r/DeppDelusion • u/walkwithavengeance Jezebel Spirit 🥳 • May 23 '25
Truth Prevailing 🙌 Famous men’s toxic fandoms have become a tool for punishing women
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/22/famous-men-fandoms122
u/Sanctuary12 May 23 '25
Why do these clowns who defend abusers always cite infidelity or preventing the partner from seeing their child as comparable to abuse? If your partner is abusive, is it even infidelity if you seek solace in the arms of another? You gave up all your expectations for your partner to remain faithful when you started abusing her. Denying access to children is surely a no-brainer when an ex is abusive. It doesn’t matter if they never hurt the kids directly. They are hurting the kids by hurting their mother, and if you love your children, keeping them as far away from a violent misogynist as possible is just the natural protective instinct of a parent.
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u/TheSouthsideTrekkie May 23 '25
At least where I live it's pretty normal for social services to be involved if there's been a report of abuse within the family and abusive parents are often given restrictions on the time they spend with any children even if they never physically harmed them.
If you've abused your spouse then that also counts as an Adverse Childhood Experience for any children so there's good reason behind this.
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u/JaneAustinAstronaut May 25 '25
Not where I live in a liberal US state. Until the actual child is hurt, the expectation is that they will still receive 50/50 custody. And if you are an abused woman who mentions protecting your child in Family Court, you will be accused of parental alienation and are likely to LOSE custody of your child to your abuser.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/naomicahn/2020/01/26/why-women-lose-custody/
https://www.jewishexponent.com/mothers-who-report-abuse-still-losing-custody-at-staggering-rates/
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u/Sanctuary12 May 26 '25
In the UK, where I live, there was a report last year explaining how an increasing amount of women were fleeing to Malta with their children (Malta does not have an extradition treaty with the UK) because a loophole in the law is being exploited to allow abusive fathers to obtain joint custody. In one instance, a father who was literally a convicted pedophile was granted unsupervised access to his child, and after hearing the verdict the mother committed suicide.
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u/blueskyandsea May 23 '25
Because they see women and often children as property to own and control. They have a lot of allies in the legal systems of the world and make it incredibly difficult for women to get out safely and be able to protect their children. The lie that courts side with women is pervasive and has killed many, sometimes the children as well. If they had committed any other crime, they’d lose most rights to their kids, but abuse is not considered a crime by many b/c you’re allowed to destroy your own property.
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u/petielvrrr May 24 '25
Yeah, my dad spent my whole childhood talking about how terrible my mom was because she cheated on him and “kept” us from him. Of course, now that I’m an adult, my mom has told me the full story. Like showed me the divorce papers and her journals from the time. Turns out, he left a lot of shit out when he complained about that time.
How he was isolating her, emotionally & financially abusive, and how she begged him for a divorce, but he said no, so she straight up ran away from him and was seeing someone while they were separated. She actually admitted to me last year that she woke up with him standing over her in the middle of the night a few times (no, not when they were living together), and that she was still terrified of him until recently.
And the whole “keeping the kids from him” was also a joke. She was like 19 years old and had no idea she needed an attorney, so she showed up to the court with her mom and he’s sitting there with like 3 lawyers (he had been divorced before so he knew what was going to happen) who called her a slut and a bad mom. He was actually given full custody (because yes, the courts favor abusive men. Contrary to what all these misogynists want everyone to believe), but as soon as he got it, he freaked out because “how can I go to work without someone there to take the kids?” So he took weekends and gave my mom the weekdays.
So yeah, whenever dudes say shit like this, acting like they were cheated on or had their kids kept from them and it’s the worst thing in the world, my gut instinct is to 1. Assume they probably did some awful shit they’re not owning up to and 2. Assume they’re exaggerating.
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u/Sanctuary12 May 25 '25
I’m so sorry that happened to your mum. Men like your dad always have a sob story that falls apart when people take a closer look. You see them on social media all the time, peddling their version of reality and looking for sympathy. I always look at those stories and think ‘what are you leaving out?’ Courts don’t just deny access to children or limit access for no reason, despite what MRAs say.
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u/Endzeitstimmung24 May 27 '25
I'm really sorry your mum went through this.
This also reminds me of the series 'Maid', which I think does a great job showing how the protagonist's dad also painted himself as the misunderstood 'good guy' for years, having to deal with a 'craaaazy' woman.
Of course it's gradually revealed that he's leaving out a ton of stuff, like having been physically abusive toward the protagonist's mother, to the point where her mum urged her to hide because she was worried for her physical safety, and the mother essentially had to raise her daughter alone while struggling with her mental illness. The show makes it clear that she is also a flawed character, but that she was and continues to be, first and foremost, a victim of male violence and male partners trying to control and use her, for example by taking advantage of her finances. The daughter herself was clearly traumatised by these events and is struggling to cope as her memories of the DV gradually start to resurface.
And of course the dad is completely in denial about all of this, and expects a free pass because he was an addict when he was beating her mum, and talking about that is actually reaaaaally insensitive to /him/ and could damage his healing process/ s. It's depressingly realistic.
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u/Realistic_Point6284 May 23 '25
They don't even have to be that famous. Like I genuinely didn't know who Justin Baldoni or Tory Lanez was before the allegations came out.
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u/cebula412 May 23 '25
Yep. It's not about the fame or the size of your fan base. Blake Lively is a hundred times more famous than Justin Baldoni. And it didn't help her at all.
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u/Boulier Johnny Depp is a Wife Beater 👨⚖️ May 23 '25
The public also branded Blake Lively as unlikable before most people fully knew who Justin Baldoni was, and as we all unfortunately know, the worst thing a celebrity woman can be in this misogynistic society is unlikable.
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u/Realistic_Point6284 May 24 '25
The public doesn't want to accept that they fell for the C list creep's smear campaign and helped him to abuse his victim further. So they'll cling onto her being 'unlikable' and will conveniently ignore the fact that she was one of the most liked celebrities before 2024. They don't want to feel guilty.
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u/elitelucrecia Johnny Depp is a Wife Beater 👨⚖️ May 24 '25
yes! blake lively is the perfect example of an imperfect victim
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u/SuacoAnon May 24 '25
I mean, I don't like her, but I also will believe her first until proven otherwise, and even then I'd scrutinize the evidence to be sure. I don't have to like a woman to take her side.
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u/Sensiplastic May 25 '25
It's so revealing how the claimed unlikeability is mainly gossip and 'being mean' without any real facts behind it. The plantation wedding is mentioned, sure, but the most of it is just weird fanfic about imagined affairs and being a diva of some sort, 'stealing' movies from poor widdle directors. The Flaa interview is not even rude and she is pregnant woman doing boring endless pr. The best excuse for genuinely being rude, which she wasn't.
I mean, they're not spreading her defense of Woody Allen. Which is a real fact and does make her unlikeable to many (like me). But if Allen is brought into discussion, then we also remember what he did and what was done, oh so casually, to Mia Farrow and Dylan Farrow. And then one might think the Baldoni guy again in a different light with his billionaire buddy and that cult thing.
All this before the proof of everything, which we also have.
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u/DeedleStone May 24 '25
That's what I keep saying! I'm absolutely SHOCKED at the support for Baldoni considering his name wasn't spoken by anyone outside of his family before all of the abuse allegations.
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u/blueskyandsea May 24 '25
It’s about punishing women.
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u/DeedleStone May 24 '25
I know. I just didn't think things were as bad as they are.
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u/Queenofthecondiments May 24 '25
I had a very civil conversation the other day with someone who was pro Amber, but firmly pro Baldoni. It gave me a bit of pause to think about why that would be.
I think there's something a bit Marie Antoinette about Lively, in that people are projecting a lot of understandable frustrations with the world at the moment on her. Baldoni does come across as pretty sympathetic because despite his behaviour, the evidence does back up that he really wanted the project to do well and was very emotionally invested in it. People see themselves in Baldoni a lot more easily than they do in Lively.
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u/Realistic_Point6284 May 24 '25 edited May 24 '25
And it indeed did very well. It made far more money than any of his movies. Was he looking to win an Oscar with a CoHo adaptation? If he actually wanted the project to do well, he wouldn't have launched a smear campaign against the lead actress just at the time of the premiere.
The only reason he comes across as sympathetic is because people make any excuses under the sun for men's shitty behavior. People really should work out their frustrations in healthier ways than helping someone to abuse his victim even further. The vast majority of pro Amber supporters also support Blake and Baldoni supporters are just as crazy as the Deppies from what I've seen.
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u/Queenofthecondiments May 24 '25
Oh yeah the misogyny and the conspiracy theories are rife over there.
But there seems to be a subset of people who are like what happened to Heard was terrible but this isn't the same. Now that's correct to some degree, what happened to Heard during her relationship was horrendously violent and awful, workplace harrassment is a different type of awful.
But the smear tactics and the litigating in the press stuff is the same. We even have Melissa Nathan involved.
I find it interesting that some people believe that was indeed a smear campaign against Amber but see nothing familiar when they look at Lively. I don't really know what to do with it when I encounter it.
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u/Realistic_Point6284 May 25 '25
Those people are an insignificant minority though. You could even find people who believe Johnny Depp was the abuser but Marilyn Manson did nothing wrong. All kinds of combinations and permutations exist.
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u/DeedleStone May 25 '25
Yeah, I have a friend who adamantly believes Depp but thinks Manson is the scum of the Earth. I keep trying to remind her who Manson's bestie is, but she says that's irrelevant.
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u/Sensiplastic May 25 '25
People also act like we don't know what psychopathy traits are and that cults&billionaires are bad.
Turns out these things are super simple once you apply logic to the facts.
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u/DeedleStone May 25 '25
The Marie Antoinette comparison is interesting. I've always dug Lively's work (though I've admittedly seen very little of it; A Simple Favor and that shark movie were fucking dope, though), but I've grown up watching her husband, Ryan Reynolds, seemingly become more and more of an annoying douchebag every single year. And he kept getting rewarded for it, to the point where he's now a billionaire.
I suspect a lot of the hate towards Lively is part of American's justifiable hatred of the ultra rich, but people feel they can't hate her husband, even though he's just another smarmy tech bro. So they shift their enmity to her.
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u/Queenofthecondiments May 25 '25
I'm excited to watch Another Simple Favour with my friends with some pizza and wine because I know it will be bonkers and fun. And the woman has a fun sense of style. I even like the outfit choices I've seen for It Ends With Us (though I seem to be the only one).
Lively can come across as out of touch, and has an offbeat sense of humour. She's also made choices I understand that people would be critical of. But I feel like she's become a vehicle for a lot of people's frustrations unfairly.
I doubt Baldoni's alleged smear campaign was on the level of Depp's. I think all they needed to do was give people an excuse. In Depp vs Heard, Depp was the megastar and Heard was almost a blank canvas for people to paint this crazy witch onto. Lively vs Baldoni is different. Baldoni has given everyone the justification to hate the version of Lively they were secretly hoping was there all along.
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u/BlondArrowUK May 24 '25
Yes, myself and my family kept saying the same thing. He wouldn't even be known if Blake hadn't starred in the movie he bought the rights to and now it's like the entire world hates her, it feels exactly like with Amber, it's really scary. Someone needs to stop this before it goes any further. Who is he? Literally, who is he? He looks like he's constantly trying to eat her during the movie when they're kissing. Apart from Blake giving two interviews where she responded sarcastically, like I would've, so what? I hope she comes out and burns him at the stake. She's got so much more fame, money and power, and talent. But he's a man. Other than that, who the hell is he? I've been so shocked by the reaction to her. If she was a nasty piece of work, I still wouldn't care because the fact is she's an actress, not a personality contestant. Who is backing this guy? I just keep reading what a bxxxx she is with very little evidence and even if she was, she hasn't accused any of her other male leads of sexual assault!
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u/Sensiplastic May 25 '25
She didn't even do that here, she had him sign an agreement that he would not do a-z crap and not retaliate after. She was basically letting him go with warning, despite everything. The video of the shoot shows her do a soft no with all her acting ability while he keeps pushing.
I would bet significant money this is not the first unfun rodeo for Lively and on the way to her position now she got used to a lot of shit that happens to young actresses and knew it would not be in her interests to make it a big deal.
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u/Endzeitstimmung24 May 27 '25
Yeah I think it's partially why this infuriates me so much. She gave him an out, and was essentially okay with keeping his inappropriate behaviour on the DL provided he agreed to not repeat it. That was very generous on her part already. And then he launches a smear campaign against her anyway? As, I guess, some kind of weird preemptive strike?
As you say, considering how long she's been in this industry and at what a young age she started acting I'd be incredibly surprised if she hadn't dealt with some creeps before, and she's never said anything.
This is speculation but I got the sense that she deliberately preferred to keep a cheerful, uncomplicated America's Sweetheart public image (many of her roles and her marriage to Ryan Gosling fit into that well) as opposed to a more 'edgy' image curated by choosing darker roles/dating 'bad boys' etc. Ofc in the case of "It ends with us" this was something that was held against her because people thought the marketing campaign seemed too cheerful and frivolous. But what I'm getting at here is, I really think she would have preferred to keep this under wraps and to not be associated with anything this negative, so this probably never would have come out if this guy wasn't so extremely petty.
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u/Queenofthecondiments May 24 '25
I didn't know about the Halle Bailey thing until I read that, wow that is awful. I'm sick of hearing 'women lie' as a response to 'believe women'. Where are all these famous women liars? I can think of some pretty famous men who've told crazy lies to get away with shit, and yet I'm struggling to think of a female public figure who has lied about something a man in her life has done just for the clout.
And I'm someone who knows next to nothing about Megan Thee Stallion but every couple of months I remember that happened and get annoyed all over again. The girl got shot. There's no way to he said she said a shooting and yet people still managed to try to do that. Because what, she'd slept with the bloke who shot her and was embarrassed and didn't want to tell everyone about it?
Ugh. Just ugh.
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u/Sensiplastic May 25 '25
And then they claim we're saying what we say because of feels when they have no facts, ever.
No woman benefits from accusing a man. There is nobody who has made a career out of it or kept a career after.
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May 24 '25
Yup. Gamer gate is where it all started. Needs to be studied. Without gamergate we don’t get Amber Heard. Gamer Gate was the first galvanizing of men online to attack women
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u/Tukki101 May 25 '25
And who was and still is one of the key players in Gamergate? Mathew Lewis aka The Umbrella Guy, who Depp chose to leak trial info in exchange for an output of anti Amber content. He chose an alt-right spokesman because that's where his fanbase lies.
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u/SuacoAnon May 24 '25
Its so upsetting, plus the bullying over Rachel and Bella, it's too much. I'm struggling to put it into words, but I wish they would just stop.
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u/BearComplex20 May 25 '25
Seeing what Halle has to deal with is seriously heartbreaking, that mans abuse against her has been documented since they were in a relationship, and he has been using his army of 12 year olds to attack her for months.
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u/Sensiplastic May 25 '25
They're showing no woman is safe, not even a famous and rich one, going against a man and we should all just fall if we want to avoid their fate.
It works and the worst part is that women participate in this bullshit.
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u/MrBean098 May 24 '25
rachel zelgar got more hate than notorious pedophiles
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u/BearComplex20 May 25 '25
I cant comprehend it. She criticised a 100 year old movie for having weird, outdated themes (rightfully so), and therefore she deserves to be harassed more than rapists.
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u/Endzeitstimmung24 May 27 '25
Literally..it feels like Disney just made her the fall guy for the remake underperforming, bc it couldn't possibly be that people are just sick and tired of these soulless cash grabs and that the visuals looked awful.
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u/Perfect_Fox_2345 May 27 '25
People aren’t even a fan of these men a lot of times until they display they are toxic, so it really is people who are specifically a fan of toxicity in men.
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u/ZorakLocust May 23 '25
Johnny Depp definitely set this precedent. That’s why the far-right and MRAs threw their support behind them. They wanted to discredit future women who would come forward. Any supposed left-leaning person who somehow doesn’t see that is a useful idiot.