Joaquin Phoenix's The Joker comes out this weekend, and as most of us know, it's sparked a great deal of controversy. This is partly due to the fact that in 2012, a shooter killed 12 people in Aurora, Colorado during a showing of The Dark Knight Rises—and was allegedly inspired by the Joker, though this story may be a myth. While no reports of violence at any of the new film's showings have surfaced, the U.S. military has issued warnings to servicemembers about the possibility of an attack, and this all has sparked a massive conversation about censorship, the incel community, and what causes people to resort to violence.

As strange and disturbing as some of these incidents are, compared to the number of murders that have occurred and the number of horror movies that have been released, it's actually relatively rare for an act of violence to be spurred on by a work of fiction. And actually, blaming films and media for real-life violence ignores the factors that really cause people to resort to violence, such as misogyny, untreated mental illness, and easy access to firearms.

So, we can keep on enjoying our horror movies in peace, knowing that typically it's real life that inspires horror films, and not the other way around.