Last week we saw a few sites running a story about a sexism complaint made against Twitch .

By itself it was slightly interesting but not substantial enough for our purposes but is now joined by a Change.org petition to have actress Amber Heard removed by Warner Bros. from the Aquaman 2 film, which has received over 2.5 million signatures.

In both cases, the fundamental point is fair - everyone should be treated equally.

Twitch responded to the complaint - that it is possible to create content titled "I hate men" but not "I hate women" by blaming machine learning algorithms.

Uhuh. Sure.

Though they also corrected the problem - both genders are now equally protected in this regard on Twitch.

Great.

The Amber Heard petition is a bigger can of worms.

She has been accused by Johnny Depp of domestic violence.

It's routine to see male celebrities fired on these grounds.

Indeed the same studio, Warner Bros., asked Depp to resign from Fantastic Beasts because of the same accusations levelled by her against him.

We don't have time or sufficient personal interest to dive into the testimony ourselves but it seems like even those critical of Depp and the amount of social media support for him concede that she may have perpetrated some domestic violence.

If there is any evidence of abuse by Amber and Warner Bros. don't fire her, do they become vulnerable to litigation for sexual discrimination?

Or if they do fire her, will we begin to see female celebrities subjected to the same standards of termination?

Last year speaking with Deadline, Aquaman producer Peter Safran responded to an earlier effort to have Amber removed:

I don’t think we’re ever going to react to, honestly, pure fan pressure.

Likely this petition would be regarded as "pure fan pressure" but evidence which might come to light in the courtroom wouldn't.

We're not especially interested in this case but are curious to see how Warner Bros. respond.

Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom is due to release in cinemas in March next year.

[ Main Image: Amber Heard in Aquaman. Credit: Warner Bros. via IMDb.com. ]

References

Change.org. Remove Amber Heard from Aquaman 2. (viewed April 30, 2022)

D'Alessandro, A & Patten, D. (July 29, 2021). Johnny Depp Fans’ Efforts To Have Amber Heard Axed From ‘Aquaman 2’ Carried No Water, Says Producer. Deadline.

Dastagir, Alia E (April 29, 2022). Amber Heard has yet to take the stand. But on social media, Johnny Depp has already won. USA Today.

Dick, Jeremy (April 28, 2022). Amber Heard Petition for Aquaman 2 Removal Surpasses 2 Million Signatures. MovieWeb.com.

Gwilliam, Michael (April 21, 2022). Twitch accused of double standards for allowing sexist stream titles against men. Dexerto.com.

Vary, Adam B. (November 9, 2020). Johnny Depp: Why Warner Bros. Finally Cut Ties With the ‘Fantastic Beasts’ Star. Variety.