The freshly released Joker has created a huge amount of excitement amongst film and comic book fans. But it has also created a great deal of controversy and concerns over real world safety, spurring claims that the film is a tactless glorification of violence. This has led to veiled suggestions and overt demands that similar movies shouldn’t be made in the first place.

Not only is this an authoritarian impulse that no liberal-minded person should indulge; it is also ultimately a futile knee-jerk reaction in an attempt to regain the illusion of having control over chaos.

Much of the anxiety over the film starring Joaquin Phoenix relates to an incident that occurred in 2012. During a screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora Colorado, a gunman shot dead 12 people and injured 70 others. It was reported, though later debunked, that this individual declared himself to be the Joker and was inspired by the late Heath Ledger’s portrayal of Joker in The Dark Knight.

A number of prominent media outlets have drawn connections between this incident, as well as the general character of the DC villain, and the Joker movie, stoking fears of more potential mass shootings. US authorities took this supposed link seriously and numerous police departments put their staff on high alert over the opening weekend. The New York Police Department even stated it would be sending plain-clothes police officers to screenings of the movie across cinemas in the city.

While some of this concern is understandable, to place real-world tragedy at the feet of a piece of entertainment is misguided and unhelpful. Acknowledging the dark side of human nature is not on par to condoning it or encouraging it. Moreover, it can equally be argued that films and art with unsettling themes can provoke people to reflect on serious issues or at the very least be grateful for the wholesome things in their lives. Grim fiction done with maturity and thoughtfulness can be very constructive.

Having said this, it’s undeniable that this movie’s villainous protagonist will attract a cult following of disgruntled malcontents. The same trend happened with Heath Ledger’s Joker as well as other counter-culture characters such as Tyler Durden from Fight Club and Alex from A Clockwork Orange. However, that doesn’t mean that that dark films with sinister protagonists should be blamed for acts of violence.

The majority of the previously cited malcontents will keep their misanthropy confined to online messages forums and never pose an actual physical threat to others. And regardless of what censorship barriers are set up, resentful marginalised individuals will find negative role models to idealise.

Even if they somehow couldn’t find one exemplar in modern entertainment, literature or even ancient myths, many would create one in their own minds. It’s well documented that the psychologically unstable individuals with narcissistic tendencies often retreat within themselves, creating delusional self-aggrandising narratives. This is something no amount of legislation or regulation can control.

What’s more, claims of art being socially harmful, aside from being dubious at best, are quickly followed by demands for censorship. This draconian tendency is enough in itself to warrant alarm but what’s arguably more important is the fact that attempts to censor content almost always have exactly the opposite effect.

Forbidding something gives it a mystic, especially if it is deemed harmful by those perceived to be prudish busybodies, and ultimately defeats the intended purpose. Censorship will not stop violent people from being violent, and ironically would end up becoming indirect marketing for the banned product.

While many detractors have sincere concerns over the potential wider consequences of entertainment, for others it’s simply an opportunity to revel in self-righteous indignation and scold the less “cultured.” Moreover, some commentators have an almost pathological need to make everything about politics or a wider social issue, resulting in entertainment being reduced to a political Rorschach test.

A film about a comic book villain can’t be appreciated on its own merits but instead has to be artificially shoehorned into some kind of ideological narrative. And if said movie doesn’t serve a desired purpose (i.e. doesn’t say what they want it to say) then it’s vacuous, or worse, irresponsible. Hence, we see claims that Joker is somehow adverting firebrand populism or represents the rage of alienated white-male America.

Another more cynical component of this backlash is that large segments of the media deliberately foster pseudo-outrage, with headlines along the lines of “X is furious/terrified/distraught over Y because reasons.” In short, moral panics grab people’s attention, and that attention brings revenue. A warped business model of exaggerating problems or outright manufacturing crises inevitably follows.

A perfect example of this was the hysteria that arose from violent video games and their supposed negative influence on young people, creating endless hours of vapid examination for countless news networks. Sadly, this fearmongering can be self-fulfilling: if someone with malevolent intent sees something condemned or vilified by mainstream society, they will be drawn to it and embrace it as an act of rebellion.

Joker isn’t simply a comic-book movie. This is a far departure from the action-packed Avengers films or even the grittier Dark Knight trilogy. This is a character study into a severely disturbed, lonely man who gradually turns into a monster. Reviewers have compared it to the famous film Taxi Driver, which depicts an angry, isolated Vietnam veteran played by Robert DeNiro who becomes increasingly detached from reality and eventually descends into vigilante violence (DeNiro even has a role in Joker).

Taxi Driver came out in the 1976, a time when crime rates and incidences of domestic terrorism were gradually increasing to the infamous crime wave of the 80s and 90s. Yet it’s fair to say that there probably wasn’t the same level of moral scrutiny towards this film when it was released compared with Joker.

In fact, it was (and still is) widely praised as a masterpiece, and went on to receive numerous awards as well as being dubbed one of the best films ever produced. The United States is presently much safer than it was only a few decades ago, yet fear of violence appears to be increasing. What has changed?

Perhaps because there was so much actual violence in America at that time, most people weren’t anxious about what was depicted in cinema; they were worried about what was happening outside the cinema. With this in mind, we should maybe be thankful over the progress we’ve made since then rather than becoming histrionic over fictional portrayals of mayhem.