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"Romanticizing bad things in fiction" is so overblown as a cause of ill behavior and I'm sick of hearing that stupid argument.
If reading a book or watching a show or movie was enough to influence peoples behavior in any meaningful way, then it would be a lot easier to change peoples minds about a variety of topics. As if people who only read "morally pure" fiction are incapable of committing heinous acts of harm themselves.
The point of fiction is to share stories and to entertain. Can it also be used to expose people to new ideas and expand their thinking? Of course. Art can change minds and it can change the world... but not to the degree pro-censorship people fearmonger about.
When pro-censorship people start complaining about the impact that fictional topics have, what they're really saying is that they think people are too stupid or naive or untrustworthy to look at bad things happening (fictional or otherwise) and realize they are in fact bad. They're committing to the idea that some people (usually women, queer folks, people of color, disabled folks, etc) just have to be shepherded into moral behavior, and can't be permitted to think for themselves or explore other ways of looking at the world than what is deemed to be the correct way.
Gee, I wonder where that line of thinking comes from.
This isn't about protection. It's about upholding a "moral authority" system that we aren't supposed to question — like patriarchy, or heteronormativity, or white supremacy. Censorship is never benevolent
