woman into an actual celebrity. All she needs to do is find a famous man she can claim to be a victim of. Had Amber Heard just quietly divorced Johnny Depp, without making any allegations against him, we may never have heard about her again. But, through her victim status, her image is now deeply ingrained into the psyches of many millions of people worldwide.
A woman’s victimhood raises her social status; she is thought of as being strong and invincible. A man who claims to be a victim is considered weak by society.
Now that we’re seeing mounting evidence indicating that Amber Heard likely was the aggressor and the abuser in her marriage, a darker image of femininity is taking shape in front of our eyes. How do we reconcile her beauty with her viciousness?
When Beauty Becomes the Beast
This dark image of femininity often appears as the femme fatale archetype in works of art, literature and film, but we rarely encounter it so obviously in real life.
Well, here she is, with her exaggerated, fake emotions, unable to even churn out a tear, no matter how hard she contorts her face. This is her dark, dangerous nature finally manifesting itself in front of our eyes. Weeds are growing in the beautiful garden, transforming it into something more real, and therefore, menacing and scary.
I felt so uncomfortable watching her testimony, and I know I’m not alone. She’s not a good enough actress to convince us she is as virtuous as she claims to be. We can see through her now.
We have heard her exclaim that she merely hit Johnny, and that should be okay, because she is only a woman. And if she wants to fight, she’s entitled to that fight, just as she is entitled to all the gifts in the world.
We have also heard her taunt Johnny about her violence towards him, being spectacularly aware of her power as a woman and that people are so much more likely to believe her.
Is she still beautiful?
I believe she is. And, grotesquely, we have something to thank her for.
Amber Heard has shown us how the dark side of femininity has this immense power to manipulate people into perceiving it as the complete opposite of itself. This dark power of the femme fatale is potent enough to destroy lives. Johnny Depp is not the first man this has happened to, and won’t be the last. He became entangled in her web; she chewed him for a bit, and then spat him out.
However, thanks to Amber Heard, we are now having some very important conversations that we may not have had otherwise… And I can see in my everyday life that people are beginning to develop a more nuanced view of female agency. People are beginning to recognise that the femme fatale is not a sexist trope, as feminists claim, but a compelling representation of a very real and dangerous aspect of feminine power.
Beauty and the Beast can sometimes be the same person.